The London International Music Show 2008

Some highlights of the Q&A session in this clip

Nearly the end of the first ever Education Festival at London International Music Show, and time for some reflections, praise — and challenges — from those who’ve attended. Nick Howdle of the Music Manifesto has an interesting question — let us know what you think.

“Interesting afternoon, good to see education issues being discussed under the same roof as instrument sales though we’ve some way to go on linking the two better. How, in future should we do that?

In this clip, Sir Ken Robinson talks about the way in which creativity and intelligence are often seen as mutually exclusive.

“It’s still remarkable to me that most schools don’t treat music or art or dance as seriously as they treat mathematics and English…”

Head over to the Roland Drummer Live stand to brush up your breakbeats!

Starting at 13.30, in the Festival Field…

ALL TOGETHER NOW: Sir Ken Robinson is one of the world’s most inspirational thinkers and speakers on creativity, education and the arts.

Hear his case for establishing a global movement for education that recognises different ways of nurturing and promoting human capacity.

Using a mixture of analysis, anecdote and humour, Sir Ken will force you to reflect. What contribution could you or your industry make? What are the alternatives? And can the UK lead the way?

Sir Ken Robinson, Festival Field 13.30

ALL TOGETHER NOW: Sir Ken Robinson is one of the world’s most inspirational thinkers and speakers on creativity, education and the arts.

Hear his case for establishing a global movement for education that recognises different ways of nurturing and promoting human capacity. Using a mixture of analysis, anecdote and humour, Sir Ken will force you to reflect. What contribution could you or your industry make? What are the alternatives? And can the UK lead the way?

Keep an eye on this blog throughout today (Friday June 13th) and the weekend as we feature exclusive interviews, extracts from seminars and films from LIMS ‘08 Education Day — the UK’s greatest festival of music learning.

It’s always amazing to watch a big event come together. Less than 24 hours to go and the giant halls at Excel still look like a building site, albeit a building site with rack upon rack of beautifully polished, expensive guitars and glittering drum kits.

But it’s beginning to make sense — the different stages and halls are taking shape, the artists’ dressing rooms are built and the swivel chairs have been delivered, still shrink-wrapped, for the Question Time session on Friday.

By tomorrow, the army of gaffer-tape wielding set builders will have disappeared and the final touches will be put to the Festival Field. On Friday, the UK’s leading celebration of music education will be in full effect.

See you there.

Among the host of good deals and potential giveaways at LIMS ‘08, ESTA (the European String Teachers Association) is giving away an Apple I-touch, plus signed music by Maxim Vengerov and Steven Isserlis.

To be in with a chance of winning an I-touch, you have to guess what year the fine violin on the ESTA stand (M4) was made.

The signed music from these world famous soloists is open to those who join ESTA during the event. – the lucky name drawn out of a hat on Sunday.

If you’re coming along to LIMS on Friday 13th June (Education Day), make sure you check out the Sandarac stand — where you’ll be able to meet and hear the “Haringey Young Musicians”. The string quartet - Grace Hill – violin; Lara Spencer – violin; Tom Andrews – viola; and George Andrews – cello - are from the Haringey Music and Performing Arts Centre. The group will be playing Sandarac supplied Kremona instruments to premiere a new composition called ‘Waiting Reloaded’ written by Sandarac endorsee, and good friend, the multi-talented Darren Taylor.

They’re publicising Sandarac’s innovative new scheme for educationalists called ‘Hire to Inspire’:

“Sandarac fully appreciates the extent to which a good instrument can inspire the young musician to simply want to play for the pure pleasure of making music. Sandarac’s founders are both musicians who fully understand the constraints imposed on young musicians due to available budget and parental concerns about commitment. Often, in their early musical education, our young players are forced to struggle with poor quality instruments. This makes learning how to master the instrument far more difficult than it needs to be. Small wonder that many fail to stay the course out of sheer frustration with their instrument. In addition, the cheaper ‘stock’ school instrument tends to produce an inferior quality of sound. Better quality, properly set up and maintained, instruments inevitably produce a better quality of sound – surely a Godsend for teachers, parents, neighbours, and siblings of any budding Menhuin or Du Pré.

