BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Music education matters.
Whether you first picked up an instrument at school, you’re working full-time in an orchestra, or you’re just entering your industry training, it’s likely you share the sentiment.
The airing of music education program Don’t Stop the Music on ABC resonated so strongly with Australian audiences that they donated more than $60,000 and 4,000 instruments to the benefit of schoolchildren. The legacy of music education advocates and activists such as the late Richard Gill have inspired generations of musicians to teach, and share their knowledge of music with students young and old. Australia can no longer turn away from the knowledge that children who sustain music education throughout their school years will experience permanent benefits to their brain, advancing their language and problem-solving skills.
In this new series Music education matters, we team up with a leading Australian educational institution to find out how music education can help shape lives.
Speaking with talent from the Australian National Academy of Music, we introduce you to practising industry figures – emerging and established, performing and teaching – so we can discover the true stories behind the power of music education.
Music education matters, says Robin Wilson, violin
As an esteemed music educator, Dr Robin Wilson has shared his knowledge with emerging practitioners at the University of Sydney, Australian Institute of Music, and Sydney Conservatorium of Music — experience for which he received a 2018 award from the Australian String Teachers Association. (He’s also performed and lectured internationally, at too many prestigious institutions to list fully for you here.)
As a performer, Robin is a member of Ironwood and has an active solo career through his recitals and recordings. Today, young musicians in Australia might know him as their tutor with the Australian Youth Orchestra or through his presentations at pedagogy conferences.
Or, they might know him in his leadership role of resident violin faculty at the Australian National Academy of Music.
Tell us about your upbringing with music education. What do you feel are some of the defining moments during your music education as a child?
I had many teachers when I was young, each giving me a different perspective on music. The first was a slightly eccentric old man who made me study volumes of theory books before I was allowed to play a single note! Suffice to say I finished each lesson rather grumpy and even more desperate to play.
My mother found a local Irish folk fiddler who lived on the same street as my teacher. So I would finish my frustrating lesson and walk down the street to my second lesson, which was entirely spent learning folk tunes by ear. Each lesson, I’d learn a new melody and go home to proudly perform it to my father. This engendered a genuine sense of fun and satisfaction at the instrument early on. […] My following teachers developed my technique further, but it was Pamela Dowsett who I started with when I was 12, who really revealed the possibilities of music and the instrument to me.
A defining moment came during the year I began studying with her when I heard Mincho Minchev, a visiting Bulgarian violinist, perform a Paganini concerto with our local orchestra on his Stradivarius violin. I was in the front row and had never seen live violin playing at this level before. It was visceral, scintillating, and utterly compelling. I decided then and there that I wanted to be a violinist, and from that moment forward never considered doing anything else.
Soon afterwards, I joined the local youth orchestra and began playing chamber music with other young players, and so my life became increasingly filled with music.
How do you feel a music educator is responsible for a young person’s passion for music?
A teacher has an enormous role to play, indeed pivotal, in inspiring a young person and developing their passion for music. From my own experience as a child, I know first-hand how a teacher can either kill the joy of music, or ignite a spark.
For children to become passionate about music, it needs to be revealed to them. A teacher is responsible for giving a student the technical means to express music through their instrument, thus freeing their ‘inner voice’, but they must also expose a student to repertoire that will inspire them.
The way this music is introduced is crucial. If you can frame repertoire in a context, it is more exciting to learn. For example, for young students who have never played Mozart, it is important to introduce them to singing, operatic characters, storytelling, and the lavish attire and proportioned architecture of the time. Relating this to gesture, structure, and sound can make learning much more meaningful.
As an instrumental teacher, it is an incredibly difficult task to structure the progression of repertoire and technique in complementary way. While a student needs to be challenged at times, repertoire must be surmountable technically to allow a musical focus. Students of all ages enjoy what they are good at!
It’s all too common for assigned pieces to be too difficult, resulting in a technical focus through a preoccupation with instrumental hurdles. This can cause students to loose enthusiasm. If the piece is within the technical grasp of the student, technique can serve as a vehicle of expression, and a love of music is easier to foster.
At what point did you realise you wanted to take what you’d learnt about music and form it into a career path?
As I mentioned, I was 12 years old when a concert experience inspired me to make the decision to be a musician. I narrowed my focus from this point forward to concentrate on music, and took fewer academic subjects in my last years of high school to allow more practice time.
Having said this, I tried to fill in some educational gaps later – for example taking an English modernism course at university. I think continuing to learn about the world around us is essential for understanding and bringing meaning to music.
Why did you decide to pursue higher music education?
At the end of high school, I was aware I still knew so little, and so naturally wanted to learn from a teacher and continue my musical education for as long as possible.
Technique continues to develop well into one’s 20s, while musical development continues for a lifetime. Of course, if we’re striving musically, we continue to refine our technique throughout our career, too. So it’s essential if you’re serious about a musical career to develop technique and musicianship while you’re young — ideally in a concentrated environment, learning from like-minded peers and knowledgeable professors.
