Yamaha Education News

Yamaha UK and music services launch wind band project

Pictured here: a whole-class Yamaha wind band from Rietberg, Germany, like the ones now being piloted in the UK during 2011-12 as part of the Yamaha 'Class Band' project.

In January 2011 an exciting new music education project called 'Yamaha Class Band' - a whole-class wind band teaching collaboration between Yamaha UK and two of the UK's leading music services, in Staffordshire and Coventry - was unveiled. Class Band, which is aimed at beginners in the last year of primary (year 6) and the first year of secondary schools (year 7) in England, took its first steps with a Yamaha-led teacher training workshop in Tamworth and the launch of six pilot Class Band projects in Coventry and Staffordshire.

The pilot sees expert brass and woodwind teachers from Coventry Performing Arts Service and Staffordshire Performing Arts, arguably two of the UK's most impressive local music services, receiving training and support from Yamaha and delivering the project to year 7 beginners in three secondary schools in each area. Three Coventry schools have already begun their pilots with three more, in Staffordshire, due to launch before the summer break.

This first UK Class Band workshop was led by Wolfgang Feuerborn, an experienced wind band teacher who runs classes at Gymnasium Nepomucenum, a secondary school in Rietberg, Germany. He has championed the project, known in Germany as 'Bläserklasse' (wind class), for more than 15 years, with the result that there are now more than 1000 Bläserklasse projects running there, with classes already established and growing in Austria, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and now the UK. Michael Tankus, from Yamaha Music Europe's German head office has worked closely with Wolfgang and their combined enthusiasm and experience in running the project are clearly a major factor in its continued growth and success. The project has been praised highly for its impact and value, musically, socially and in terms of developing young people's personal skills, by parents, teachers, headteachers and the young people themselves.

(Pictured left: Wolfgang Feuerborn, leading the inaugural seminar with teachers from Coventry and Staffordshire for the UK's Yamaha Class Band pilot projects, January 2011)

Many of the UK's music service teachers have engaged in the primary school whole-class instrumental teaching programmes (often known as 'Wider Opportunities'), which began just a few years ago, and nowhere has this been adopted more enthusiastically and effectively than by teachers in Coventry's and Staffordshire's music services. In fact Wolfgang and Michael visited instrumental and classroom music lessons there last October and were very impressed with both the breadth and the quality of what they saw.

However Wolfgang's long experience as the project's originator and its head of pedagogy, with an even longer experience of whole-class instrumental teaching, was very much appreciated by the 20 or so music teachers who attended the training day in Tamworth. Using instruments Yamaha UK had supplied for the event he had them playing instruments they were not familiar with (see picture below), to help them understand the positive impact of the approach on the beginners, who will mostly be aged 11 and 12. His music games and strategies for managing the whole class were also much appreciated and enjoyed by the music services' participants.

In 2008, when the last government allocated additional funds to equip music services and schools with new instruments, to support activities like the Wider Opportunities programmes in primary schools, some music services opted for quantity rather than quality. They were able to buy lots of instruments, but these were often harder to play, incurred expensive repair costs and many of them have already been discarded.

Yamaha instruments have often been seen as more expensive but the build quality, reliability and playability of their instruments has been central to the Class Band project's success in mainland Europe. The Yamaha instruments will typically last for many more years than cheaper imports, are easier to blow and require fewer costly repairs. In the Class Band project, the music service or school buys the instruments, but also receives additional benefits, including teacher training, support and networking opportunities with other Class Band teachers across Europe. In addition Yamaha UK plans to add online support and involve some of its national and international brass and woodwind artists to inform and inspire both teachers and learners. The project will also provide performance opportunities for the young bands and eventually exchange trips with Class Bands in other countries.

The six UK pilot projects have been set up mostly in secondary schools from a mixture of socio-economic backgrounds, covering both urban and rural areas. Coventry has begun with Year 7 classes in January 2011 while Staffordshire will begin its three pilots during the Summer term, with Year 6 children in their final term in primary school. During this term they will be able to try a range of instruments before settling on the one they will actually learn in the project when they move to their new secondary school in the Autumn.

The pilots will run until Summer 2012, by which time the structures and provision of instrumental and National Curriculum music will undoubtedly have undergone some major changes. One objective of the pilot is that the Class Band project will have adapted to accommodate these changes, in order to ensure that young people continue to enjoy not just the musical but also the developmental benefits of large-group music learning and music making through Class Band.

Schools and music services wishing to register their interest in Yamaha Class Band should email Bill C Martin, music education manager, Yamaha Music Europe UK.

(ends)

(posted: January 2011)