The availability of budget instruments from the Far East has certainly made it affordable for many more people to aspire to making music. Unfortunately, many of these instruments fail to inspire the new player as they are often difficult to play and do not offer a good sound. In response Sandarac has put together a new Hire to Inspire scheme designed for educational centres, schools, parents and teachers. The scheme provides a quality outfit (instrument, bow, and case), for an affordable price, aimed at inspiring young musicians to achieve their best. All outfits are set up in house by our expert luthiers and are easy to play from the first note.”

So, stop by the stand, enjoy some beautiful music from the Haringey Young Musicians, and find out how Sandarac can help you or your organisation to inspire the next generation of string players.

Visitors to Education Day at LIMS ‘08 (Friday 13 June) will soon spot there’s a festival theme to the whole event — nowhere more so than in the Festival Field area run by Access to Music. ATM’s Martin Smith explains:

“Festival Field strives to provide an educational experience within a fun, festival-style atmosphere. Live music, interactive music workshops, masterclasses, a National Busker’s Competition and chat show features will run off three stages, while stilt walkers and face painters will create that essential festival vibe.”

The “Sun” stage in the Festival Field will play host to keynote speaker Sir Ken Robinson, and later a performance by band-of-the-moment The Infadels.

Martin Smith again “This is an exciting opportunity to do something a bit different. Festival Field promises to break the mould by providing a festival-style music education experience at a major international music show. With Glastonbury just around the corner, this is a great chance for aspiring musicians to have their own festival dedicated to helping them develop their talent.”

Check out all the Education Day activity here.

Alison Karlin of Bachtrack writes in with a novel idea for encouraging young people to take an interest in classical music, especially live classical music. She’ll be at LIMS over the weekend of 13/14 June, trying to recruit and enthuse. In her own words:

“Most young people would walk into a room of classical music, turn swiftly around, and walk right out again.

So that’s the plan.”

Will it work? Free tickets are always a good incentive, but are they the way to entice young people into classical music? Is it enough? What would you do?

Let us, and Alison, know what you think. Hit the “Your Comment” button - or come and find us at LIMS on the 13th June, where we’ll be running the blog live.

It’s every musician’s guilty secret. What was the first proper song (i.e not a Grade 1 exercise or nursery rhyme) you learned on your chosen instrument?

As a guitarist, my first was utterly predictable — The Animals “House of the Rising Sun“. Inexplicably, my next was the melody line to the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood, a song I didn’t like then and don’t like to this day. Which didn’t stop me practising it endlessly in my bedroom to the distress of my family.

Some choices are even less explicable — as if the songs are automatically buried deep in everyone’s subconscious, like the fight-or-flight reaction to danger.

My eight-year old son, who’s learning the piano, has taken to playing “Smoke on the Water” on my guitar — although I swear I’ve never played it in his presence and we don’t have a single Deep Purple track in our house.

These thoughts have been prompted by an entertaining series of videos on the homepage of the “Take it Away” initiative from the Arts Council. “Take it Away” aims to make instruments and tuition more affordable for aspiring musicians, especially younger people and those on lower incomes.

The scheme allows individuals to apply for a loan of up to £2,000 for the purchase of any kind of musical instrument, and pay it back in nine monthly instalments (with a minimum 10% deposit), completely interest free. “Take it Away” operates through a network of nearly 200 musical instrument retailers across England.

In the videos, musicians recall their own early experiences — I was particularly taken by the woman who said she wept when she learned her first Donny Osmond song; and the man who was bought a Bruce Springsteen songbook, even though he knew none of the Boss’s songs. To this day, he can do a unique version of how he thought “Born in the USA” should sound.

Check out full details of the scheme on their site, or better still talk to them at LIMS ‘08. And if you’ve got some embarrassing early musical memories of your own, do share them here on this blog with other LIMS attendees and exhibitors. Click on the “Your Comment” button and unburden yourself.

Inspirational creative guru Sir Ken Robinson will be making the keynote speech at Education Day LIMS ‘08. If you haven’t yet seen his unique style, make sure you get along to Excel on Friday June 13th. In the meantime, check out his most famous speech: