Did music lessons at school help with your musical life?

[Crusoe]

I never took music classes in school very seriously, though I was in the school choir and ended up playing the lead in the school musical, in sixth form. I probably never looked at it as a serious academic subject, compared to the likes of Maths, English or the sciences. I think quite a few people in the class were of a similar mindset and it was only the ones who went on to choose the subject for GCSE who took it seriously.

[diskwave]

Def in the early years but as a 15 yr old, timing was terrible. Just about to do grade 6 or 7 on the fiddle and some bloke called J Rotten and his merry bunch came into view. That was it, bye bye vioilin  and hello Fender P bass and me thinking  " I wanna be like them", and its taken me 40 odd years to get back into the classical thing. No point with regrets, Punk was the sunny uplands Id been looking for and it was a revelation and it enabled me to have a great life as a semi free time bassist. 

Im now 64 , did my last dep five yrs ago and started Cello two years ago.....another revelation and having a ball... flippin hard work tho. Bet yeas Its important that I acknowledge the chance I was given at school.. and of course back then it was all free.    

[police squad]

I dont remember the music lessons at school really teaching us anything about music but I did learn the violin from the age of 6 till nearly 13.

I was quite lazy with it and didnt learn the scales very quickly but then aftyer about 5 years, I really got into it. Passed my grade 3 and then took up the bass.

Changed schools and the music lessons (only for one year, till o-levels took over, they didnt do the music o level) were better. We started singing basic harmonies and studied a bit of opera (quite interesting to me anyway)

But the more bass and gutar I played, the more I remembered of my basic music theory, Flattened thirds for minor, Minor 7ths.

My wife is learning piano, grade 5 now, and we talk theory a lot. She's very good with her theory and can tell me the notes in certain scales, whereas I have to think about how I would play that scale on a guitar, then call out the notes.

My violin sight reading was more like tab. I learned the the 'a' note on the stave, was an open 'a' on the violin and the that next like on the stave was the first finger on the a string. I didn't think about it being a 'b' (natural or flat) and depending on the key, the next note would have a gap on the fingerboard and it was C#. C natural would have had my second finger right next to my first.

I'm very pleased to have the amount of theory that I have, it really does help

[BassTractor]

(wrong thread)

Edited April 13 by BassTractor

[snorkie635]

Not in the slightest. Almost put me off.

[pete.young]

@scalpy are you still head of music?

 

My children's experience of school music lessons was much more positive than many of those detailed here. All 3 went to a school with great music department and the eldest in particular revelled in it, eventually going on to study music technology at Surrey. There was a lot of hands on, and the schoool had an annual 'We've got talent' showcase for any musical acts throughout the school which provided a massive focus and peer acceptability.

 

My own experience was also massively positive, especially in what they now call year 7. Our music teacher was inspirational, charismatic, slightly eccentric and adored by the whole school. I especially remember lessons on the double bass and the electronic music system MUSYS developed by Peter Grogono, some 50-plus-a-bit years later. This amazing man went on to be one of the most prolific composers of the 20th/21st century and possibly the greatest living English composer. Prof. Edward Cowie. At the time, we had no idea how fortunate we were to be taught by one of the

greatest composers of modern times. He's pretty handy with a paintbrush too.

[SH73]

I played a triangle during Christmas nativity at age 6 and 7 , I was told I had a good sense of rhythm. ....

[mep]

I had a very positive experience of music and lessons at secondary school. Straight from the off I started learning trumpet and joined the school band. I don't remember much about the early lessons. I took music as an option. We spent quite a bit of time studying and listening to pieces, one of which included Dark Side of the Moon, which was an eye and ear opener! This was around 1980. The music department used to hire instruments. I had been toying with learning electric guitar, but when I saw a bass for hire I had my light bulb moment and it came home with that day. I soon joined a few other bands as there were hardly any bass players at school. The music department had some good sound proofed rooms and we would regularly be in there during breaks to jam. One of the teachers would join us on mouth organ for some 12 bar. The teachers were very supportive of our music and we got to play at assemblies, Christmas concerts and some out of school events. I soon got the hang of bass and for my music practical exam played Money on bass and another piece on trumpet. Some good memories. I'm still in touch with the guitarist and keyboard player from my 1st school band as seen below. 

