Youth Music - BongoClub.org.uk

Interview with Nancy Evans, author of Tuning Into Children

Tuning Into Children is a new Training Framework written for Youth Music for their Cluster Programme.  Its purpose is to support musicians, music organisations and early years settings working together to provide quality music experiences for very young children.  In particular, there was a focus on musicians from orchestras working in early years settings.  The programme was piloted last year by the London Symphony Orchestra and is in the process of being rolled out across the country.

When starting the Training Framework I felt a contradiction and tension between being asked to do something that was to act as guiding document nationally, and my deeply held belief that projects work best when planned within the local context and using local skills.  There is much diversity in the world of early years music.  Without the opportunity for networking, and without clear pathways of training, individual musicians and music organisations working in this area have often evolved very individual approaches, mine being only one of them.  I have always thought that this diversity was healthy to a continually evolving area and I did not want to shut this down by being prescriptive. 

Music activity that I have observed in early years settings is varied too, both in quality and in content.  Though there is some very good music practice in nurseries, the problems I observed were a lack of practitioner confidence (often based on their own negative musical experiences), free flow music play that was not valued, responded to or extended and adult-led group music that was often not musical.  At the same time, I watched the wonderful relationships the practitioners had with the children and what excellent play partners they were to the children.  One thing that was nearly always missing was the opportunity for children to hear live music performed by fantastic musicians.

The roots of how I decided to approach the framework began some time ago when I used to deliver one-off music workshops to nurseries in Birmingham.  I would rush in, hopefully be given a cup of tea and if very lucky have a few minutes to discuss with staff what I was doing that morning.  I would then deliver 30-45 minute sessions to four groups of fifteen 3-4 year olds.  At the end of the morning would rush of to another nursery.  As you can imagine, after a while this was not very satisfying and left me with lingering questions was what I was doing appropriate to the age group?  Why did that child react in that way?  Was what I was doing more about conformity and control than creativity and expression?  Would the staff take something from the session that they could use themselves?  What did music children made freely sound like?

Finally, I had the opportunity to be part of a much longer-term project (How to Catch a Moonbeam and Pin it Down) which had a profound effect on how I decided to write the Training Framework.  From its outset, the project built in the idea of two-way learning between the early years practitioner and the musician, mutual respect for each other areas of knowledge and an understanding that by bringing these things together we would be able to work more effectively with the children.  Though sometimes difficult, we were asked to document and reflect on what we observed the children doing musically through photos, videos and written notes.  Through this reflection, I started to appreciate and value the different perspectives of the practitioners I was working with.  They saw different things from me, give value to things I hadn't considered important and put our observations into the context of the children's family and community and other learning. 

Documenting also enabled me and the practitioners I was working with to understand better the music children made freely and to evaluate the ways we could support this more effectively as musical play partners and in creating the right environment for this to happen.  As well as learning from each other, we were asked to learn from the children, something that to me had felt previously impossible in the whirl of one workshop after another.  I was particular  interested in children's musical creativity, inspired by Susan Young's research and as someone who works regularly with composers as part of my job as Education Manager for Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.  In the framework, I chose to highlight this area of work as I felt it was less well known or practised and would act as a counter balance to the dominant practice of adult led group music-making.

The project also allowed us time to tune into the setting, to understand the rhythms of the day, to build relationships and understand the different purposes of the setting (this was particularly important when working in settings where the parents as well as the children were the focus of sessions). At the time it seemed a luxury and that it was taking away valuable music-making time but as time has gone on I've experienced how important this time is, certainly never wasted, and the times I haven't been able to do this I always regretted it and felt the project would have worked better had we taken that time.

So where do the orchestral musicians fit into this?  As I said before the experience of live music up close is a very rare one for many young children and this alone can be incredibly powerful and inspiring.  However, continuity and regular visits by musicians is an important factor in the success of projects and this can be at odds with the busy and complicated schedules of orchestral musicians.  Working with very young children is skilled work just as playing an instrument to a very high standard is.  The model I have suggested is that there is an early years music practitioner who can provide continuity with the orchestral musicians being brought in sensitively into this ongoing work.  Some orchestral musicians will chose to take this further and others will be content with just using their extensive performing skills.  Even the performance element needs thinking about carefully to make it appropriate to the multiple ways children respond to and learn about music.

Writing the Training Framework was an exciting opportunity to bring together all of this learning and share it with others.  I hope the Training Framework will support musicians and early practitioners to work together more effectively, utilising the skills and knowledge of both, for the best interests of the child that is sensitive to the local context and that can be sustained by practitioners after the project has ended.  I hope that music making with very young children will be planned with a mind to their existing creativity and competency and respectful of the multiple ways in which they learn.

Funding for music activities

If you're a practitioner looking for funding for music activities, your project could be eligible for funding from Youth Music's First Steps programme.

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