We are excited to announce that to complement our free Guide to Songwriting which is now available on our website, anyone signing up to our mailing list will also receive a free e- book as a thank you for joining us. Not only does this contain video and audio resources for songwriting, it also comes with a free 3 month trial of Soundtrap Edu (unlimited seats).

We hope that you will enjoy using the ideas with your classes and hope to see you at one of our workshops soon!

We are heading back to China soon and this time we are taking some new friends with us. Despite the fact that they aren't wearing the obligatory Musical Futures T Shirt, we hope that they will help us to introduce some new ideas to teachers of younger children over the next few months!

Ziggi, Kara, Moa and Jon are all characters in an app and approach for music theory for younger children called Mussila Music School.

Mussila is a tool to learn the basics of music theory and link the musical ear to the written language of music. As well as teaching the basics of music in a fun and creative way, the Mussila Music School app and approach reinforces some of the core skills that also appear in Musical Futures: Everyone Can Play, our entry level offer for younger children.

Everyone Can Play incorporates activities that include I play, you play, listen then copy, take your turn, find, hear and keep a pulse and basic instrumental skills all of which are also nurtured through the Mussila games through interactive exploration of the basics of music theory, especially through the use of rhythm, melody and timbres.

With the help of the Mussila characters and story we are also going to look at how incorporating creativity and music technology into our Everyone Can Play series of entry level Musical Futures ideas might encourage younger children to start to write songs of their own.

We will soon be embarking on a pilot project that explores Musical Futures and Creative Education working with Melbourne Graduate School of Education, Geelong Grammar School and with teachers in Australia and the UK implementing some new ideas in their classrooms across 2019.

​Our focus on creative education also feeds into to our revamped work on songwriting in particular an emphasis on story telling and how and why people are inspired to write songs . We hope that the Mussila characters and story might provide a useful start point for exploring this important aspect of songwriting.

We also love the creative opportunities that music tech; apps, cloud based or online platforms and hardware and equipment, can bring, especially when it comes to writing songs. 

​MF: Studio is about finding an approach for music tech that sits within the core Musical Futures pedagogy so we are interested to see how Mussila DJ which encourages the players to create their own musical soundscape and to remix existing songs, record and capture sounds from around them and layer loops and mix the sound to create a live music performance, can help younger children to recognise and use the basic tools of a music studio in creative ways.

As always, we will be sharing our travels so to keep up to date follow @mufuinternat on Twitter, or register for our updates by clicking here

Musical Futures was developed in response to a need to improve music education and in particular to improve access to music making in schools and to increase its relevance to children and young adults. So we are really proud to hear that 97% of respondents to our recent independent evaluation of Musical Futures believe that MF removes barriers to participation. We also loved some of the verbal feedback from our teachers and students involved in a wider series of interviews, so we have shared some more or our favourite quotes throughout this article! 

You can read more of our impressive feedback from teachers involved in the first cohort of the Victorian Government PD program here and join the growing numbers of teachers worldwide who report that using music in school results in:

• An increase in numbers of students taking up instrumental lessons on a wider range of instruments
• Increased student participation in concerts and performances
• Better engagement with classroom music for all ages

What's not to love about more people making more music for longer?

Read more...

Music teaching can be an isolated experience and sometimes its's easy to lose sight of your musical roots once the realities of teaching take up more and more of your time! All of our workshops are practical, hands on and musical. We sing, play and always allow plenty of time for networking, sharing and getting to know each other. And it doesn't stop there. We also provide all the resources you need to get started with MF straight away for free and you can even come and join one our international music teacher chat group to continue the discussion as you get to grips with MF in your classroom. Meet the team and find out more about what happens on one of our 2 day intensive workshops here 
​
Read more...

In the last few months we have announced partnerships to help us keep the 'future' in Musical Futures. We are busy developing Musical Futures Studio, our new approach for music technology in partnership with Soundtrap and Mussila (for younger students) and approaches to progress, progression and assessment in partnership with Trinity College London.

Our new workshops for Musical Futures Styles, songwriting and exploring 'beyond the play along' are all being developed by members of the MF International Team.

And the best bit? All of these new ideas will be part of our day 1 Recharge and day 2 'Further into MF' schedules, or if you are new to MF you can spend day 1 getting up to speed with our core MF approaches Informal Learning, Classroom Workshopping, Find Your Voice and Just Play before going deeper in MF on day 2!

Finally if it's a more intensive introduction to MF that you are after, our 2 day intro workshop in Shanghai in January is the option for you.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai or Bangkok and if you have any questions drop an email to info@musicalfuturesinternational.org and we will get back to you!

Read more...

The Musical Futures Australia Professional Learning Program is a Victorian Department of Education sponsored PD program developed to support schools across the state to increase opportunities for all Victorian children and young people to access, participate in and experience quality music education programs.​ ​Since the program commenced in August 2015, over 700 schools and nearly 1,200 teachers throughout Victoria have been involved. 

The program was instigated following a Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the extent, benefits and potential of music education in Victorian schools (The Extent, Benefits and Potential of Music Education in Victorian Schools (2013)) which found there is now significant research which demonstrates that “engagement in the Arts, including music, resulted in higher academic grades, literacy results and attendance for primary school students.”

