Music Education – Where’s the Joy?
Positive views of music education in the media currently seem to be all about music making children smarter, better at maths, language development etc. While this is all well and good, I feel that this is sending the wrong message to well meaning parents who want the best for their children.
We live in a world where sadly, levels of depression, anxiety and general stress are on the rise. We’re moving faster and faster and filling more and more of our time with ‘activity’ and having less and less down time. Is the perception of the favourable qualities of music education adding to our children’s’ stress levels and having a detrimental effect of their mental health with yet another activity to achieve at, succeed at, progress at and fill up time? Is the shifting focus of music education causing us to miss the whole point of playing music?
I meet so many adults who tell me they wish they had persevered at learning an instrument as a child. What is it about being able to play an instrument that is so desirable? Surely it’s not that these people believe their brains would be so much better developed had they stuck at it. No, it’s because they see the joy people get from playing music and want to have access to that.
It’s true – playing music is awesome! For me, music is my greatest inner resource for emotional and mental well-being. It has gotten me through the toughest of times, brought me some of my greatest joy, gifted me with some of the most amazing human connections, taught me true collaboration and what community really means. It’s a tool for coping and resilience, creative expression, emotional expression, and an endless source of joy, play and inspiration. Who wouldn’t want that?
Well, we’re not ‘selling’ music education as that, and in many cases, music education is not focused on that. It’s not only a question of whether to include or not include music education, but one of the quality and nature of the music education.
The thing is, you don’t need to be at some end point of music education to access the good vibes, as many regretful adults might assume - “I didn’t get very far in learning an instrument so I never got to the fun part.” Sure, learning an instrument is not always fun and easy, and takes discipline, practice and perseverance (life skills worth cultivating), but we don’t have to wait until we’ve mastered an instrument to access the good stuff. Music education can be infused with fun, joy, empowerment, play, creativity, inspiration and connection from the very start. If children are taught to access the joy in music from the beginning, surely they are more likely to persevere when things get tough, are more motivated to continue and in doing so will reap more of the benefits, both in the way of brain development and mental health.
Thankfully all the music teachers I know teach with this awareness, but many don’t. We need to educate our community on this more wholistic approach so that music education is beneficial on many levels, not just music skill development and subsequent brain development, but on the level of life skill development and teaching the value of things like self-expression, creativity, play, collaboration, community, empowerment and joy throughout life.
For those of you who wish you could play an instrument so you can access the joy and connection of music-making, the good news is that you don’t actually need to learn an instrument to do this. You only have to go to an improvised drum circle or music circle to see how natural and easy it is to co-create music without needing any musical experience at all! These sorts of events are popping up all over the world so finding one in your area should be just a google search away.