[solo4652]

When I was 12, my mum decided she'd like a musical child. For some reason, I was chosen. There were no music lessons at my all-boys grammar school, so she arranged for some private guitar lessons with the music teacher from the girls grammar school. Mum bought me a classical guitar. Everything  except one song I learned was classical - etude in C minor by Francesco Tarrega type stuff. I just learned the pieces as you press this string here and pluck it, then this string here and pluck it without any idea of what I was doing. Clueless. I did learn Albatross, which was the teacher's nod towards pop. Heady stuff. I quit after two years. I still have my classical guitar. It lives in the back of my wardrobe and has not been played for over 50 years. When I was 50, I decided to learn a musical instrument, I chose bass because I'd played guitar all those years ago - it was the only instrument I had any knowledge of. And, basses had 4 strings not 6. And, you only played 1 note at a time, rather than complex "chords". Because of my days with the classical guitar, I naturally played bass with my fingers, not a pick. This was the single most important carry-over from classical guitar to bass. That, and remembering that you tuned strings with each other at fret 5. Nothing else at all. Taught myself bass from playing along to songs and from internet lessons. I'm 67 now and still have no idea about music theory, but manage to play fairly well in a busy pub covers band.

[scalpy]

10 hours ago, pete.young said:

@scalpy are you still head of music?

 

My children's experience of school music lessons was much more positive than many of those detailed here. All 3 went to a school with great music department and the eldest in particular revelled in it, eventually going on to study music technology at Surrey. There was a lot of hands on, and the schoool had an annual 'We've got talent' showcase for any musical acts throughout the school which provided a massive focus and peer acceptability.

 

My own experience was also massively positive, especially in what they now call year 7. Our music teacher was inspirational, charismatic, slightly eccentric and adored by the whole school. I especially remember lessons on the double bass and the electronic music system MUSYS developed by Peter Grogono, some 50-plus-a-bit years later. This amazing man went on to be one of the most prolific composers of the 20th/21st century and possibly the greatest living English composer. Prof. Edward Cowie. At the time, we had no idea how fortunate we were to be taught by one of the

greatest composers of modern times. He's pretty handy with a paintbrush too.

Really pleased to hear your children had a positive experience and your lessons sound remarkable too. 
 

Yes, still head of department although we’ve been restructured so I’ve acquired Art and Drama too- ‘The Creative Arts’ (as opposed to ‘The Non-Creative Arts’ 🤦‍♂️)

 

I think lots of these anecdotes prove it is very much a relationship thing with a genre of music or the instrument, making it a moving target for teachers the whole time. We’re under constant pressure to be adaptive in our teaching now the days of concept of ‘my way or the highway, ruler to the back of the knuckles’ is very much gone, I hope. But we are dependent on who engages and finds that motivation. I have two yr11 bassists at the moment, I’ve tried to be as equal and provide the same opportunity for both, one on one before school lessons, play in productions etc. Both did our show this year, but one has done nicely and the other has bitten my hand off, found loads of bands to play in, got chucked out of jam nights for being under age and much to my great pleasure applied for the national youth musical theatre course this summer and got the gig as bassist for Our House. I didn’t even know he was applying! 

[BreadBin]

My grammar school music teacher taught us how to sing properly. 

40 years on I still hear him in my head coaching me on breathing and the phrase "Projection, dear boy!"

[Geek99]

My teacher was useless, he was only interested in the gifted kids and made no effort to help or guide anyone lesser. I hated every millisecond of it. 

[Dan Dare]

1 hour ago, Geek99 said:

My teacher was useless, he was only interested in the gifted kids and made no effort to help or guide anyone lesser. I hated every millisecond of it. 

 

Were you interested in or enthusiastic about what he was trying to teach? Most teachers are more than happy to help anyone who's keen but finding it difficult. It's easy to blame teachers.