Some additional context:

•Victoria has no specialist teaching positions as such within the primary system.  All primary teachers are determined to be general classroom teachers and that would not change.
•School leadership has the ability to deploy teachers in specialist roles, visual art, PE, music etc. (specialist roles do exist in the secondary system)
•However comparative few schools around 300 of 1,500 primary schools had deployed teachers in the specialist music role resulting in many schools not offering music.  DET research suggested that 24% of government schools in 2014 offered a continuous music program.
•The Inquiry determined that more effort was required in primary schools if the benefits of music in school education were to be realised
•A new Australian curriculum was on the horizon that included the teaching of the arts and specifically music within years P-8
​
The Dandolo Partners Independent Evaluation of the Victorian Musical Futures Australia Professional Development Program was commissioned by the Victorian Department of Education and the evaluation involved around 280 teachers and around 180 schools who participated in the first program cohort.

​These teachers and schools had been using Musical Futures approaches and resources for at least 9 months prior to the research taking place.

​Scroll down to download the full report and summary of the evaluation.

From the cohort of 180 schools 24 schools were included in more detailed case studies and the following are an example of some of the feedback from teachers and students who participated:

‘The Musical Futures PD has moved us out of our comfort zones and helped us relate to student experience’ – Music teacher

‘Music class is so much better than in previous years as we now have more independence’ – Grade 6 student

‘I see Musical Futures as a hook to get them interested and to sustain that interest. From there I am able teach them theory and the other elements not explicitly covered by the Musical Futures resource’ – Music teacher

​‘I just want to learn and do music’ – Year 7 student

General Findings:

• Musical Futures meets both the Education State goals and the Victorian F-10 curriculum
• Program well designed and delivered – 96% of participants satisfied
• Musical Futures perceived to have a very positive impact on student participation and teacher skills
• Positive impact on teacher skills and confidence
• Increased student engagement – 68% of teachers report an increase in the number of students involved in music
• As intended most teachers incorporate other approaches in their classroom along with Musical Futures
• Most teachers involved have some music background – around 50% were non specialist

Teachers report that:

• Musical Futures approach removes barriers to participation 97%
• Musical Futures is an effective method 97%
• Musical Futures can be used to implement the Victorian Curriculum 91%

Following the workshops: 

• 94% of teachers said the digital resources were helpful
• 76% of teachers believed they had support from school leadership
• 79% were able to get additional support from Musical Futures
• 76% have been able to effectively implement a Musical Futures program
• 67% say they have been able to share with other teachers

Impact on teachers: 

• Provides a more practical approach 81%
• Ability to engage the whole class 80%
• Increased confidence 77%
• Student skills 75%
• Confidence to support students technical development 69%

Student impact:

• Enthusiasm 82%
• Sustained participation 82%
• Student confidence 81%
• Student confidence to play a range of instruments 79%
• Development of musical skills 77%

68% believe that the program has increased the number of students learning and playing a musical instrument via co-curricular or external programs 

, In June 2018, teachers from Australia, New Zealand, America and Asia arrived at the fantastic music space at The Melbourne Graduate School of Education in Melbourne's CBD for 2 days of workshops, discussion and networking for the 2018 Musical Futures International Conference The Big Gig.

The conference opened with a welcome from Director Ian Harvey placing The Big Gig in the context of "keeping the future in Musical Futures" followed by an energetic vocal and body percussion session led by Ollie Tunmer from Beat Goes on UK.

Workshop sessions included an introduction to our new Musical Futures Studio approach to music technology led by Steve Jackman from Shrewsbury International School Bangkok, exploring some new keyboard resources from Little Kids Rock delivered by Scott Burstein, Hip Hop for everyone led by Rapper and Poet Optamus from WA and more!

We also shared outcomes from our recent pilot project with Trinity College London and new workshops from Stephen Sajkowsky and Anna Gower from the MF International delivery team which will form a key part of our workshop program in Asia and Australia in 2018-19 (read more here).

Our panel session entitled 'beyond the 12 notes' included presentations from  Nick Beach, Mandy Stefanakis and Tim Patston.

We hope that all of our 200 delegates had an enjoyable, stimulating and challenging time with us at The Big Gig, we look forward to seeing them again at one of our workshops soon. 

You can keep up to date with all our new developments, pilot projects and news by joining Musical Futures to receive our newsletter and updates. 

The development of video resources to complement Musical Futures teacher development workshops marked a new departure for the organisation when they were first introduced as part of Just Play.  Although it isn't the first time that Musical Futures has provided resources to support our approaches, (see Musical Futures UK 'transition project' and Find Your Voice), the video play alongs were originally inspired by the work of Little Kids Rock. Our visit to take part in their workshops and to visit schools showed us how these were a great tool to support teachers and students with first access for popular music education. They help to get students playing together, provide a safety net for students and teachers to experiment with whole class music making and allow students to self-differentiate, ie everyone can take part, regardless of prior musical experience. If you haven't seen the play along videos, this video provides a useful overview of what's involved and how these resources work. 

The inclusion of play along videos as part of Just Play had the following aims:

• To support teachers to make the step to becoming musical leaders, leading while playing.
• To enable students to build foundational musical skills such as playing as part of an ensemble, hearing and playing to a pulse, listening, following, interpreting musical symbols and building instrumental skills on several instruments.
• To support students to play as a whole class band in a hands-on, practical way using music students would be likely to recognise and engage with.

