Music for education & wellbeing podcast [42] TRANSCRIPT: Professor Marcus Smith, co-founder of the Clem Burke Drumming Project

AH: Welcome to this episode of the podcast, and in this episode, I’m talking with Professor Marcus Smith, who’s co-founder of the Clem Burke Drumming Project, and also a professor at Chichester University. The project is researching the physical, mental and health benefits of drumming. Marcus co-founded the project with Dr Clem Burke, who’s known to many as the drummer with Blondie, and also with Professor Steve Draper of Hartpury University. We were first in touch a few years ago when I published some of the project’s research into the benefits of drumming for autistic young people on our Music Education Works website. We’ve spoken before Marcus, but it’s taken a while for us to finally sit down together and record a chat. So I’m really pleased to welcome you, and thanks so much for coming on today.

MS: Thank you.

AH: So I’m usually interviewing people who have music in their job titles somewhere, but you’re actually a professor of Applied Sport and Exercise Science. Can you tell me a little bit about how you came to be working on a project about drumming and what the aims of the project are?

MS: Yeah. I mean, it’s been a crazy journey, really. It really combines two of my passions, which are sport and music. So from a very early age, I had a season ticket for my favourite football team, which is Aston Villa. And when the Villa used to play at home, I used to go to all the home games, but when they were away, I used to find myself with my friends going to Birmingham city centre to look around the music shops. And so the record shops became a real pilgrimage for me, sort of every other weekend. And on one of those occasions, when I was probably aged about 12, I came across this 12 inch record with this image of this incredible lead singer, and the artist was Debbie Harry and the band were the yet unknown band from America called Blondie. And the record cost me 75p which must have been a fortune back in the day. But it now sits on my university office wall as a reminder of where this sort of incredible journey began.

And I first saw Blondie play when I was 15 in 1980 at the Birmingham Odeon and I was struck by two things. Clearly, the beauty of Debbie Harry, she is an incredibly beautiful but very talented performer, and the energy of this drummer that was sitting behind her playing this incredible rhythm and beat that were and are the trademark of Blondie. And that’s Clem Burke. And so at the height of Blondie’s fame in the 1980s I had football trials with Manchester City. So this world of Blondie developing my pursuit of wanting to be a professional football player sort of all culminated to the point whereby Manchester City said to me, you’re not good enough, and my world fell apart. I’d only got two O-levels at school because my life’s dream had been, I want to be a professional football player.

And so throughout this journey, I reference inspirational people and my sister, Mel, who had always wanted to be a school teacher. She used to have so much homework compared to the little that I did, she became my inspiration to say, ‘Well, why don’t you consider going back into education?’. And I thought, well, where’s my hook? Why would I want to do that? And what I began spending my time considering was, ‘Well, they’re telling me I’m not good enough to be a professional football player. I’m going to go and study, I’m going to go to college, or I’m going to university and study. Well, what is it about me that I’m not good enough?’. So there was this personal interest that drove me back into education. And it was amazing to think, ‘Gosh, a couple of years ago, I didn’t want to do any education. Now I actually want to go to college and study sport’.

So I went to the West Sussex Institute of Higher Education back in the day, in 1984, I went and did a BA Sport Studies programme, and I met perhaps the most important person in my academic life who became a mentor and a true friend and guide to me. That was Professor Tudor Hale. And Tudor Hale was this visionary person that taught me that if you have a vision, if you’re passionate, if you’re willing to surround yourself with people more knowledgeable than you, then potentially you can do extraordinary things. And I owe a great debt of gratitude to him. He then allowed me, or introduced me to the Olympic boxing group in 1987 and I worked with the Olympic boxing team as a sports scientist until about 2004.