[meterman]

Our family moved around a lot so I went to 7 schools, but always got into the school band wherever we were. My 1st instrument was (and still is) percussion so I learned drum notation very early, 7 or 8 years old. Then I took violin lessons for a year so learned some basic stave stuff at primary school. 
 

But once I got to a comprehensive school I chose music as a subject and learned to read and write music. Never got up to the standard of being able to sight read, but being able to even slowly read a piece in advance and write a little ‘cheat sheet’ for sessions and dep gigs definitely came in handy and still does. 
 

Last bit of music studying I properly did was in the mid 1980s, had a few piano lessons and some compositional theory teaching. Often I think (well, I know!) I know very little compared with a lot of other musicians I’ve worked with, but having the little amount of theory knowledge has helped me a lot over the years.

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Were you interested in or enthusiastic about what he was trying to teach? Most teachers are more than happy to help anyone who's keen but finding it difficult. It's easy to blame teachers.

 

Not in my day. Most teachers were interested in cultivating ability which just entrenched the differences. But that was how education worked in the 70s, it was all rooted in streaming.

[Woodinblack]

Our lessons were pretty useless and fairly haphazard, more done from the fact they had to do it rather than any love of doing it.

[meterman]

1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Were you interested in or enthusiastic about what he was trying to teach? Most teachers are more than happy to help anyone who's keen but finding it difficult. It's easy to blame teachers.

I was really lucky with all but one of my music teachers, they mostly seemed to want to help me progress. Wanting to do orchestral playing might have swayed them, but I remember our head of music at one school would let you keep any school instrument during holidays if you played in the school orchestra. I always fancied a go on upright bass so even though I was only the percussionist I asked if I could borrow a double bass over the summer holidays in 1983. And he said “if you can carry it, you can borrow it” so I did, and had blistered fingers all that summer, but it was a brilliant thing to let a teenager take a big old bass away on trust 👍 

 

Don’t know if stuff like that still happens now?

[taunton-hobbit]

Nah - it'd be in Crack Converters by the weekend ............................

 

😎

[Ed_S]

Music lessons at first school were basically learning recorder, which I enjoyed.. then a musical aptitude test lead to the offer of violin lessons, so I went off to junior school already playing a couple of instruments. I was lucky that my junior school had a few senior teachers who all played instruments (headteacher played tenor horn, deputy head played euphonium, another senior teacher played flute, and they all played piano and sang) and put a lot of value on music, so there were proper recorder groups, orchestras, string ensembles, wind bands, brass bands, choirs, a steady flow of peripatetic music teachers all week, not a word said about leaving normal lessons to go to your instrument lessons or leave class early to get your lunch first so you had the full hour to attend whichever group was on that day. The standard was good and they took it all seriously (I mean, looking back I doubt any of them had a 'normal' lunch hour in their working lives), but the music was generally fun rather than high-brow classical stuff and the focus was much more about the whole orchestra or band being tight and together (things like four bar phrases and dynamics) than any one instrument's part being flashy. The word that was used in the welcome at every workshop or concert to describe what they were trying to instil was "stickability"; they knew from experience that learning an instrument was sometimes difficult and frustrating, as are many things in life, so they put a high value on sticking at it and not giving up, whatever 'it' happened to be. Having since worked in the technical support side of education I've never encountered another school like it, and I'm pretty sure that as soon as the driving force behind it retired, it will have stopped. I was just in the right place at the right time for once!

 

All the same, at the time I thought that was just how school treated musicians, so it was a bit of a shock to get to secondary school and find out that playing an instrument was either a deeply sad waste of time which would get you bullied by sporty kids and frowned on by most teachers, or a perniciously snipey clique which ejected you in short order if you weren't already grade 5 in theory, heading for 8 in at least one instrument and vying for the solo in every performance. There was an orchestra but it was the exact opposite of what I was used to - everyone playing twiddly rubbish at the edge of their ability and hence sounding terrible together. Music as a taught subject was patchy - mostly a bit of chalk and talk about something poorly explained, then off to bash on a broken keyboard through broken headphones for the rest of the hour. One teacher was a bit different, though.. one run of lessons around Y9 was things like trying to pick out and identify all the different sounds in the intro to Time by Pink Floyd, and getting everyone to learn some chords and play Everybody Hurts by REM on as many functioning classical and acoustic guitars as he could scrape together. He came along at a point where I was getting distinctly fed up with violin and planted the thought of guitar as an alternative. I ended up playing bass via guitar, so in that sense even secondary school really did help with my musical life.