Feedback from teachers has been incredibly positive with regard to the resources and how they help to get all their students playing, skilling them up through playing and learning as they play. 

But once they can play what next? Wait for Musical Futures to make and share the next play along? Make your own? Or explore how play alongs are just the start when it comes to getting a little deeper into the real-world approaches that Musical Futures is built on, whilst balancing the need to deliver the depth and breadth of content, knowledge and skills that is surely essential to a 'music education'?

At The Big Gig teacher conference, my session looked at moving on from play alongs and into informal learning and non-formal teaching, the approaches to learning and teaching music that are the heart and soul of Musical Futures.

We started by playing a song together along with a video play along. The song I chose simply repeated 4 chords throughout and the video consisted of a simple bass line, a suggested comping rhythm that fitted with the original track and as experienced musicians and teachers, delegates could play it easily. Too easily. Some people started to look bored, the performance lacked energy and didn't do justice to the quality of the musicianship in the room. Whilst some players embellished their lines slightly, most just played what was instructed in the visual cues in the video. 

We then reflected on the experience starting by looking at the 3 core strands of Musical Futures, (recently revamped with help from Emily Wilson, PHD student from MGSE). The focus was on understanding the pedagogy that underpins each strand, the role of the teacher in each of these approaches and to put Just Play, the play alongs and what we had just done as a group into the wider context of Musical Futures. 

Next we explored the balance between musical skills and knowledge in the context of the diagram above.

There are many papers and chapters that explore what musical knowledge is and how it manifests in various approaches to music education in different contexts. For the purposes of this session, I borrowed a slide from the recent webinar led by Gary Spruce for the MF international teacher community where Gary shared the descriptions below of different musical knowledge types.

This is a great starting point to reflect on what students are actually learning when they engage with a play along. If Just Play is to build foundational musical skills and engage students with music through playing, how can other aspects of Musical Futures (and other approaches) help to move students towards a deeper understanding of what/why/how they are playing and engaging with music and where this could lead?

The next reflection point was how Lucy Green's 5 principles of informal learning fit with music taught through a play along. Thinking about our performance as a group, we worked through each principle and dug a little deeper by reflecting on what we had just done. ​

Finally I asked the group 3 questions about the piece:

1) Can you sing the bass line from the song (which was a riff rather than just based on the root notes of each chord)
2) Can you clap the key rhythmic patterns on which the groove was based?
3) Can you sing or play any of the 12 melodic riffs that appear in different forms within the song?

This activity revealed that despite us playing the song and claiming to have listened as we played, most groups were unable to answer the 3 questions very well. Exploring the song through a play along meant we could play it, but we had really only scratched the surface in terms of understanding it.

Using the same song as a start point we then put together a whole class workshop. With the track playing we worked through the following activities (and others as they happened) before setting up a groove based on the original chord sequence and subsequent musical ideas that had developed from within the group.

• Clap the pulse
• I clap you clap
• Improvise your own patterns 
• Sing the bass line
• Sing the key riffs from the chorus and add harmonies
• Clap the rhythms of the riffs 
• Transfer the riffs to instruments (no chords allowed!)
• Add anything you can hear in the song that we haven't already discovered
• Look at the notated parts from the song and identify anything we missed from just listening (dynamics, articulations, remaining riffs)
• Perform and get creative with the final outcome - delegates took it in turn to come out the front and lead different sections.

Finally we played the original song again with the play along video. The performance had so much more in it with people singing, improvising, adding harmonies, far more of the original riffs and even the groove itself had far more energy!

My recent trip to Melbourne could have been a little shaky - I’d been working at a school in South Korea the week prior, then headed back to the UK for the launch of www.sambaoke.com (promo video on the way!), before the 26 hour journey down under.

Despite the slight disorientation, I could feel the warm and energy of the conference delegates from the word go.

One of STOMP’s first big bookings was the 1992 Melbourne Comedy Festival, so it was nice to kick things off here with some body percussion, inspired in no small part by my time in that show. I love how body percussion is initially highly accessible, but then as with any art-form, offers scope for more complex material.

The MF conference delegates proved themselves to be a highly rhythmic and up for it bunch, happy to step well outside of their comfort zones, a useful experience for all teachers!

I then led the first of several Afro Brazilian percussion workshops. Although African drumming is common in Australia, Afro-Brazilian percussion, including samba, is yet to become the staple that it is in UK schools. It was great fun exploring a range of styles from Rio-style ‘samba batucada’ to ‘drum’n’bass’, nodding to the Musical Futures ethos of incorporating students’ own musical preferences into lessons. Delegates seemed to enjoy these sessions and I’m looking forward to returning for a school workshop / PD tour - watch this space!

longside a range of fascinating workshops, talks and warm up ideas (Hadley’s ‘Chord Aerobics’ springs to mind!), the conference finished with a fantastic opportunity for teachers to play together. Some seriously impressive performances - Michelle Lewis excelled herself as my mic stand whilst delivering some superb vocals!

