Re: [scots-l] Adult Learning Project
Jack Campin wrote: Re ALP: Perhaps somebody could tell us about parallels in Glasgow? as I understand it the Castlemilk Whistle Workshop is a samba-school-type politicized creation, whereas the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop has narrower aims. Neither is anywhere near as high-profile as ALP. Can't do that, but I can tell you that independent of any real funding, the Borders organisation JAM has functioned without political overtones of any kind in much the same way. Over the past ten years it's spun off a succession of young rock groups, oldish jazz groups, competent hordes of bodhran bashers, small dance groups, and countless (not all young) musicians. JAM does employer pro musicians to head up workshops, short courses, etc but also operates on a coffee-bar basis; instead of having courses on one thing at once, JAM has a whole building hired for the day and runs five events simultaneously. So you'll get two rock bands practising, a formal guitar class for kids (after which the guitar tutor joins the jazz band), a dance group, a percussion workshop - whatever - and in the middle a general meeting area where people can just walk in and bring a guitar, or a songbook, and see if anyone can help or if they can help anyone else. This year JAM sort of came of age and secured real funding - almost £30,000 in total - and now we do have a couple of 'funded' pro musicians taking Foundation for Youth Music activities all round the area, and also doing our own 'Older Singer' project which is driven by the requests and expectations of residents in sheltered housing or day-centre visitors - a very discerning lot and some of 'em placing heavy demands on Rod Ward, our main musician, to come back next time KNOWING all the stuff they want to sing! We are now appealing for any unwanted keyboards - ideally with proper size keys - which can plug in and function as a piano/organ for these groups and for the parent/child stuff we are doing (Rod and his team bring a short course to small groups of parents and children together, showing them how to continue teaching or using music in the home). We need the keyboard to loan to people who can't practise, and decide whether they need to get one; the idea is that the individuals, or the old folks homes, etc, may invest in a proper keyboard (most have disposed of the old joanna) once they realise the benefits. It's not like ALPS - which has a really good syllabus, best way to describe it, and even includes things like learning luthiery and building your own guitar. JAM is fairly informal and does whatever its grant-gaining successes will permit. In the absence of funding it reverts to doing everything voluntarily, when funds permit it will employ outside musicians as leaders and spread wings further afield. There is no remit for traditional music over any other form as JAM is totally even handed about the merits of all musical forms. However, traditional events, tuition etc are probably about 30 per cent - 10 per cent dance, 10 per cent jazz, 30 per cent rock band, 20 per cent uncategorisable. Percussion used to be very important but TRASH (another charity org) has spun that one off into a huge success and the kids (generally) have taken their home-made percussion bands overseas and to many festivals and events. David Kilpatrick (Vice-Chair of JAM) Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Adult Learning Project
Jack Campin's account of the early origins of the ALP are of great interest. He's right when he cites the philosophical influence of Freire and the others as a key element in what make ALP different from other evening classes. The other key element is the democratic and participatory nature of the project. The Scots Music Group (SMOG) is a self-organised group affiliated to the parent body, ALP, and is run by the students, and the tutors. The Group deploys two part-time workers (not shared with ALP) and a shifting pool of volunteers who help out with specific events, both large and small in scale. SMOG has produced further autonomous groups in the shape of the Fiddle Festival, the Youth Gaitherin, and, as Jack mentions, Auld Spice. He might also have mentioned the choir, Sangstream, which operates by and large on the kind of samba school model he cites. There were, however, one or two inaccuracies in Jack's description of the current set up at SMOG. The Scots Music Group has no intention of splitting off from ALP. The voluntary aspects of ALP are undergoing re-organisation at the moment, with some of the component parts setting themselves up as separate charities, companies limited by guarantee. The Fiddle Festival has already done so, to be followed soon by the ALP Association and after that by SMOG. SMOG gets no direct funding from the City of Edinburgh. Its income comes from class fees, fundraising events and a grant from the Scottish Arts Council. It has some indirect subsidy by having a couple of desks in the ALP office, and a shared phone line, but that's it for now. Stan Reeves, the senior worker with ALP, whom Nigel rightly cites as a major influence on the project, still has an important supporting role. There is the prospect, however, of some future funding from the City, which will enable the project to expand beyond its current activity. David Francis [EMAIL PROTECTED] Vice Convenor, ALP Scots Music Group Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Adult Learning Project
