Passion – let young people lead the way in music education

Photo thanks: Chris Dawson and Audio Active, St David’s Hall, Cardiff.

“The number of young people opting to take GCSE and/or A Level music is reducing; music-making activities in school time are being squeezed yet music in all its forms continues to be made and listened to outside school by the large majority of young people (A Youth Music survey of 1,000 7-19 year olds across England reported that 90% of them liked listening to music, but only 37% of the same age group had reported making music in the past three months).”

“Music is being consumed and created in ways that are unrecognisable from twenty years ago. In many ways, this puts the ‘consumer’ in charge and the industry has adapted accordingly. Should music education be doing the same?”

In this insightful and perhaps provocative blog, Director of Youth Music (the charity that uses music to transform the lives of disadvantaged young people), Matt Griffiths distills some of the areas of disconnect between music education and many young people into three key areas:

Definitions
Lack of shared purpose
Supply rather than demand led

It’s an important blog worth acting upon and all of us can do our bit. Will you?