Session notes from my body percussion and Afro-Brazilian sessions are on the way and there are free downloadable resources at www.beatgoeson.co.uk

​Huge thanks to all involved, I look forward to seeing you again soon!

The National Music Education Conference in Bejing ran in partnership with the China Music Instrument Association and was supported by the National Music Education Service Alliance, in collaboration with the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) and the Confederation of European Music Industries (CAFIM).

As invited guests of the China Music Instrument Association, Anna and Ken led an introductory informal learning workshops with nearly 100 teachers at the conference, followed by workshops with teachers at Roland Digital Education Centre and with children and their parents at Hua Dong Music City.

Highlights of the trip included some fantastic musical performances showcasing exquisite performances of traditional Chinese music as well as a celebration concert from the Make Music Day China 2018 event that involved over 3000 musical events across China.

We are very much looking forward to returning to China in October for another round of 2-day teacher workshops and to as guests at Music China in Shanghai.

With just 3 weeks to go until Musical Futures teachers from across the world arrive in Melbourne for The Big Gig 2018, the final schedule and details of the fantastic international team of presenters has been announced.

Presenters will be flying in from the UK, Asia, USA and from across Australia and the sessions will explore (in typical Musical Futures style) everything from body percussion and Samba to Electronic Dance Music and Hip Hop. There will also be an opportunity to debate and explore what it means to be a creative music teacher and what it means to 'go beyond the notes' with Mandy Stefanakis, Nick Beach and Tim Patson as guests for our panel session. 

To read the full line up, browse through the conference schedule and grab your ticket, visit The Big Gig web page ​or drop us an email at info@musicalfuturesinternational.org

Australian Teachers Get Inspirational Boost from Musical Futures and Soundtrap, a Collaborative, Cloud-based Music Education Solution
 
Partnership Combines Individualised Learning Approaches and Game-Changing Music Technology to Deliver Student-Centered Classroom Experiences

​EduTech, Sydney, Australia – June 5, 2018 – Announced today in Sydney, Musical Futures Australia, a music education movement reshaping the way students learn and create music, and Soundtrap, the innovative online collaborative music and podcast recording studio, are partnering to deliver collaborative, hands-on musical workshops that will be accessible to teachers in Sydney, Australia and to music educators around the world.  It’s a revolutionary approach that provides teachers with new and innovative ways to engage their students in hands-on electronic music as part of their overall curriculum. The partnership officially launches at the EduTech conference scheduled for June 6-8 in Australia.
 
“We’ve been looking for a number of years for a music technology integration that works best for our workshops. Soundtrap has huge appeal to us because it’s cloud-based and enables the kind of collaborative work we’re already doing,” said Anna Gower, head of Training and Development, Musical Futures International. “We know that kids really engage with music tech, but some teachers do not. Until Soundtrap, we were unable to find a platform that didn’t cost a lot of money, didn’t require a large amount of expertise, and did not result in barriers between the teachers and students.”
 
The diverse community of students at Doveton P-9 College in Melbourne is finding a common language through Music Futures Australia (MFA). Recognized for its innovative curriculum, Doveton is one of MFA’s 12 Champion Schools. These Champion Schools are developing new ways of teaching children and teachers about music through technology.  With the help of Soundtrap and a Roland HS-5 Session Mixer, Doveton’s music students recently created, recorded, and later performed, a song they titled “Memory Lane.”  https://www.musicalfuturesaustralia.org/mf-videos.html. The process exposed the students to music composing techniques and processes they would not have experienced otherwise.
 
“Technology gives us new ways to reach kids where they are. By combining Musical Futures and Soundtrap, the students had this unique opportunity to create something special—a composition that they could take ownership of,” said Jason Holmes, music teacher at Doveton.
 
Musical Futures equips teachers with the training, support and resources to give students informal, engaging ways to learn music. An international program with global reach, Musical Futures’ Australia affiliate is partnering with Soundtrap to provide workshops to 1,500 educators in Australia and New Zealand. From this base, the solution will be rolled out internationally.  The goal is to give kids, mainly in the primary and secondary schools (ages 6-18), individualised ways to experience and create music.
 
Soundtrap, the first cloud-based audio recording platform to work across iOS, Android, Chromebooks, Linux, Mac and Windows platforms, enables more than 1M users to co-create music, podcasts and other audio projects with others anywhere in the world. The platform is being used in thousands of schools around the world for music, technology, math, science and a host of other core subjects.
 
Soundtrap is especially suited for today’s mobile-intense generation of students because all projects are saved in a safe, protected environment, and can be accessed at any time, from any device. (See video: https://youtu.be/2ViLQD_2RK4)
 
Per Emanuelsson, CEO of Soundtrap, commented, “Music technology excites and engages school-age kids, and Soundtrap gives music teachers the ability to truly harness that excitement and make those connections, regardless of their geography or the type of personal device they own. This partnership with Musical Futures shines an even brighter spotlight on Soundtrap’s mission to provide a worldwide learning experience to every student with access to a computer or mobile device.”
 
About Soundtrap
Soundtrap is the first cloud-based audio recording platform to work across all operating systems, enabling users to co-create music anywhere in the world. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, the company also has an office in Silicon Valley, California, US. Soundtrap provides an easy-to-use music and audio creation platform for all levels of musical interest and abilities, and is being used by the K-12 through higher-education markets. For more information, visit: http://www.soundtrap.com.
 
