Madam, - With regard to your editorial "Music training" (April 18th), one of the reasons that discussion on music education rarely evokes enough national interest or action is because, to a certain sizeable number of musicians in this country - traditional musicians - talk about "music education" is actually a discussion about classical music education. Comment on the subject in this paper of late would not convince anyone otherwise. We currently have two music education movements. The first, led by Music Network and the Forum for Music in Ireland, has a multi-genre model as its objective, based on Music Network's 2003 blueprint for same, and is targeted at the Department of Education.
The second, involving traditional music organisations, mainly working independently of each other, strengthens and increases traditional music educational services through soliciting funds from the Arts Council, the Department of the Gaeltacht and the Department of the Arts.
There is much common ground between these two movements - they are both plainly involved in music education - but that fact becomes blurred. Traditional music education services - in the form of Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann or the Willie Clancy Summer School or Na Píobairí Uilleann or the countless other summer schools and organisational activities - are not appreciated widely enough as being a facet of music education, but rather are perceived as the "preservation" of Irish culture.
The rhetoric of traditional music organisations can often encourage this view. By emphasising extra-musical advantages (such as the preservation of a music practice, or the strengthening of Irish identity and culture) it can create the impression that learning this music is not a sufficient benefit in itself, ie, that it is not a comprehensive music education. The blanket result is that Music Network's plan for a national music education system is robbed of a critical mass, ie the involvement of all those involved in music education, and, by underselling itself, traditional music's potential to become the basis of a music education system in Ireland, the ultimate aim of that community, is equally hampered.
Progress on a national system of music education requires at least some acknowledgement in both movements of the other, and then, naturally, an attempt to join forces.
- Yours, etc,
TONER QUINN, Editor, The Journal of Music in Ireland, An Spidéal, Co Galway.