95_96 Music - The Crucial Ingredient.Copyright © David Mollet 2015

The influence of the System in Venezuela on young people should indicate to politicians and administrators world-wide that involving children in music is not only good neurologically but is very worthwhile from a financial viewpoint. One would have thought that politicians and administrators would directly support the establishment of similar programmes in their own countries. Sadly, this has not been the case.

The following, in chronological order, describes similar initiatives, based on the System in Scotland, the USA and New Zealand.

ScotlandIn the Stirling Herald (18 Aug 2007) there was an article describing how a programme based on “El Sistema” had been introduced into the Raploch area of Stirling. However this was not the first time such a programme had been introduced in Scotland.  Over thirty years ago and under the guidance of Winnie Dean, the most inspired music teacher of her time, it was introduced at the now closed Bellarmine Secondary School. It grew into one of the most successful music schemes in the UK. Many of the people who took part are now professional musicians themselves, playing in orchestras all over the world.  Unfortunately the scheme became an easy target for financial cutbacks. Some thought it was outrageous to let these working class children have ideas above their station. Others were just directly opposed to it because they had no real control. It closed in 1988.  This is the biggest danger with such schemes. They can become a political football, mostly through petty jealousy and lack of vision, and the result is anger and disillusionment among the benefactors of the scheme.

USAThe following is adapted from an article in the Los Angeles Times 21 May 2010 In the classical music world today, no two words inspire more evangelical fervor than “El Sistema,” unless perhaps they’re “Gustavo Dudamel.”  It can be tricky trying to adapt the Venezuelan program’s success in educating youths, but a recent conference highlights L.A.’s determination.  El Sistema (the System) is, of course, the 35-year-old Venezuelan national music training and youth orchestra program that has taught hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan children to play and appreciate classical music. That includes its star protégé, Dudamel, the former Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 29-year-old music director. It’s a tough act to follow. But that’s not stopping cities such as L.A., Boston, New York and Baltimore from trying. Since its inception, El Sistema has inspired many similar, albeit inevitably smaller, youth orchestra projects in Latin America, Europe and more recently the United States, including the Phil-supported 2 1/2-year-old YOLA EXPO Center Youth Orchestra.

“It’s the core values that are resonating,” said Mark Churchill, artistic director of preparatory and continuing education at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.  The missionary zeal flowed freely earlier this month when dozens of music educators, youth program administrators and others converged here for a three-day symposium, “Composing Change: YOLA and the El Sistema Movement,” sponsored by the L.A. Phil.  The conference was part of an ongoing effort, not to slavishly imitate every chapter and verse of the El Sistema playbook, but to adapt some of its key ideas and methods to a U.S. context. It concluded with Dudamel conducting the fledgling YOLA musicians in what was billed as an open rehearsal at Walt Disney Concert Hall, keeping a pledge he’d made months ago. Comprising frank panel discussions, moving personal testimonies from U.S. musicians who’d visited and worked with El Sistema in Venezuela, and a good deal of institutional soul-searching, the symposium was an amalgam of academic seminar and motivational speakers’ meeting.

New ZealandThe following is adapted from article in the March 2011 issue of the Manukau Courier “Project is music to kids’ ears.”  Changing the lives of children is the aim of an innovative music programme coming to south Auckland. The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra is setting up a base in Otara for the two-year pilot programme, based on the Venezuelan model “El Sistema”.

Its original founder started the programme 35 years ago in a garage in Venezuela when Dr. Jose Antonio Abreu got 11 kids together to play music. He believed that communal music-making could change the path of children’s lives.  Auckland musician Dr. Joseph Harrop will take up his role as programme director for the initiative at Otara Music Arts Centre. He describes El Sistema, “It’s such an exciting project – the social and community benefits are obvious and it has music at its heart. This is something of real national importance and I am privileged to be playing a leading role within it.”

“We know the community is very engaged with us and the centre has the staff and facilities to support the programme,” orchestra chief executive Barbara Glaser says.

The programme’s “very much inclusive of the culture” and she’s hoping it will be rolled out in other areas of Auckland and New Zealand wide.  “There won’t be any kids that are rejected because we don’t think they are musical,” she says.

With funding from the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, the orchestra will join with local schools, the community and support organisations to provide instruments and mentor children in music and orchestral performance.