And so I went to two Olympics, the Seoul Olympics and the Barcelona Olympics. And during that time, I developed a model of looking at how you analyse elite performance, and that was part of the PhD I completed at Chichester in 1998. It was the same year that Blondie reformed. So 1998 was a big, big year for me. And I’ve gone and thought, ‘So how do these two worlds collide? What happens next?’. So I thought I’m going to write a letter to Clem Burke, the drummer out of Blondie, asking him, would he be interested in the model that I developed in sports? Could I apply to him when he’s drumming, and over the course of the world tour, and Clem got back to me, said, ‘Yeah, let’s meet up’.

So we met at Wembley Arena, and it’s one of those occasions whereby that comment of never meet your heroes was ringing through my ears. Because I was in a room, and I could hear Clem and Debbie Harry walking up this corridor, and it dawned on me. ‘What happens if he doesn’t like me and I don’t like him, all of this baggage that I’ve had as a kid, I would just reinterpret in a different way?’. Anyway, we got on really well, and what sort of set out as a one-off became this thing that grew and grew and grew into the Clem Burke Drumming Project, which was formed in 2008. And in that environment, the journalists started to compare the physicality of Clem with Premier League football players. And that story became a global story, which therapists around the world who were using drumming as an intervention were saying, ‘Yes, we use it. It works, but we’re not quite sure how it works’. So that sort of began to make us question a little bit about, ‘Well, what is it that’s unique about drumming that leads to those behavioural changes?’.

So in 2009 we presented some data at the Cheltenham Science Festival, and we were challenged to say, ‘Okay, what is it then about drumming that alters the brain, and what are the consequences of that?’. So we then set out on a sort of a decade’s worth of research. We got money in 2015 from the Waterloo Foundation to undertake the first magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies, and ever since then, we’ve been doing that programme of work and developing a six week programme, drumming programme, that we take into schools. All of this work stemmed from just writing a letter to somebody and asking them, ‘Are you interested in collaborating?’. So anybody who’s listening to this, who’s often thought, ‘I’d love to go and do this, or I’d love to go and do that’. The first point is to reach out, because the worst thing that can happen is somebody is to say no. The best thing is they say yes, and you’re on an incredible journey of discovery.

AH: That’s such a fantastic lesson for all of us, isn’t it? Most people are always open for a chat, aren’t they? You know, whoever they are.

MS: Yeah, one of the first conversations I had with Clem I said to him, ‘So what do you want your legacy to be?’. And he looked at me a little puzzled, because he was like, ‘Well, the back catalogue of Heart of Glass will call me, and isn’t that enough?’. I said, ‘No. What else do you want to be known for?’. And again, we started a conversation. We’ve got an opportunity to potentially demonstrate the health benefits of drumming, and wouldn’t it be nice to have a parallel legacy? And so that’s where the Clem Burke Drumming Project really has got its roots. In the fact that, you know, we want to do stuff that is meaningful, and when we do the MRI work, that’s the sexy science stuff that academics get interested about. For me, if it was to just stay an academic exercise, it’s a waste of time. It has to have some application back for people who potentially might benefit from that.

And that’s where the work in schools is really, really exciting to me. It is a true collaboration. We do want to develop networks around the country, whereby, you know, we can share the research findings, but more importantly, listeners can shape where we go in the future. And so it is this true partnership that you know, the value of having podcasts with yourself is to just heighten that awareness, to say, look, you know, if this is something that’s of interest, then let’s have a conversation.

AH: And that’s one of the things that’s really impressed me about the project. Often I’m having to really work hard through the Music Education Works website to find some of the research that’s around about all sorts of application of music to wellbeing or education. So I often have to dive quite deep to actually get access to the research, because obviously, the for many researchers is not a priority, really, to communicate their findings to people who can apply it like the listeners to this podcast. So I’ve been really impressed watching you the last few years and how you’ve used all forms of tools to communicate the project and the findings. We’ll come on to that a little bit later. But you’re really good at forming partnerships as well. So obviously, the project has grown from being just you and Clem to also your partner in Hartpury University. So if you can tell me a little bit about that and about the other partners that are involved, so there are other drummers, there are academics, there are associates, so kind of corporate partnerships.