About Musical Futures
Musical Futures provides teachers with training, support, networks and resources to deliver practical, engaging, developmental music programs in the classroom. Rather than limiting students to specific musical styles or genres, Musical Futures believes music learning works best when young people are making music based on their musical culture, and when their existing passion for music is reflected and built upon in the classroom.
 
Musical Futures was recently recognised as one of the leading innovations in global education by HundrED (https://hundred.org/en) and its efforts are supported by a growing bank of research. For more information visit: https://www.musicalfuturesaustralia.org/ or  www.musicalfuturesinternational.org
 
 
Resource Videos:
What is Soundtrap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xheoUkbyhE4
Soundtrap in Education: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMbVeTaD0xQZfUimscIhrw
How Soundtrap works -Collaboration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAPrEB07aFA
Photos: https://www.soundtrap.com/presskit
www.musicalfuturesinternational.org

.We are excited to announce that we will be offering 2 new workshops in Asia in January 2019, a 2 day introductory workshop in Shanghai and a we will be returning with new approaches and resources to Shrewsbury International School Bangkok 

Our Shanghai workshops will explore the introductory approaches of Musical Futures across 2 days and you can read more about the content we have planned for those days by clicking here

A few years ago, Anna Gower and her students at Monks Walk School in Herts, UK, opened the doors of the music department on a typical Monday to share the realities of embracing Musical Futures across all their lessons. Not a text book or desk in sight, just students, instruments and a willingness to expect the unexpected!

If you would like to share a day in the life of your music department, why not drop us an email and we will include it in our #talklessplaymore shares and feature you and your students on our blog! 

We are pleased to announce that we will be returning to Asia in November 2018 and January 2019 with new 2 day intensive Musical Futures workshops in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and  Bangkok. Whether you are new to Musical Futures or you have been to one of our workshops before, there is an option to suit you. ​Please note that our Shanghai workshop is a 2 day introduction to Musical Futures without the recharge options.

And there's more! Book before October and you'll be eligible for our early bird rates.

We are also able to offer some in-school consultancy to schools in Hong Kong and KL during our November visits. If you would like more details please drop us an email info@musicalfuturesinternational.org 

​On 16th May, music education expert, author and academic Gary Spruce will be leading a webinar for Musical Futures International all about teaching music musically and the connotations of the term ‘pedagogy’ in music education.

If you would like to join us then save the date and time, 16th May, 8.30pm AEST, 11.30am UK and all times in between! 
​
You can register now by clicking HERE  and even if you can’t join us on the day, everyone who registers will be able to access a paper outlining the aims of the webinar and a link to watch the video back afterwards. There will also be an opportunity to discuss any issues arising in our Musical Futures Facebook group at one of our regular Wednesday chats.

It was great to be back in Auckland for the second year running, meeting new teachers and running the first of our international 'Recharge' workshops to roll out some of our new approaches and resources to teachers who attended the workshops last year. It was interesting to hear how they had been getting on, to share stories and reflect on experiences with Musical Futures across the last year.

Many thanks to Hadley Roynane at Long Bay College, his staff and team of year 12 'Music Maestros' for hosting us so well. We look forward to seeing many of our Musical Futures New Zealand teacher community at The Big Gig teacher conference in Melbourne in June/July 2018!

David Price was Project Leader during the development years of Musical Futures. He is a learning futurist and a Senior Associate at the Innovation Unit, in London and author of the best-selling OPEN: How We’ll Work, Live and Learn In The Future about the global shift towards open organisations, and systems of learning (described by Sir Ken Robinson as ‘a revelation’).

David leads organisational, national and international learning projects, solving the problems of employee, student and civic disengagement; maximising our potential to be creative, innovative and fulfilled citizens. He’s also a professional musician and composer having performed all over the world and penned songs for the likes of Marianne Faithful.


​You can read more about the background and history of Musical Futures by clicking here

​If you’re a music teacher introducing Musical Futures, the chances are that you’ve encountered, at best, some scepticism, and at worst, outright hostility from some of your more traditionally-minded colleagues. As one of the founders of the approach, I’ve seen both - and continue to experience it, as someone who is passionate about bringing more innovation to education.

If you’re that teacher, then this post is by way of saying ‘courage, mon brave’ - the rewards, generally, far outweigh the risks.

To those of us working in education, the culture of innovation lived by Google, 3M and other tech-driven, silicon valley innovators  seems both fearless and enviable. Google’s failure rate runs at around 36% - 3M’s is 50%. How many of us would keep our jobs if half of what we tried didn’t work? How many of us are given generous amounts of time to experiment in our practice?

But accountability constraints alone can’t excuse those who want to put the brakes on change. Most  educators would acknowledge that, compared to the incredible rate of innovation over the past 150 years in science or industry, things move slowly in education – and it can’t be because we think it’s about as good as it gets.

Music teaching professionals can be some of the most conservative of educators. It’s partly to do with their training (many of them were trained at places solely designed to ‘conserve’ the traditions of the past). It’s also undeniable that, compared to literacy, numeracy and STEM, music is not under the kinds of pressure to improve student performance and subject to the pressures of high-stakes accountability. But, I firmly believe that there are different kinds of levers that we need to pull in music education, and different imperatives to innovate.