Studies According to the results of a study in Canada, children who take music lessons before the age of six tend to be more intelligent than their peers.  Academics at the University of Toronto found that the IQ scores of six-year-olds who had taken keyboard or voice lessons were, on average, three points higher than normal.  The study appears to support the Mozart Effect; a theory established in 1994 which claimed that listening to Mozart temporarily increases problem solving abilities. Professor Glenn Schellenberg, of the psychology department at the University of Toronto, who led the research, said: “It was a response to all the brouhaha about whether or not music makes you smarter.”  In the latest study, children were recruited via a newspaper advertisement and divided into four groups.  One group received free weekly keyboard lessons and another received free weekly singing lessons, both at Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music.

The third group was sent to free weekly drama classes, and the remaining group received no lessons at all.  Before the experiment began, every child underwent a three-hour IQ test. A second test nine months later showed, as the team expected, that the IQ scores in all four groups had increased by at least 4.3 points.  The children who had taken keyboard or voice lessons, however, scored on average, 2.7 points more than those who had taken drama lessons and no lessons. Professor Schellenberg attributed the latest results to the skills students needed to acquire in order to learn music. He said: “There are so many different facets involved, such as memorizing, expressing emotion, learning about musical intervals and chords.” The possibility of an association between music and intelligence has interested scientists in recent years. Previous studies have linked musical aptitude to literacy and music lessons to mathematics achievement. Last year, Hong Kong scientists claimed that children who took music lessons possessed superior verbal memory skills - the ability to remember spoken words.

Other scientists have suggested that children who attend music lessons may have higher IQ scores because they tend to come from families that are better educated and wealthier than those of their peers. This latest study is the first to feature a large number of children selected at random from a range of backgrounds.  The phenomenon was identified by researchers who assessed the ability of test subjects to complete four-dimensional puzzles.  They discovered that the highest scores were achieved by people who had listened to Mozart before tackling the puzzles. The effect has since been attributed to Mozart’s stimulation of mood.

Yesterday, the findings were supported by Londoner Melissa Sayer, the mother of five-year-old Molly, “Molly has been taking piano lessons for one year - and she is top of her class at school. At the end of the year she won a prize for her academic achievement, for reading and maths. I hadn’t made the association before, but it does make sense now that I think about it.”

ConclusionCountries such as Venezuela, Finland and, excepting the disastrous present policies, New Zealand are showing that these subjects are not only crucial for balanced neurological development, but of enormous benefit to society.  It is especially important for countries like Venezuela where there are large numbers of poor, that it can assist, even determine, that a child from the poorest and deprived background can  realise his worth as a human being to himself and to society.  Matias Tarnopolsky, the artistic director of the New York Philharmonic, describing his own tour of the sistema in Caracas, “It reminded me of the reasons I went into the music world as a profession.”

 Personal note from our president I am of similar ilk; I know why I became an educator and what my tasks are. Although never holding any office of any importance, I still hope to make a contribution to education wherever anyone will listen to me.  Previously, that occurred in New Zealand and for that I am eternally grateful although what was implemented was motivated by the desire to save money rather than a policy that would assist children in optimising their wellbeing and learning.

However, I do not have any doubt that there is a way to balance and nurture neurological development in all children so that their wellbeing and learning is optimized and New Zealand took an important first step in that direction.  If balanced and harmonious hemispheric development occurs you end up with a far more fulfilled, happier and well-adjusted individual.  The benefits to society appear glaringly obvious. We can only assume that it is not occurring because the powers that be have not received the information necessary for optimisation.  Thanks to the internet that particular problem is easily rectifiable and we hope to make a contribution to that process. Crucial ingredients to the optimisation process are music, art and drama but so are many other ingredients I could describe.

Having dealt with administrators in UK for 50 years (my homeland), USA for 32 years and New Zealand for 28 years I am optimistic for the first time in a long time that perhaps they will examine our contributions to education; and subsequently support and implement the policies that will produce an education in which children will thrive and excel. What is more important? We need to ask our politicians ad infinitum what are their priorities - political agendas or the wellbeing of our children?

If, for whatever reason, they do not listen then we need to be determined to continue our protests until they do. We hope you agree!