MS: Yeah. So in the same way, you have a band of musicians, I suppose what’s grown is a band of academics. And there are times where, depending upon the expertise of that particular discipline, one of these academics will step up and lead on a project. So Clem I’ve clearly outlined, you know, my first contact with him was back in 1998. I remember that in that I wrote the letter and didn’t really say anything, and then my wife, Sharon said, ‘Oh, there’s a phone call for you. It’s Blondie’s management’. And I’d sort of looked at it with a wry smile, and it was and so we always have a giggle about whenever the phone goes at home, ‘Oh, is that Blondie’s management again, is it? ‘.

But with Steve. Then, Steve was an undergraduate at University of Chichester, and then went on to do a PhD there. Very clever guy, and I examined, I was one of the examiners of his PhD thesis. So what I was able to do then with the projects that I’d got going, with the boxing work and the drumming work, then Steve was a really important colleague to have on board to help develop the ideas grow and the expertise. And so in 2008 there was Clem, Steve and myself that were the co-founders of the Clem Burke Drumming Project. And Steve, in his academic career is now, now is at Hartpury  University, and he’s a professor, an academic dean for research and knowledge exchange. So Steve’s position of influence was sort of within that community, within that area, far reaching. Really, those were the first two.

And then Clem’s always said that the project was more than just about him. It had to involve other drummers and other personnel. So we first reached out to contacts that we had. So Matt Tong from Block Party, Darren Mooney at Primal Scream, Mark Richardson at Skunk Anansie just spent a little bit of time with Mark. Mark is an unbelievable drummer, musician and sort of human being, in a way, in terms of his recognition, of teaching me about vulnerability and about allowing me time in the space that he occupies as a musician, and then allowing me into that world. So when Clem’s in LA and doing all the stuff with Blondie and other projects, because Mark’s UK based, he really is a strong advocate of what we do. And some of the videos that you will see will feature Mark. We’ve done some stuff with Robin Guy, again, that’s some Sham 69 content.

So a real spread of sort of backgrounds of drummers, but perhaps what the listeners are probably more aware of is the Drumathon with Owain Wyn Evans. So there was a group of us that were integral to preparing Owain, supporting him during the event and post event, in terms of raising £4 million for BBC Children in Need. And raising that amount of money was incredible, but it gave us a great platform to communicate with the general public about the project itself. So Clem was beamed in from LA, I did a couple of interviews with some of the drum tutors that have worked on some of the projects. So it’s been awesome having that breadth of drummers. And currently I’m collecting data with Cat Myers.  Texas are doing a UK arena tour, so I’ve done two data collection with Cat so far, and we’re interested in looking at the female drummer.

So those drummers, you know, without them, we would be a million miles off in terms of what we actually try and present back in the school. The other key academics, so Ruth Lowry soon to become a professor at Ulster University. She has a sport and exercise psychology background, and she was part of the team that went into Barnum Primary School back in 2010 and helped collect the behavioural change data and the wellbeing data within those particular pupils. So as I mentioned about the band of academics, if it has a focus on sort of the psychological side, the health and wellbeing and behavioural change, then Ruth tends to lead on those projects. A key person is Professor Steve Williams, who’s Head of Neuroscience at King’s College London. Steve is a world leading neuroscientist, and I’m very privileged that he gives me time to work in his institution, accessing the talented group of research that that drive the projects forward. So in the past, we’ve had sort of Dr Ali Ahmed, Dr Muriel Brousage, and currently Doctor Marie Stephanie Kayhart, who is the author of the latest paper that we got out linking autism and drumming and potentially the benefits for that group. So those are sort of the scientists.

But always you need an inspiration, I think, with any area. So again, if the listeners are part of a school network, there might be someone in that school that you look at and you just admire their qualities. So for me, there’s a Professor Greg White, and Greg White supports all of the celebrities when they do these challenges for Children in Need. An incredible academic as well, but he’s a big advocate for our work, and to me, inspires me to be a scientist and to be a better version of myself.