It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for those who can take advantage of classes, and a great way to carry on transmition of the tradition. I've been to a few of ALP's classes; the only teaching I've done was one half-hour talk and leading a slow session for a while. But I can say something more about how it started. About 20 years ago there were a few people in Edinburgh interested in libertarian socialist ideas on education, particularly those of Paolo Freire. (Anybody who knew that stuff would also have read the simpler things by Ivan Illich, Everett Reimer etc). The main person I remember pushing this was Colin Kirkwood, then of the Worker's Educational Association (a somewhat stuffy outfit with dodgy origins in nineteenth century Fabianism, i.e. the idea was that if you got the working class interested in self-improvement they'd drop any revolutionary notions they might have). This wasn't specifically aimed at musical education at first; Freire's ideas were about the working class rediscovering their own culture in general and teaching it to themselves, with the Marxist aim of encouraging class self-consciousness. Kirkwood obviously wasn't going to lever the WEA very far in this direction, so other people formed the Adult Learning Project with the same aims. The other groups within ALP - doing community history, women's studies and a network of related stuff - have continued doing Freire-inspired work over the years. Music was an obvious aspect of culture to slot into this framework, but it never quite worked in a Freirean way. One inspiration at the time was the samba schools of Brazil (as described by Illich; apparently he idealized them a bit, but his description was influential anyway). These (as described by Illich) are a democratic, expert-free form of collective creation. There were two things you could do with this precedent in music. One was just to port samba to Scotland; this was was done successfully, but not by ALP. The Edinburgh samba schools of that period have multiplied and thrived; e.g. there are now two lesbian samba schools, and fusion groups like Bloco Vomit (anarchist samba-punk, one of whose movers and shakers, Ian Heavens, was a good friend of mine who committed suicide a few months ago). These groups still operate in a somewhat leaderless way, albeit without the spontaneously eruptive community base that Illich described. The other was to put Scottish traditional music at the centre of the project, perhaps with an associated ideology that valued it as the musical voice of the Scottish working class (an idea which I think needs a good many ifs and buts, but never mind for now). It *might* have been possible to organize a Scottish traditional music project on the samba-school model (for song, anyway) but ALP's Scottish Music Group didn't take that route. Instead they got expert tutors to run classes in much the same way as the local authority already did in other fields; the result is that there are now two rather different organizations, one nominally part of the other, operating from the same office and with the same paid personnel. ALP's funding is partly from class fees and partly from the local authority; perhaps if they hadn't decided to be part of the local state early on, things might have gone differently. And many of the tutors had the political awareness of the average oyster, which made fitting them into a Freirean project a tad problematic. The Scots Music Group intended to split off from ALP last I heard. (Bits of the Scots Music Group do function in a samba-school-like way, e.g. Old Spice, a band made of people mostly over 50 who do a lot of community performances and who generate their own ideas without a salaried expert. But that kinda happened by accident). A local precedent ALP might have had in mind was the Edinburgh Shetland Fiddlers, who were active well before ALP got going, inspired by Tom Anderson; Anderson was a music teacher and the group operated more like samba schools *really* do in Brazil, i.e. there was always a musical authority in charge. (In its re-formed version, it's more loosely structured). Where I live one has to be very motivated to become a traditional musician. Very good opportunities exist, but usually open up only after one has acquired a good amount of skill, and beginners must either be very motivated indeed or lucky to persevere to the next levels where more support is available (e.g. through the community of a regular session, etc.). The relevance of the above being that your situation is probably different. When ALP started doing traditional music classes, there was already a clear demand for them, some of the performers who had created that excitement were prepared to teach for very little money, and their organization had run classes/workshops on other aspects of Scottish culture and was hence well placed both to get their music programme underway with only small expenditure on
