From 1950, primary school music was enhanced and supported by the ‘Singing Together’ programmes on BBC radio. Their use, along with a supply of gramophone records was highlighted in a 1950 inspection report for Lurgan Primary School. Music development
in another primary school in Co. Down – Ardmullan - could be traced over three
different inspection reports. Effective use of BBC programmes in music was being made (1958); provision of a piano would greatly help the teaching of singing (1959); and in 1970,
the response of senior pupils is free and friendly and the general tone is excellent. She (the Principal) stimulates an interest in music and the singing and recorder playing of the children is sweet,
tuneful and enthusiastic. (PRONI, SCG1/5/3)
It is possible that rural schools were more confident in their provision of music because a general inspection (1977) of the City of Belfast School of Music (CBSM) highlighted concerns regarding its role in primary schools. CBSM had been established in 1965 to provide a range of music services that included private instrumental tuition and support for music in primary schools in the city. The stated objective of the CBSM peripatetic primary-school qualified music teachers was “to help to ensure that as many pupils as possible develop a practical understanding of notation together with a love and experience of music”. This prime focus on standard notation led to a dependence culture amongst the generalist primary schools visited by the CBSM primary music peripatetic staff so that no additional schools could be accommodated. The report called for a review of the existing practice in order to make schools independent of outside help in classroom teaching (PRONI, ED/13/2/420). That inspector’s comments bring to mind Mills’ (1993) views on general and specialist music teaching in primary schools, referenced in Chapter 3 (Section 3.6).
The 1950s saw the growth of intermediate schools, but not necessarily curriculum expansion. For example, while a report on Linfield Intermediate School (1950)
commented positively on singing, sight-reading and aural training, (PRONI, ED 28/1/8), one report on the Christian Brothers’ School in Belfast four years later,(PRONI,
ED/28/1/1) found evidence of art in the curriculum, but not music. Similarly, an inspection of the Boys’ Model Intermediate School in the city (1964) regretted the small part that music played in the school’s curriculum (PRONI, ED/28/1/19). A further difference between music in city and rural schools was highlighted by the 1960 report on St Patrick’s Boys’ Intermediate School in Downpatrick which had been established in 1953 and shared its music teacher with the local girls’ intermediate school.
Commenting on her teaching style as “quiet and restrained” the boys were,
nevertheless, respectful and sang “with a pleasant forward tone” that demonstrated the teacher’s “good knowledge of voice production”. Although the scope of her work was limited by a lack of equipment in the school, “music appreciation was administered
in small doses making a vital contribution to the cultural life of the pupils ... the
teacher is to be congratulated upon her achievement in this school.” (Inspection Report on St Patrick’s Boys’ Intermediate School, PRONI, ED/28/1/15).
It appeared that not all boys disliked singing because a very positive Inspection Report was given for the Music teaching in Dungannon Royal Boys’ Grammar School (1954), one that provided evidence on how music teaching had developed. The class singing was good and songs were particularly suitable for boys, and while the singing was “of a rather hearty type, it is evident that the pupils enjoy this activity”. It was suggested that “voice production exercises might secure good forward tone and more critical sense of tonal values might be inculcated by means of antiphonal singing”. The inspector commented that one of his most pleasant impressions was the teacher’s “delightfully informal talks”. These included an excellent lesson on the function of valves on a brass instrument, biographical notes on composers and illustrations of their works “played on the piano”. He thought it a pity that the impact could not have been greater with an amplifier and records available (PRONI, ED/28/79/85).
A similarly positive report was written for the Rainey Endowed Grammar School in the same year where a graduate of the Royal School of Music (RSM) had been appointed. “His work regarding sight-reading and aural training is along sound modern lines”. Lessons on the instruments of the orchestra and music appreciation “are models of what such lessons should be”. Amplifier and records were used, and “a weekly hymn practice with the whole school ensures that music plays its proper part in the school’s corporate acts of worship” (Inspection Report on the Rainey Endowed Grammar School, PRONI, ED/29/1/30). Musical appreciation lessons were often supported not only through listening to available records and radio programmes, but also by television for those schools which were fortunate enough to have that facility. For example, in 1966, Independent Television had broadcast a series of programmes on ‘The Art of Music’ aimed at supporting classroom music for pupils aged 14+ years.
The 1960s were a period of societal flux and change across the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In NI, the rise of student protest and civil rights marches reached a climax, pre-empting, from 1969, the years of the ‘Troubles’ which were to form the background to educational provision and opportunity in the years ahead. The NI Government’s White Paper (1964) on ‘Educational Development in Northern Ireland’ included a
discussion on comprehensive education. On considering the financial and organisational implications of such a move for existing grammar schools and the newly-designed and purpose-built intermediate schools it was decided that it would be wrong to change the pattern of education established under the 1947 Act. The designation of schools as ‘intermediate’ was changed and, from that time onwards, they were to be called ‘secondary’ schools. The differences between grammar and secondary schools were to be reduced through the promotion of academic streams in the secondary schools (White Paper, 1964, p. 11, PRONI, CAB9D/1/23).