[Geek99]

3 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Were you interested in or enthusiastic about what he was trying to teach? Most teachers are more than happy to help anyone who's keen but finding it difficult. It's easy to blame teachers.

I was very interested. Mr berris wasn’t the kind of teacher that you think 

[Rosie C]

16 hours ago, pete.young said:

 

My children's experience of school music lessons was much more positive than many of those detailed here.

 

 

Although my 1980s music lessons weren't up to much, what I've seen of my local high school's provision is very much better. They have a big band, show choir, practice rooms, recording studio, and help with loan instruments and free instruments lessons for kids who couldn't otherwise afford it.

[Dad3353]

The music teacher, Mr Smith (for it was he...) would sit at the piano in the Great Hall, with the class of boys on the benches before him. He would play one note on the piano, and ask, sternly : 'What note was that..?'. Every boy put up his hand (myself included...), hoping not to be picked. 'G..?' says, timidly, the designated victim. 'Wrong..!' Another note; another victim : 'A..?' Wrong..! Each time, all hands would be raised; nobody had any idea of what note had been played. Another note... My hand goes up, as usual; I'm chosen. 'D...' I reply (I have no idea what note was played...). 'Correct'. Another note, another victim. Some minutes later, my hand goes up again, as always; I'm pointed at. 'What note was that..?'. 'Middle C...' I reply. 'Correct.'

I put my hand up each and every time for all the lessons of the sort, but was never again picked. Had I known what the note was..? No, of course not..! What did I learn from our music lessons..? If one is confident in one's approach, and lucky enough to be right first (and second...) time, one's reputation is established for ever, with no requirement to further prove one's abilities. This, which I call my 'Middle C' principle, has served me in good stead in many applications throughout my life and career, and all thanks to Mr 'Goatee' Smith, our music teacher. 

[Krysbass]

School music lessons, whether learning to read music and play recorder in class or later, individual lessons on saxophone then clarinet, only helped me in terms of making playing a musical instrument seem less daunting than might otherwise have been the case.  It was much later, when I was 19 and at Polytechnic that I took up bass guitar.

 

I didn't stick with saxophone or clarinet at school and even back then, I found it easier and more satisfying to play songs by ear, from memory rather than read sheet music.

 

And that's how I've played bass ever since - no sheet music, tab or any kind of written notes.  An approach likely to have its limitations if I'd wanted to play bass professionally, but no problem at all in over 40 years as an enthusiastic amateur.

[snorkie635]

3 minutes ago, Krysbass said:

School music lessons, whether learning to read music and play recorder in class or later, individual lessons on saxophone then clarinet, only helped me in terms of making playing a musical instrument seem less daunting than might otherwise have been the case.  It was much later, when I was 19 and at Polytechnic that I took up bass guitar.

 

I didn't stick with saxophone or clarinet at school and even back then, I found it easier and more satisfying to play songs by ear, from memory rather than read sheet music.

 

And that's how I've played bass ever since - no sheet music, tab or any kind of written notes.  An approach likely to have its limitations if I'd wanted to play bass professionally, but no problem at all in over 40 years as an enthusiastic amateur.

Every time I tried to play by ear, my nose got caught under the strings. 🤥

[Munurmunuh]

Just noticed the notation in this bass cover.

 

 

The song starts in E major, so has a key signature of 4 sharps. It then goes into Bb major. The software used to transcribe the tab or whatever into standard notation carries on attempting to keep to sharps, and so at the moment of Bb major invents a scale that goes A#, C, D, D#, F, G, A, A# - just meaningless dogshıt, dutifully copied and pasted into the video. Would some Grade 5 Theory helped Mr YouTuber at this point?