And then just if I can, just finish off with some of the associates within the drumming community, because if we don’t take the drumming community with us, then again, we’re missing an opportunity to share the message. So when the project started, we had absolutely nothing. And Tina Clark, who Clem put me in contact with was a great supporter, providing some of the equipment that we would use. Dave Phillips at DW drums, again, Dave was an advocate right from the beginning in 2008. David Barnard at Roland, when we first got going, he had an education focus. Louise King at Rhythm magazine, she helped share the message to the drumming community. And Jules Tabria Stewart, who’s at Roland. We’ve used Roland drum kits for all of the studies that we’ve done, and so there’s a massive thank you to Roland. You’ve clearly got the universities, again, a partnership with Chichester, Hartpury, Essex, Ulster and Kings.

But more importantly, I think it’s the support from the schools themselves, where we go to run the projects. So the starting point has to be to have an open minded head teacher or principal. So back in the day of the Barnum study, Julie Hodgson was just awesome with me. Lynn Dance at the Milestone school in Gloucester. Again, similar for Steve, providing a fantastic environment to collect that data. Anya Hildrey at Abbot’s Lea school in Liverpool, and interestingly, we’re just about to start a piece of work at a Thames Valley School, which is part of the Liberty Trust Academy. Dr Nicola Crossley, I’ve had communication with her over a period of time. And we said, ‘Well, let’s look to run a project in your school’. So with the support of Gemma Buli, who’s the Principal, and Chrissy Johnson, who’s the Assistant SENCO and wellbeing lead, we’re going to start a project running out this six week experience, culminating in a concert that the pupils will give. That’ll be an awesome thing for us to do. Last year at the Royal Society Summer Science exhibition we spent a week there sharing our research findings, and the Royal Society have invited us to present this coming October, between the 18th and 24th at the Manchester Science Festival. So if any listeners are around Manchester and want to come and visit us, please come along and say hello.

And then the final group are the charities. The Waterloo Foundation gave us funding, Youth Music, Barnwood Trust and BBC Children in Need. So there’s a whole variety of individuals that, again, have contributed. So the attraction for me to come and speak to you and your listeners is the fact that we do want to collaborate. We’re really interested in your experiences, your observations, ideas, and that will help shape the programme as we move forward.

AH: A really varied community of interest and community of practice then. It’s really interesting to hear how many people have got involved and the momentum it’s created. Obviously listeners to this podcast will be particularly interested in the area of research that looks at benefits of drumming. Your research sort of started off by sort of looking into what actually goes on physically and mentally when professional drummers drum, and the kind of comparison with elite sports people. And I know this is really tricky, but in quite a short summary, can you give me a brief overview of the benefits of drumming research from a kind of music education perspective, and what the key findings are? I know it’s difficult to boil that down, so I will signpost listeners to your website.

MS: Yeah. So if we start off maybe from a neuroscience perspective, what we were interested in is brain plasticity. So that’s the ability of the brain to change when it’s challenged, perhaps to perform a new task like learning to drum. We call it sort of fine tuning of the brain, so where the connections between different brain regions become enhanced or improve. So, for example, the mirror neuron system sort of is implicated in neurocognitive functions such as social cognition, language, empathy. So that’s of interest to us in terms of if we can demonstrate that learning to drum somehow rewires or fine tunes the brain, that potentially will have some behavioural outcome differences or changes, that’s of interest. And again, some of our research is demonstrating that that’s taken place.

If we look at the physical improvements, then if we focus in on fine and gross motor control, then what we’re able to demonstrate is clearly increased dexterity. And so in terms of life skills, then daily tasks such as holding a pen, brushing your teeth, getting dressed, those behavioural changes, parents have responded back to us to say that since they’ve been holding a pair of sticks, actually going through the rudiments of playing, having something to physically hold and manipulate. Then, you know, I remember one Mum coming to me almost in tears, saying, ‘Do you realise, at the end of this six weeks, this is the first time that my child’s been able to brush all of their teeth?’. And so we didn’t set the programme up, because that’s what we wanted to find. But it’s a beautiful example of by capturing that part of the data collection of what’s happening back at home. Does it demonstrate value in the classroom, and does that carry over into lifestyle adaptations back at home? That’s a beautiful example of that. And in the same way with an individual becoming more independent by being able to dress themselves, doing buttons and stuff like that. They sound very simple tasks, but if that’s a really limiting life skill that we can potentially develop because of a byproduct of that individual having fun just for a number of weeks playing an instrument, then that’s quite profound on me.

