Music and Me

What soundtracks accompany your students’ lives? If you don’t know, or haven’t talked about it in class, they could be missing out on benefits that last a lifetime, says Dr Ruth Herbert...

Lola, age 11, doesn’t have instrumental lessons anymore. She does sing (reluctantly) at school, but says it’s not her ‘sort of thing’. Lola is passionately interested in music. Her eyes shine as she tells me about it. “Well, my mum comes from Slovakia, so she listens to folk music… I would dance around with her when I was young. Dad listens to Rock and Goth – weird music! Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don’t. He finds new songs – things I like ...he generally does the downloading. Other times I just hear about songs from my friends, and sometimes if I just switch on to VIVA. I don’t go on YouTube apart for dance moves. I listen to loads of stuff… mainly for happiness and energy. Having music there – it brightens me up and makes me braver.”

I ask her whether her classroom music teacher knows about all this. She shakes her head. After a pause, she stares at me curiously. “Why?”

It’s a good question – one I’ve been giving a lot of thought. Why does valuing and sharing the ways in which children experience music matter? Well, in answer to Lola, I have some suggestions.

The prime way we connect with music is emotional, not intellectual. It’s the way it makes us feel that compels us to continue making and listening to it. Talking about our musical experiences is part of that process, and it can help to develop emotional intelligence. Music education specialist Susan Hallam maintains that most music education curricula are overly focused on skills acquisition. Music provides a forum for young people to get to know and manage their emotions, understand the way other people might feel, and to explore their own self-identity.

Added to this, music is good for us. Research shows music offers positive health and wellbeing benefits throughout our lives. There are helpful and harmful uses of music so it makes sense to encourage healthy listening habits early on. Evidence suggests that if children don’t develop a musical identity as a player or listener whilst at school, they’re likely to lose interest and miss out.

The sharing of everyday music experiences also provides an entry point for children to think about healthy use of the internet and social media. It’s happened very quickly: Facebook 2004, YouTube 2005, Twitter 2006, WhatsApp 2009, Instagram 2010. There may be watershed ages for some of these platforms (e.g. 13 for Facebook and Instagram, 16 for WhatsApp); however, the reality is that many children begin using them, unguided and in secret, far earlier.

The music experiences of tweens and teens

I’m currently leading the young people and music project, a three-year nationwide research study based at the University of Oxford, which explores how 10 to 18-year-olds engage with music. Young people from across the country have been informally interviewed, kept diaries of their music experiences, completed online questionnaires and taken part in an online study of music listening. All this is helping us to build up a fascinating picture of the often hidden and strictly private musical worlds of teens and tweens.

Our findings reveal music to be a significant element in the daily lives of 10 to 18 year olds, whether or not they learn an instrument or consider themselves musical. Of the young people we questioned, 80 per cent rated daily engagement with music as ‘quite important’ or ‘very important’. Nearly 90 per cent owned their own music collection and over 70 per cent shared a music collection with family. Over 70 per cent also shared music with friends. Nearly 90 per cent regularly used YouTube to listen to music.

It comes as no surprise that children’s most common use for music was to help them feel excited and energetic. However, the top four musical experiences also included using music to cut off from negative thoughts, pressures, activities and surroundings. In this instance, music was either used to escape emotion (described as ‘zoning out’) or to generate fantasy – making up stories or dreaming about life.

On average 10-12 year olds had begun listening to music on mp3 players in Year 4 and on phones in Year 5 – far earlier than the 15-18 year olds in our sample, who had typically acquired mp3 players and phones on the transition to secondary school. The top three preferred musical styles among 10-12 year olds were chart pop, film themes and rap/hip
hop.

Sam, aged 9 3⁄4, was one of many young people we interviewed and his testimony provides a typically vibrant snapshot of children’s musical life outside of school:

“This morning I listened to my new favourite song, 212 (Clean Version) by a new rapper called Azealia Banks. When I’m listening to Azealia Banks the music flows through me and I can’t help but express it by dancing or working the chords out on the piano. I also rap along to her music. There is a song by her called Bambi. I want to learn it but she talks so fast I don’t know what she says! This does matter. I like to know what she says. I looooooooooove rapping.

“Every single morning I listen to music. Usually on my CD player in the front room. Always before school if there’s time. I always dance and rap. It’s really important. If I don’t have time to listen to music I get angry. If I dance before school it makes my day better. It wakes me up, switches me on to the day and gets me in a good mood. I listen to different tracks but usually it’s loud clubby pop dance. I feel like I NEED to dance. ...I do the same thing when I come home from school. I have a drink and a piece of toast and then I listen to music and dance… Dancing IS my best way of concentrating on music. Pop music. It just is the best way for me to feel it and express it.”

Opportunities for teachers

How can this feed into classroom teaching? During our research we successfully trialled three ideas with children – you don’t need to be a music specialist to use them. All are relevant for exploring how music is created, produced and – importantly – used to communicate emotion.

* Sound snapshots

Ask students to list all the times they’ve heard music that day. How many pieces did they recognise? When did they notice music most?

* Sound design

Tell students to imagine they are designing a shop. They have to decide what it will sell, what it will look like and what sort of people will visit it. What music will go with their shop?

* Soundtrack

Films have soundtracks to add to the atmosphere and help tell the story. People often also use music to soundtrack their lives – walking to school, on the bus, at home. What would the students’ soundtracks sound like?

It’s easy to make assumptions about how the children we teach relate to music. Promoting positive everyday engagement with music brings benefits that last a lifetime. But nurturing this familiar, very personal connection needs more just skill acquisition – it requires us to recognise and talk about the ways we connect emotionally with music, and the ways in which music can become intertwined with our everyday lives.

About the author

Ruth Herbert is a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Music, Oxford. You can find out more about Experiencing Music on the website (experiencingmusic.com) or email Ruth at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Top 10 uses of music for children

* Multitasking - 86%

* For excitement - 85%

* Stopping boredom - 78%

* Changing mood - 72%

* Help thinking - 70%

* When feeling down - 68%

* Escape to different world - 67%

* Inspiring musical role models - 61%

* Feeling connected - 54%

* Block out silence - 52%