The origins of Musical Futures stemmed from a simple question: why is the most popular cultural activity for young people, the least opted for in school? And that alone was sufficient reason to innovate. But since its inception (2003) the whole social learning landscape has been transformed. As educators, we’re now in direct competition with the vast panoply of learning young people access socially and informally. And if we don’t find ways of integrating those informal learning approaches, into the classroom, if we don’t even acknowledge the ways in which young people can gain independence through informality,  we’re going to come off second best.

Reasons to be an innovation-blocker

When the Musical Futures model began to draw attention from other countries, I did the politically correct thing by saying that cultural contexts would need different approaches, and that student outcomes would probably be different. But, inside I was thinking, ‘kids are not that different all over the world, so this should work just the same, wherever you are’. The reality has been just that. In many countries, the impact on kids is pretty much the same, so we have to challenge orthodoxy, adopt some of the Google mindset, and keep everything in beta. Along the way you will encounter the nay-sayers and the blockers, although, thankfully, they are diminishing now that the approach has proven itself around the world. They can still make life difficult, however, and they will often put you in an exposed position of challenging ‘how we’ve always done it around here’. Let’s look at the blockers to innovation, and seek to understand the mindset that drives them.

First, there’s the dreaded ‘guinea-pig’ syndrome, where any attempt to try something new is met with ‘so you’re going to use these children as guinea-pigs in your experiment, are you?’  I’m baffled by this reaction (and parents and politicians are equally guilty here). How many medical breakthroughs would we have missed if people had refused to take part in clinical trials? More accurately, it’s not the patients who are refusing the clinical trial. Kids generally enjoy being part of a new initiative. It’s the self-appointed guardians of their interests that resist.

Second,  there’s the ‘not-invented here-syndrome’ . Most of the truly exciting innovations in education are trialled on the educational equivalent of the ‘terminally ill’: the students for whom nothing seems to be working.  But the treatment would work just as well on other students - yes, even the so-called gifted and talented. So, you’re allowed to experiment, but leave the high performers alone.

Then there are the ‘innovation gaps’ that prevent change. Sometimes they’re structural, other times, cultural: the constraints of disciplinary silos, or defending ’professional standards’. Most education innovations - as with Musical Futures - originate externally so it’s understandable that some music specialists would view attempts to change their established ways as implied criticism. Some innovation gaps  are managerial or personal – CEOs of innovative companies spend twice as much time personally involved in innovation, than their counterparts in less innovative companies, and the same can be true in education. With innovation you often have to model the change you wish to see, and that can be a scary proposition for middle and senior leaders. So, they choose to stay in their comfort zone.

Understanding the motivations of innovation blockers is helpful, but don’t let it become paralysing or, worse,  infectious. In recent years, we’ve rightly become suspicious of the ‘echo chamber’ effects of social media, but when you’re a lone innovator (as many Musical Futures teachers are) tapping into the incredible network of like-minded professionals can be hugely affirming. One of MF’s great achievements is the creation of a self-supporting network, so make the most of it.  

Publish then edit

Innovation in the knowledge economy has flipped 180 degrees. It used to be that new ideas had to be carefully refined before being made public - the process was ‘edit, then publish’. Not many are aware of Wikipedia’s predecessor - it was called ‘Nupedia’ and every article had to be peer-reviewed by a panel of (paid) academic experts. It took years before there were more than a couple of dozen articles reaching the global audience. Then Wikipedia reversed that process, deciding to ‘publish, then edit’, and knowledge was democratised overnight. I believe that flipped mindset - put your ideas out there, and let your peers improve them - is needed if education is to meet the demand for transformation in a VUCA (volatile, unpredictable, complex and ambiguous) world.

Which is where Google come in. They’ve created a culture whereby ‘everything is in beta’: ideas, projects, and products are never ‘finished’. Instead they’re reviewed, critiqued, amended and improved. Continuously. Publicly. The point at which their ideas embark on a very public quality improvement cycle gets earlier and earlier. They do so because they believe that the more eyes, and hands, are involved, the quicker it gets to the point of acceptance by the public. People engaged in the process accept that mistakes will happen, bugs, crashes are inevitable, but it’s actually quite empowering to be a part of that improvement process.

Google’s founding ethics were:

• make mistakes well
• be honest
• be transparent
• collaborate
• remember life is a beta project too

...and there’s much we can learn from that.

I write this after running a training session for teachers in Sydney. When I asked a young teacher how she would design an assessment mechanism that would value the importance of collaboration, she looked at me with a look I can only describe as terror-stricken: “But it’s not my job to set assessment strategies”, she said. This is how far we have removed the responsibility for the design of learning from teachers. But the pendulum is starting to swing back in the other direction, and increasingly teachers are reclaiming their professional autonomy.

Accountability frameworks don’t recognise innovation as a yardstick to be measured. So, education systems tend to value compliance , conformity, even complacency, above experimentation. But, to simply continue teaching the way that we ourselves were taught – when the world is changing so quickly – is to be immobilized by fear. If you’re not innovating, if you’re not constantly challenging yourself to create new learning experiences for your students, then you’re not doing your job properly.