It was agreed that evidence on the education of 13-16 year-old pupils of average and below average ability in England and Wales (Newsom, 1963) was also relevant to NI. As in England and Wales, it provided impetus for the introduction of the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) examination, established by the Northern Ireland Education Amendment Act (1966). Operation of the examinations system, by the MoE, was devolved to the Schools Examination Council (1970) with a remit to set up two examination boards, one for the General Certificate of Education at Ordinary and Advanced levels (GCE ‘O’ Level and GCE ‘A’ Level) and one for the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE). In terms of procedures and standards, the newly
established GCE and CSE Boards had responsibility for developing examination syllabuses and assessment procedures that would be consistent with, and equal to, the existing boards in England and Wales. Newsom’s (1963) survey of music in English schools identified that music was not only “the most frequently dropped subject in the
curriculum, but also the only practical subject with a single period in the school week” (p. 140). It is possible that Newsom’s findings might also have represented music in NI when he noted that singing had led to an unduly narrow conception of the subject, resulting in a perceived lack of usefulness and prestige. Newsom (1963, p. 139) had also commented on adolescents’ out-of-school ‘self-education’ through their
enthusiastic engagement with 1960s popular culture; something that was identified by Rée (1981) and Hargreaves and Marshall (2003), as outlined in Chapter 3 (Section 3.5).
The remit of five Education and Library Boards (ELBs), established in 1972, was to secure provision for recreational, social, physical, cultural education and youth
services. Their free instrumental tuition supported school music and the development of ELB orchestras drawn from schools in the five different areas. The impact of popular culture was evidenced by an article in the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ newspaper (19.02.1975) which commented on school orchestras’ performances “whether they play Glenn Miller
like Down High School or Simon and Garfunkel like Methodist College”. By 1977 the same paper reported that the Southern Education and Library Board (SELB) was
providing instrumental tuition to almost 1,200 young people from forty primary schools and forty-one post-primary (secondary and grammar) schools. The contribution of the ELBs to music education through popular music was again acknowledged in a cutting from the ‘Belfast Newsletter’ newspaper (02.08.1978) which I found in Belfast Central Library. The unnamed reporter wrote about pop-music workshops funded by the North Eastern Education and Library Board (NEELB)
... where school kids are deftly bashing out Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin numbers, the possible beginnings of an enlightened attitude from Councils, through to headmasters that rock and roll is no sinful indulgence. The child has the right to choose between playing second oboe in the junior orchestra and rhythm guitar in the school pop group. (Belfast Newsletter cutting in Belfast Central Library).
Yet despite this enthusiastic report, NI’s media of the time appeared to show little interest in classroom or extra-curricular music in schools, as evidenced by the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ (1979) in a series of articles on ‘The Schools of Ulster’. The main focus appeared to be sports results, pass rates of examinations and the exam ‘shake-up’ which would lead to the end of GCE ‘O’ level and CSE examinations.
Probably one of the most important social and possibly, musical developments, in these ‘middle years’ was the impact of popular music on young people and the self-learning of popular instruments in informal contexts, similar to the ones identified later by Green (2008). But for teachers trained in the ‘classical’ tradition this proved challenging when, as in England, young people’s musical reality lay beyond rather than within the classroom, perhaps in pop music, Irish traditional music or music of the marching bands. It was difficult to imagine that the Music Inspectorate and those responsible for the training or support of music teachers in NI would not have been aware of the seminal book ‘Sound and Silence’ (1970) by Paynter and Aston. This was a series of classroom projects focused on creative music-making at primary and secondary levels, based on the premise that the sound materials of music are as available for creative exploration as those of any other art form. “We can begin to explore music creatively at any age; for the first and last [rule] in making music is the ear” (Paynter and Aston, p. 8). For NI teachers, as for many in England, this was a new concept of music education that would challenge a fundamental belief in the importance of reading staff notation.
Notation is not music. The sound comes first.... guard against killing the music’s spontaneity. It might be better to let them (the
children) invent their own notation or to adapt the conventions in some way. Much of what children create musically, like a lot of music by contemporary composers, will need its own notation anyway: the complexities will be too great for the traditional system. (Paynter and Aston, 1970, pp. 14-15)
Although the concept of graphic notation for use in music classrooms had been promoted, for example, by Self’s New Sounds in Class (1967) and Dennis’s Projects in Sound (1970) it was only through Paynter’s ‘Music in the Secondary School Curriculum’ project in England (1973-1982) that its validity as an expressive tool was accepted and promoted in NI’s primary and post-primary curriculum support publications (NICC, 1993, CCEA, 1999).