But then clearly the psychological improvements. Then, you know, we’ve been able to capture that. We see reduced impulsive behaviour, improved mood regulation, effective anger management, improved anxiety control, increased friendship groups, increased self-esteem. And again, one of the beautiful examples of that is one of the test sort of data collection that we do is we map the pupils friendship group when they start, and we map that at the end six weeks later. And what you see is like a mushrooming or an expansion of these connections that more different children want to have a conversation about the experience that that person has had on the drum kit. Because others know that the drums are in the school that they’re not involved in. They want to know. They want to find out. And therefore what we create almost is a currency within the classroom. These individuals are rich in currency, and other people want them to spend time describing what the activity was. And so again, it’s a really nice example whereby not only does that friendship grow amongst their peers, but the confidence to talk to adults in the classroom, whether that’s the teacher or teaching support or whoever else may come in. And again, we’ve got data to demonstrate that there is this increase in self- esteem, friendship, and some might say perhaps you’d get that with any other task, and that might be the same, but drumming such a cool activity. All the kids want to have a go. Yeah, we think there’s something quite unique about playing the drums.

And the awesome bit, from my perspective, is most children have not done it before. So it’s unlike a sport, maybe where, if it’s a physical sport, the biggest or the strongest will always win or be most competitive. That doesn’t happen with the drums, because it’s all about limb co-ordination. And so it’s a fantastic leveller that you can have the most quiet, reserved person who becomes a Rock God, because you can turn the volume up on their kit, and that is so rewarding for that individual. So yeah, those are sort of the neuroscience, the physical and the psychological benefits, but also just once you become proficient and competent.

So the data we’re collecting with Cat during the Texas story, is just a reminder to me, when I was looking at the data last night, that when you’re getting heart rates of 160/170 beats per minute, it’s a very similar to workout, to going for a jog or to going on your bike. So that whole obesity agenda, which we’ve done some preliminary work looking at childhood obesity, but using drumming as a novel task. If someone’s obese, and you give them free swimming lessons, there’s going to be a difficulty in them potentially taking that up. But you sit them behind a drum kit, and you’re able to let them loose on the kit, and you watch the heart rates go up, then potentially, that’s what you’re after. You’re looking at an increase in energy expenditure.

So again, the drums could be looked at as an activity modality in a different way, depending upon what the research question is. But the bottom line for me is everything that we do has to be based around having fun. So although kids want to get involved, but without realising it, they’re doing a whole variety of things that ultimately will be beneficial to them.

AH: Such a range of benefits, and I love those ones that are kind of unexpected. I suppose we know that drumming is a physical activity, but you don’t tend to, I suppose as a music educator, you didn’t necessarily think about that aspect. And also that aspect of currency, you know, almost you’re improving their social capital by them being involved in this quite unique experience. And it’s something that then they can talk about to other kids, and, yeah, some amazing benefits there. And one of the really important things is that intrinsic motivation that can potentially have implications for their wider learning, I guess. If they’re happier in school, if they’re motivated to improve skills in one area, it may lead on to being able and more confident to think, you know, I am a learner, and I can learn, I can improve in my skills.

MS: We had a lovely example at one of the schools whereby we had a young girl who got cerebral palsy, and she was sitting at the kit, and we were just doing the basic countdowns of 1, 2, 3, 4, and off you go. And the head teacher walked past and just stopped and he looked at the girl, and she’s going, 1, 2, 3, 4. The girl had never counted out loud to four in her life, and it was like masked within the playing was the learning.