Why shouldn’t music education always be in beta?

It was great to welcome teachers from across Victoria to the first of our workshops to launch a new pilot with Trinity College London this week at Footscray West Primary School in Melbourne.

In 2018 Trinity College London and Musical Futures Australia will be working in partnership to develop new resources and approaches for music learning, bringing together teachers from the Musical Futures Australia communities with the aim of engaging more students with music for longer.

The two organisations share a deep commitment to ensuring that musical learning is always a powerful and personal experience for young people. Through Musical Futures’ focus on pupil agency in music teaching and learning, and Trinity’s commitment to nourishing young people’s musical identities through creative and personalised musical assessment opportunities, the project aims to explore what happens when informal learning and examinations meet in the classroom – and what this can offer young people and their teachers.

During the course of the next year the two organisations will be working together and with teachers and students across Australia. Integrating Musical Futures' tried and tested pedagogical practices and approaches to informal learning, with Trinity’s exciting new Rock & Pop 2018 syllabus songs and award-winning practice app, Play Trinity Rock & Pop, teachers and students will be immersed in creative live and digital musical experiences.

The partnership aims to encourage the development of a broad range of musical skills and understanding, which can be celebrated through the assessment of their musical progression against Trinity’s robust assessment framework.


We look forward to following our pilot teachers as they start to explore the new Rock & Pop 2018 materials with their classes.

What do you get when you put a group of music teachers from America, Australia, the UK, Brazil, Scotland, Kazakhstan, Trinidad and Tobago and Malaysia in a Mexican restaurant? Well it's Musical Futures China of course! Massive thanks to Russell and the team at Xiamen International School for having us for 2 fantastic days of workshops.

We spent 3 fun-packed days working with students at GEMS World Academy Singapore to prepare for performances at Arts Week. Working with grades 2-7 we explored a huge range of music, performing, singing and composing. Many thanks to Daniela, Tracy, Chris and staff for making us so welcome!

Our January workshops began with 2 days of workshops at Nexus International School Singapore, hosted by Clare Lambert and her team. It was great to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Thanks so much to everyone who took part!

Our Talk less Play More in 2018 campaign has been running now for a month and it has been great to see posts sharing video and photos  of music making in classrooms across social media. have a look at the #talklessplaymore hashtag  on Twitter or Instagram to get a flavour of what has been shared. Our Musical Futures Australia and Canada chat groups have been discussing what #talklessplaymore looks and sounds like in practice and in particular we love this comment from primary teacher Michelle Lewis in Adelaide;

”Since #talklessplaymore I have started my lessons by not  giving them a 20 minute lecture to start them off (I like to talk!) but instead I have left any instructions they need on the screen so they just walk in, read then start! It has been awesome and avoided a lot of behavioural problems from kids who don’t like to sit and listen

They come to me if they want more info but most of the time they help each other and I just hover and advise. I’ve definitely found that they are much more able than I thought they were!!”

The campaign has several aims. 

It grew from some work we did recently in China with teachers with whom we shared no spoken language at all. It challenged us as trainers and teachers - because we couldn’t talk we had to communicate our aims and learning points through playing. This was a reminder of how powerful it is to learn through music making, experiential and student led which has always been at the heart of Musical Futures.

Musical Futures is about understanding the variety of different ways to learn music and helping teachers to think about this and how that might change the way they work. Being aware that how we learned as teachers may not be the only or best way to teach students is a key part of our practical workshops where teachers come along and experience some of the pedagogy from the position of the learner. This means playing, singing, working together and then the chance to reflect on how they might use these approaches back in the classroom.

We want to stay close to the pedagogies that are important to Musical Futures, to recognise the new research into popular music education that continues to be shared and to encourage teachers to think about how and why they teach music.

We have always loved the community and the ethos of sharing that grew out of our 2013 Find Your Voice open online pilot.

It is important that Musical Futures doesn’t lose the richness of our Take, Use, Innovate, Share ethos so we want to refocus on what’s important- the music students make in the classroom.

We know teachers and schools are a little more open now to social media. 

So we would love to hear music from classrooms round the world, whether you use Musical Futures or not to nurture that global community of teachers and educators who have come together around Musical Futures and continue to support the organisation to keep fresh and original whilst staying true to the roots that it has grown from across the last 10 or so years.

I work at a small international school of about 450 kids. We do the IPC In primary, KS3, IGCSE and IB and our students come mostly from Korea and Vietnam. 

Playing instruments in this region of the world is supported by most parents in some cases very strongly. I have students in year 12 who are working on concertos for their instruments. The downside however is that after a certain period many end up going to business schools and never touching an instrument again.
 
Music and Drama were 1 subject before I arrived and I have been slowly building up the KS3 curriculum for music. When I worked in the UK I found the schemes of work very enriching and interesting but the time frame to deliver them was a little unrealistic. In 6 lessons I was supposed to teach students about blues and jazz and then move on.

In the international school setting I have no Ofsted to worry about so I can take my time. For example I have just spent an entire term with year 8 doing blues and Jazz. They can improvise confidently and they can hear the changes very well and they composed their own blues lyrics.

With year 9 I also spent a whole term doing music for films. The quality of the work is so much better when we have time to feedback and make changes a few times.
 
