Music Manifesto Case Study #6 – Franklyn
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Franklyn is eight years old
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He’s learning the violin, guitar – and keyboard…
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… along with his dad
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‘I’ve been singing since I was a baby’
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Franklyn has already played at the Royal Festival Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra
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Music makes him feel movey and groovey and fun
Franklyn’s history precedes him. ‘Poor concentration,’ the Headteacher said. And he himself admits ‘I used to be bad at school and home’. And then the Head counters: ‘Franklyn has fallen in love with the violin and this love has changed him from a child with poor concentration to a focused, motivated individual’.
Franklyn goes to Gallions School in London’s East End. Everyone there gets violin lessons twice a week. He’s eight years old and has been learning for almost three years. This is Franklyn’s story:
I live on the Windsor Park Estate with my dad, mum, sister and my new baby brother. Some bit of me is white. My dad’s family comes from Barbados and my gran from St Lucia. Dad works painting and fixing windows. Mum’s at home cleaning and looking after us.
I play the violin, guitar, keyboard and sing. I’ve been singing since I was a baby. Every day I play the violin and I have a lesson every week. I sing every day in school lessons and the school choir. I play in the orchestra every week. It makes me happy and joyful. When I get bad at home I go to my room and play my violin. It calms me down.
My dad is learning to play the keyboard and we play music together. My dad inspires me on the keyboard. He played a song and I loved it. The teachers make me want to play music. We played with the… [BBC Symphony Orchestra] and they made me feel I could become a professional!
People in school told me I was intelligent and had loads of talent on the violin so I kept playing.
I think my music is for me because it makes me happy. But I like playing for other people. It’s special making music with other people – especially when they’re better than me. I think I’ll keep playing for ever until the day I die. My music teachers and my dad keep me going but it’s really me that keeps me going. It’s the best thing in the world.
I get mad when I can’t play it the way I want to play it. If I keep practising I’ll be able to do it. It’s hard when I have to play fast music. My fingers won’t move fast enough. I get cross. But then I just practise and they get faster every day.
Now I’m trying to do vibrato and that’s hard but I’m getting better. You have to do it if you want to be a professional musician. I just want to get it right. I’m on to the next violin book now and it’s much harder to read the music.
We went to the Royal Festival Hall and played in the Second Mrs Kong and lots of people clapped. Playing with the orchestra was fantastic ‘cause they helped us and we got much better.
Maybe… in five years… I could be in a proper orchestra. I want to go to a secondary school that’s serious about music. I don’t want to waste my time at my next school. I want to be a professional musician when I am big ‘cause it’s the best thing in the world.
We played a symphony at school that our composer [Paul Ayres, composer in residence at Gallions School] wrote for us. My mum and dad both cried so I know it was good.
I think I’m energetic and fizzy. Music makes me feel movey and groovey and fun. I used to be bad at school and home. Mum says my music has calmed me down. It has changed me. Now I concentrate more in school and don’t mess about.
I feel that I love music and I’m good at it because I work very hard. If there’s no music for me to play I will be silly for the rest of my life. I’m really good at maths but music is better. You can learn much more in music. You can learn new, unusual things about why the world is like it is. When it’s my violin lesson day I run to school by myself to get there early to be ready for my lesson. I get up and think I’ve got to get ready to wake up the music. It makes me smile and makes me more active on a Friday when I have my lesson.
When I grow up I want to be a violinist and a music teacher. I like teaching people because I’m learning from people who were taught by older people and their teachers were taught by older people. It’s like being taught by people who lived centuries ago.
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