Ensemble skills, developed in chamber music and orchestral playing, can’t be learnt in a practice room; and being enrolled in an institution affords these vital collaborative opportunities.
What have been some of your strongest needs as a musician?
What a student needs from a teacher depends on that student’s strengths and weaknesses – technically, musically and psychologically.
For me, my learning needs changed throughout my study. I was always seeking to refine my technique and achieve greater ease and efficiency at the instrument, but I became increasingly aware throughout my playing and teaching life — and continue to be! — of how much there is to know about music and the language of each composer – stylistically, historically, harmonically, structurally, etc. So I sought greater knowledge and exposure to these areas in my learning as time went on.
This involved, and still does, educating myself to a large degree by reading; listening; playing in opera, symphony and chamber orchestras; in addition to learning chamber and solo repertoire. It also involved playing to colleagues and travelling overseas for lessons or further study.
Knowledge enables one to contextualise a composition at a macro and micro level, and turn music into a compelling narrative. We must always be curious about the possibilities in music to remain inspired, and these possibilities reveal themselves through knowledge and context.
As a teacher, I have continually self-educated and been basically obsessive for many years about methodology; the progression and process of technical and musical development. I believe they can’t be entirely separated, and technique must exist in a musical context to be ultimately relevant. Too many times, students think they need to focus on technique to be a better player at the expense of musical understanding. Essentially, their technique becomes misguided and their playing lacks intent, as there is no broader musical purpose to inform it.
How can teachers best support adult students?
In my experience teaching adult-age students, every individual needs to be treated differently based on their level and method of learning. Some retain information verbally in a cerebral way. Others learn much more intuitively. It’s often a balance between freeing a student from the shackles of their analytical mind, and instilling discipline and intellectual understanding into their interpretative process.
As I have mentioned, I think musical and technical development are inextricably linked; one can’t exist without the other. I encourage students to be learning from playing chamber and orchestral music, immersing themselves in listening to a broad repertoire of other instruments (not just their own) across all genres, reading about composers’ lives and the times they lived in, and gaining a greater harmonic understanding of what they are playing. Knowledge and context give us interpretative ability.
There’s been a lot of dialogue about the importance of music education in Australia. How do you think music education can benefit the community as a whole?
It’s unfathomable to me that some people don’t grasp how important music is to the fabric of our society. It goes without saying that music expresses our human condition, conquers boundaries and unites people, inspires us, soothes us, reassures us, challenges us, and ultimately can lift us out of our earthly realm to appreciate something spiritual (regardless of one’s religious beliefs) in moving ways that words and actions cannot.
Importantly, music also connects us to the past; it reflects the world at the time the composers lived — politically, socially, or physically. On an emotional level, through the past it also connects us to the present; it reminds us of the terror of war, the vulnerability and fragile nature of the human condition, and our defiance and tenacity in the face of hardship.
In this time — more than ever, it might seem — music plays a vital role in grounding and connecting society.
What changes would you like to see in music education in Australia on an industry level?
We all will remain forever indebted to the late Richard Gill for raising such awareness of the importance of music education in the industry at a political and social level. I too believe music should be a compulsory part of every child’s education. While research increasingly shows what a powerful impact it has on other areas of a child’s learning, I believe it’s important to learn music on its own merit. Music stimulates, challenges, and gives joy to young children. It brings the spirit of a school together and forges a feeling of inclusiveness and tolerance.
Incredibly important and a topic that is too often neglected is the training of teachers, without whom music stands no chance of being delivered into schools and institutions as widely and skillfully as it needs.
There should be greater emphasis in tertiary education on training teachers. The culture of teaching needs to change. It is a highly skilled and complex art and must be valued. There are many aspects that need to alter to facilitate this. For a start, teachers need to be paid more so the profession is more widely considered as a viable career option. In some cultures, such as Russia and Korea, for example, teaching is seen as a honourable and prestigious profession; an ultimate responsibility. Isn’t that how it should be?
What impact have you made, or would you like to make, on the industry?
I work mostly with students on an individual basis, developing their instrumental and musical ability. I hope to give these students the independence and skills they need to forge meaningful careers in the community in many different ways.
I also want to bring more awareness, at an international level, of the talent that we have here in Australia. If we can appreciate how fantastic our local musicians are, perhaps we can value them more?
What advice would you give to musicians to help them get the most out of their educational experiences?
Always be curious. Never stop learning. Ask questions and become fascinated. Think for yourself, rather than waiting for your teacher to tell you. Become an independent learner as fast as you can. Listen, read, attend concerts and immerse yourself in music, art, and history; and take notice of the world around you.
Seek with wonder and you will discover.
Check out the ANAM concert season to see musicians and music educators, live in action.
We’re teaming up with ANAM throughout 2019 to share these interviews in our series Music education matters.
Stay tuned as we prepare to bring you more of the personal stories behind music education in Australia.
READ NEXT: Music education matters, says Rachel Shaw, French Horn
Images supplied. Credit: Pia Johnson.