I will be head of creative and performing arts next year which I am really excited about. One of my curiosities will be to look at more Musical Futures in KS3 and also to see whether there are similar approaches to Musical Futures in design, visual arts and theatre. I’m a strong advocate for cultivating informal learning. When designed well, informal learning leads to lifelong learning which is more than a buzzword in international education, it’s what students need in order to adapt in the 21st century information-frenzied environment.
 
Felipe Nurmi is Secondary Music, Global Perspectives and Student Voice Co-ordinator at Renaissance International School in Vietnam.

Blog:  felipe79.edublogs.org
Renaisound (school radio station): https://soundcloud.com/user-555801284

If you would like to share your Musical Futures story, please email info@musicalfuturesinternational.org

Anna will be joining the Musical Futures International delivery team for our forthcoming workshops in 2018​

In my recent blog post I reflected on skills and knowledge in the music curriculum and in this one I aim to continue the theme of stripping the debate right back to the real core components of music teaching and learning.

One of the true core elements of any musical experience, of course, is the music. But what place does 'the music' occupy in music education and more specifically how music is taught and learned?

One thing I have always wondered as a teacher is whether it is possible to teach music only through music making? What if you couldn't lecture or explain and there were no power points or worksheets to support? What if we really did talk less and play more in music lessons? How might practice need to change?

In October 2017, as guests of The China Musical Instrument Association, Best Friends Music and Culture and Dalian Fuyin Music I was part of the Musical Futures International team delivering workshops to teachers in China. The delegates were instrumental teachers, some were working in retail stores in Shanghai and others were teachers from a music school in Dalian with a focus on Rock and Pop teaching to individuals. Most had little or no experience of playing or teaching in groups.

We ran 4 workshops with 3 different groups, each with around 30-35 participants. We had a few translated materials, a translator (who was not a musician!) and perhaps one or two people out of each with some understanding of English (bearing in mind that understanding the words didn't always translate into understanding the concepts and meaning behind those words).

To make things harder, the generally understood non verbal gestures or assumed cultural understanding around music teaching and music making that I so rely on weren't there either.

For this reason, China felt like the most 'foreign' place I have been to. And I had a job to do without any of the tools that have become such a key part of how I teach.

I had always wondered, is it really possible to communicate both musical skills and understanding of key concepts and approaches when the language, experiential and cultural divide is so wide?

How would I need to flex and respond, adapt my approach to keep everyone engaged, make sure they understood what to do, get them playing instruments they had never played in ways they had never played music before and communicate the key messages of the workshop-all things I do all the time, yet always with the safety net of being able to stop, explain and move on.

The critical moment came during the 4th of the 4 workshops. Suddenly there was a shift in the room and we all clicked discernibly into mutual understanding.

It happened while we were playing.

All we had in common was the music and all of the learning had to start from that mutual common ground we felt as we played together. Then by stripping back any explanation or teaching points to the simplest key points through the interpreter we found our rhythm together.

It wasn't about skills and it wasn't about knowledge or assessment or selling a resource. It was about making a perceptible shift together towards something. It was amazing. It truly felt that we were 'starting from the music' and it happened because the default tools of my trade weren't there to get in the way of that.

From this experience came 2 new key areas for Musical Futures International to consider in relation to the teacher development work that the organisation delivers across the world. 

1. How can the organisation support teachers to #talklessplaymore?
2. How can teacher professional development workshops truly help teachers to explore the key aim of the organisation (lifted from the home page of the website and used on the opening slide of the presentation used in China) ?

"There are many different ways to learn music. 
We help teachers to think differently about how and why they teach it."

And a few more general questions:

1. When we say start with the music, which music? Music they choose or music that is chosen for them? Music that teaches something or music that is enjoyed purely for the experience? 'My music', 'your music' or 'our music'? Where in this conundrum does the notion of a 'broad and balanced' curriculum fit?

2. What skills, knowledge, experience, confidence and support might teachers need to deliver music teaching that is solely based on 'the music'?
​
3. Finally, what might the benefits be for teachers and students to learn music in this way?
In the absence of any video of that key moment (because I was too busy doing it to film it!), there is a playlist of little moments captured throughout the trip.

​To finish, I have chosen a couple of photos that sum up the experience for me.

This teacher caught my attention throughout the workshops because I could see on his face everything from total bafflement when he tried to play ukulele for the first time to that lightbulb moment of shared understanding. We couldn't discuss it, talk it over, I have no idea how he felt after the workshops, I don't know his name.
​
But I will always remember his journey across the 2 days that we worked together and I wonder if he felt the same as me in that moment where we realised that playing, exploring, creating and 'doing' music truly does bring people together.

Anna Gower worked for over 18 years as a classroom music teacher, Advanced Skills Teacher, Head of Department and Head of Community Music linking primary and secondary students and teachers through music projects and events.

As a freelance music education consultant and in various roles for Musical Futures UK, Anna has delivered keynote presentations, workshops and supported the work of many organisations including Music Mark, ISME OMEA, SAME, Little Kids Rock and The BBC as well as working with Music Education Hubs across the UK.

Anna's most recent role before joining the team at Trinity College London, where she now works as Lead Academic-Music, Europe, was as Head of Training for Musical Futures UK.