Drumming and musicality has many attributes to it. It just depends upon what application you want it to perform. I go into schools often, and I used to say, ‘Hi, I’m Marcus. This is a Clem Burke Drumming Project. This is what we offer. This is what we do’. And I don’t do that anymore. I go into the head teacher’s and I say, ‘So what’s the biggest problem in your school?’. And they might say it’s non-returners, it might be anger management, it might be the pressure from social media for pupils to conform in a certain way, especially girls. I say, ‘I’ve got an answer to that or let’s try something novel with that. Why don’t we introduce drumming?’. And there is this a bit of a look. And then when you begin to explore some of the ways in which, for example, if you’ve got non-returners that aren’t coming back to school, you’re not going to entice them back by giving them extra Maths. But if you introduce something like rock drumming, and you’re able to embed, because most of the drumming is based upon counts and divisions of counts and all of that sort of stuff, you can all of a sudden be very creative within that space. And music, I think, offers opportunity, because most of us either have a favorite sporting activity or a favourite musician or band or type of music. And if you’re able to combine potentially both of those, then that’s got to be more attractive than just offering more dry subjects.

AH: It was the work around drumming and autism that sparked my interest initially, and I know that you’re carrying out specific work around that that’s developed. Can you tell me more about those areas of research? And also, actually a question I should have asked earlier, is that you’re talking a lot about young people who maybe have additional needs. Has most of your research been based around young people with additional needs? Because I know you’ve worked in Milestone school in Gloucester, which is a special school. Have you worked in mainstream primary schools as well as special schools?

MS: Yeah. So yeah, and I think it’s really important to stress that you don’t have to have a sort of a label to benefit from potentially or enjoy the benefits of drumming. But you’re right, most of our work has focused around autism, but just going back to your question about mainstream schools. So the Barnum study, that was in a mainstream school but had a unit in it that catered for those individuals requiring additional support. So we have gone in and again, part of that experiment required match control, so we had some who required additional support and some that didn’t. And again the benefits within both groups were important. But those with additional needs benefitted more. So yes, and their age range was about 7-8. When we did one of the MRI studies we’ve gone up to about 16 to 17 year-olds. And the reason we started out with autism was, again I mentioned the Waterloo Foundation, they put a call out as a charity for research bids linked in to autism and that came out just at that time whereby we’d been to the Cheltenham Science Festival, we’d started to think about, so what is it?, how does the brain adapt?

We had opportunity through the Waterloo Foundation to bid and that’s where they said, ‘OK, do a proof of concept piece in sort of healthy brains’, for want of a better phrase. We demonstrated that the brain does change, and then we recruited a group who had autism, and we put those into the scanner. We gave them the intervention, we scanned again and found that we had these changes again in their brains. So that gave us the impetus to then say, okay, so we know that they are a sensitive group in terms of having an EHC plan, so we need to just make sure that we can sort of deliver a programme that isn’t going to alienate the group that we want to study.

And at the beginning, we were starting getting feedback from teachers and SENCO’s thinking, well, this just won’t happen. It’s going to be too noisy, it’s going to be too disruptive. But if anything, it’s been quite the reverse. So being able to study those groups really hasn’t been too problematic, and it’s challenged often the schools to reconsider what these pupils can actually do given the right environment. So we began to be encouraged by the fact we could deliver it so either twice or three times a week, typically, the lessons last for about half an hour, and it’s non-disruptive to the school.

So we set up in a classroom because the Roland electronic kits are controllable, you can turn the volume up and down, or you can put headphones on. We video all of the sessions that we do, because we’re aware that communication can be verbal and non-verbal. So we had, again, an example from a school where we had two young girls in there, and one of the girls was sort of very much anxious before she went in and didn’t really communicate, didn’t smile. Then, after a couple of weeks, this girl was smiling, making eye contact with adults, and it was like a revelation to the SENCO that was in the room thinking this individual just come out of themselves, and they’ve come out of themselves, because we’ve created an environment whereby they’re probably safe, there’s a predictability, they know what’s going to happen, and that was awesome.