Re: [scots-l] Adult Learning Project
In a message dated 5/12/01 9:44:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Anyway, I hope that goes some way to answering your question, Andrew. Stan Reeves is an occasional reader of Scots-L and if you push him, with luck we'll get his unique perspective. Thanks Nigel, for your reply. I would like to hear more about the organization, if Mr. Reeves would be willing... It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for those who can take advantage of classes, and a great way to carry on transmition of the tradition. Where I live one has to be very motivated to become a traditional musician. Very good opportunities exist, but usually open up only after one has acquired a good amount of skill, and beginners must either be very motivated indeed or lucky to persevere to the next levels where more support is available (e.g. through the community of a regular session, etc.). Regards, Andrew Kuntz Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Adult Learning Project
Andrew Kuntz wrote: Nigel...Could you say a bit about the Adult Learning Project... Two approaches. First, the facts: The Adult Learning Project was set up in 1979 to involve adults in educational subjects from History, Politics and Citizenship to Writing, Drama and Music. It is a registered charity and part of the City of Edinburgh Council Community Education organisation. The group is also part-funded by the Scottish Arts Council. Ten years later the ALP Scots Music Group (or SMOG as it's commonly known) was formed to organise the Scots Music classes and events of the organisation. Interest in learning the music was phenomenal and the group rapidly grew to become one of Britain's largest traditional music projects. SMOG run three terms of ten-week evening classes in many aspects of Scots music, from fiddle (with 7 or 8 weekly classes), whistle, accordion, guitar accompaniment, small pipes, highland pipes, several mixed instrument groups and 2 or 3 singing groups. The tutors have been a range of professional, semi-professional and expert amateurs, including Derek Hoy (Jock Tamson's Bairns and Scots-L listmember), Angus Grant (Shooglenifty), Catriona MacDonald, Tim O'Leary, Christine Kydd, Gillian Boucher (from Cape Breton), Mairi Campbell, Pete Clark, and so on. In addition to the classes SMOG organise workshops, ceilidhs, concerts, sessions, and publish small books (e.g. three collections of session tunes) and CDs. One of the creators of the ALP and SMOG, and in my opinion one of the reasons for its success, has been Stan Reeves, whose enthusiasm and energy has pushed ALP's wildly unrealistic ambitions into very real, glorious success. If I've never said how much I admire him for this, it's not because I don't believe it to be true. To be continued... -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Adult Learning Project
PART TWO: Andrew Kuntz wrote: Nigel, Could you say a bit about the Adult Learning Project... Secondly, from a personal point of view: I had been extremely interested in Scottish music for many years, but the extent of my playing was confined to my house. I was invited along to one of ALP's music classes where I learned the joy and value of playing with other people. Naturally all this was a revelation to me, and I started (occasionally) playing in public with a folk group. After a few years I was approached by SMOG and asked if I would consider tutoring a class. My first reaction was No way, as it didn't seem to suit my personality at all (shy, introverted, etc), but after a lot of thought - and nudging from SMOG - I agreed to give it a go, and since then my involvement has grown to three weekly classes, running sessions, holding children's workshops, and organising book and CD publishing. Teaching music has developed parts of me which had lain dormant and I'd say it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I love it, and I love my students. By all accounts they get a lot out of my classes, and to see them come back to SMOG year after year, to change from shrinking violets through making the first steps to playing with others, to regularly playing in pubs round the city is a joy for me, and a testament to the whole ethos of the Adult Learning Project. One of the highlights of the SMOG year is the end of year concert, which is coming up in a few weeks. All the classes gather in a hall and one by one they perform a piece they've been rehearsing in front of everyone else. It's terribly nerve-racking, especially for absolute beginners, but it's so good for everyone involved. After the last class has played, all the tables and chairs are moved aside and the tutors get up on stage and play while the students dance their socks off. It's at times like that when I feel that life doesn't get much better! Anyway, I hope that goes some way to answering your question, Andrew. Stan Reeves is an occasional reader of Scots-L and if you push him, with luck we'll get his unique perspective. -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
