Sound Sense is the UK development agency for community music. We promote the value of community music and assist in the professional development of its practitioners. Through membership, events, activities, consultations and other means we can represent the views of almost 5,000 community music practitioners and others involved in community music.

We declare an interest. We are founder signatories of the Music Manifesto, with representation on the Music Manifesto steering group, and our chief executive Kathryn Deane was a co-chair of the coordination workstream and co-author of that section of the Music Manifesto report no 2. This response, however, draws on the views of community musicians, including board members of Sound Sense and others who have written independently in the journal of community music Sounding Board.

We also sit on the executive committee of the Music Education Council, which has made a separate response not drawn up by those of the executive involved in the preparation of the report. Music education hubs We applaud the concept of music education hubs. We support the aspiration to bring together all music education providers, including especially those in the community music sector. We think this will give impetus to the movement already under way to personalise and extend children’s musical learning, while supporting providers to collaborate and enrich the musical offer.

We find the idea of flat, wide delivery easier to conceive of than the more hierarchical institutions that have been the source of music education for so many years. We have numerous questions of detail. How will this work? Who will coordinate? Who will review? Who will source the funding to enable this to happen?

We recognise the importance of careful piloting of several models, with proper evaluation of the benefits and disbenefits of each. We note the recommendation that a working party oversees this pilot programme, and offer ourselves to sit on this panel.

Our concern over the hubs is that they must, in fact, deliver on the central promise of bringing together all music education providers in an area. Despite the rapid strides Sound Sense and others have made in recent years in highlighting the huge achievements of community music and other non-formal music education provision, the sector is still underfunded and – because of its non-statutory nature and essential grass-roots activity – still likely to be overlooked in the development of regional and local strategies.

A music education hub which doesn’t have in it as equal partners the community music sector will not be worthy of the name and will not deliver the promises of the report to make every child’s music matter.

We declare another interest here, for we were this year awarded £490,000 by HM Treasury’s Invest to Save Budget scheme to run a pilot coordination activity across the county of Somerset. Jumps was a prototype hub before such a concept was invented! It is already delivering on other recommendations with the report, including being one of the pilots of the Youth Music Passport to Music scheme, and providing a website with details of all the county’s music education providers and young people’s demands for learning.

We would like to offer the work we are doing on Jumps as one of the pilot hubs. Singing We applaud recommendations to concentrate on singing, as a musical activity open to all except a very few children and young people. We note the emphasis throughout the Singing nation chapter on the use of all styles, genres and types of vocal, and we encourage the Music Manifesto not to lose this important inclusive element.

We note that the fundamental recommendation is for group singing in primary schools, and again we would encourage the manifesto not thereby to ignore the importance of all ages for singing, and for the development of solo voice work – both important aspects if the aspiration for inclusivity of styles, genres and types is to be properly met. Workforce Community musicians are not afraid of professional development – half of our mission is to assist them in this. They are keen to learn and to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding. They are, almost by definition, reflective learners. For these reasons we welcome the report’s focus on developing the workforce, and agree with the opening statement of this section that a “high-quality, diverse and collaborative workforce is the engine that will drive a new music education offer that meets the needs, interests and aspirations of all children and young people.”

We note, however, that the thrust of most of the recommendations in this section is to do with teaching, largely in schools settings. Certainly a large proportion of community musicians work in schools – 52% with early years and 60% with key stage 2 and above, for example – and certainly they would regard their work as educative in a broad sense. But they see themselves emphatically as not “teachers”. Says one community musician “Community musicians create the context for musical experiences to take place, enable people to authentically share in a musical experience, and use musical skills in a variety of ways to allow people to explore a huge range of non-musical aspects of themselves and their world(s). They do not concern themselves with repertoire, technique or tradition except insofar as it serves the greater purpose of a shared, authentic, meaningful experience for those involved. When I am being a community musician I do not 'teach music'. I use my musicianly skills and knowledge as a generator, or a bridge, to create or lead to a shared space for the group to meet on equal footings.”

Community musicians also work in a wide range of contexts. Even within formal education, over a third work with adult education groups. And 89% of them work in a wide range of non-formal community settings: 55% with young people, 45% with older people, 40% with disabled people. For all these reasons we applaud the recommendation that there should be a “joint advisory group to ensure that the different sets of standards are compatible and suited for the range of musicians, music teachers and leaders and support staff; and that there is an appropriate set of accredited courses with recognised qualifications.”

We would wish to sit on such an advisory group to ensure that any standards and qualifications really do reflect the different, complex, and multiple roles of community musicians – to help drive up standards and welcome community musicians properly into the music education workforce. For these reasons we also welcome the various acknowledgements throughout the report that the role of adults – including classroom teachers – working with young people is to manage personalised learning which builds on individual needs and is based on consultation with young people. This is the very essence of community music practice, in which the music produced reflects the views and aspirations of those involved, and we look forward to seeing these practices more widely employed thruoghout young people’s musical development.

A survey carried out in 2000 by Metier, the then national training organisation for the arts sector, and Sound Sense found that community musicians were younger, poorer, with lower formal qualification levels, twice as likely to be from BME backgrounds, and twice as likely to be disabled compared with others working in the music education sector. We therefore warmly welcome the prioritised next step that there should be an urgent review to identify sustainable funding for community musicians. We would want to have a central role in that enquiry.

And finally The conclusion to the Music Manifesto itself says that “music is for life, not just for youth. We recognise that there are a further set of priorities which are about the place of music in early adulthood and beyond. That is a topic for another day.” Andrew Peggie, writing in the community music journal Sounding Board, finds the reason for young people’s dysfunctionality (described in a recent IPPR report) in the lack of social rites of passages. And he finds the answer in music activities which “enable people of all ages to participate in a common purpose.” And as we explain above, many community musicians work with older people: over a third with adult education; 45% with older people in non-formal settings. In short, we believe it is now time to broaden the Music Manifesto. It is now time for a campaign for more music making by people of all ages. Robert Jarvis Chair, Sound Sense 21 December 2006 Sound Sense 7 Tavern Street Stowmarket IP14 1PJ T: 01449 673990 E: Kathryn.Deane@soundsense.org