So I think creating a different environment whereby individuals can be vulnerable, can make mistakes, and the willingness, again, one of the biggest surprises to some of the SENCO’s was that pupils with autism was typically, if something doesn’t work, they give up. And so what we were seeing were quite the opposite, that they were making mistakes, they were sitting back, they were then going back to it and trying again. And so this resilience, in a way, this ability to try again at something that they’d failed in was very, very important to us. We’re only scratching the surface really in terms of understanding what’s going on. But from a scientist perspective, I think what we’re challenged to do is to do things different, is to try and think of questions that are relevant, questions that can potentially describe better that world that those individuals exist in, because that’s not a world that I exist in.

AH: It also sounds like what they call a strengths or asset-based approach, and it links really well the social model and the disability as well.

MS: Again, you’ve just triggered. So when we did, I keep going back to the Barnum school, but it was just just an incredible experience for me. When we first went in, I mentioned it was a mainstream school which had a unit, it was called The Orchard. And when we first went to the school, there was a young girl in a wheelchair that took herself off to reception because it was too noisy, it disturbed her. But week on week, she got nearer and closer and closer and closer to where we were doing the drumming. Till the last week she positioned herself at the kit and started to have a go. And everybody was like almost in tears, because this individual had just showed no interest. And if I’m ever mindful of why are we doing what we’re doing, it’s all about creating opportunities for individuals to flourish and grow.

AH: That’s a lovely way of describing it. Unfortunately, our time is coming to an end, and I’ve got a final question with you, which is more a communications question, which is that you’ve been, as I mentioned earlier, you’ve been really successful in sharing your research findings with the public and professionals who can use those findings, like my listeners. You’ve had a lot of media interest, you’ve presented at conferences and festivals and all sorts of other events. You’ve made partnerships, and there’s even an absolutely brilliant video in comic book style, animation style, which I absolutely love. So all of that storytelling and advocating is really impressive. And I wondered if you could finish by sharing some advice or tips for other researchers and evaluators or other people sort of evaluating their own work in schools, for example, about making sure that work reaches a wider audience where that learning can be applied.

MS: It’s really timely you should perhaps ask that question. So last week, I gave a presentation at the University of Chichester’s research conference on how to sort of disseminate your findings, your research findings. I suppose the key points for me is, who is your audience? So who are you targeting? What’s the message? Is there clarity in the message that you’re trying to share, and then clearly, which is the best format of sharing that information? So I think, as you mentioned, I’ve used a whole variety of different platforms of publications and conferences and books and magazines and podcasts and TV, even government post notes where you’re trying to influence political decisions, perhaps, but for me, you need to have somewhere to house all of that information. So we have a website, the Clem Burke Drumming Project website which has a Contact Us page. Anybody interested in anything that they’ve listened to today, then please do get in contact.

But I’ll leave you with one challenge for your listeners. If you’ve got something to share, my first challenge for you will be to write a summary of no more than 30 words. Once you’ve done that, I’d then ask you to cut it down to 10 words. And once you’ve done that, can you then cut that down to five words. I did this exercise when trying to describe what the Clem Burke Drumming Project was all about. And then all of a sudden, my son, Greg, come up to me and said, what you doing Dad? So I told him what I was trying to do. He just looked at me and said, it’s simple, it’s The Science Behind the Sticks. And so that strapline is now on the website, and that’s the hashtag that we use for all of the social media posts. So sometimes keeping things simple is often the best.

AH: Oh, I love that challenge, particularly as a communications practitioner, and I’m always working with my clients and working with myself to keep things brief. So that’s a fantastic point to end on. It’s been absolutely fascinating talking to you, Marcus, I’ve really enjoyed it. There’s so much more I’m sure that listeners will be curious about, so I’ll share links to your website and resources in the show notes, and I’ll end here just by saying thank you so much. It’s been really fascinating, and thank you for your inspiring work, and good luck with your next step.

MS: You’re most welcome. Thank you.