Australian school children sang on October 23
400,000 children from 1,700 schools across Australia sang a specially commissioned song at precisely 11.30am on October 23.
Important message or meaningless stunt?
The National Review of School Music Education was instigated by the national government and delivered its report in 2005. It found that school music education is in crisis, especially at the primary school level. It made 99 recommendations and the first of them was that action should be taken to lift the status of music in schools. The Music Council of Australia won a contract to organise a program intended to have that effect. The program is called Music. Count Us In, and this was its second year of operation.
The idea was borrowed from Canada's Music Monday, inspiration gratefully received.
A pop song is commissioned from a well-known artist, arranged for many types of school ensemble, a CD produced with full performance and with backing tracks, curriculum materials written, and all of this is made available free of charge on the Music. Count Us In website. Schools are recruited. There is a massive media campaign. On the day, there is a count-down to 11.30. 2,000 students are televised singing the song in front of Parliament House with the Minister for the Arts joining in. Every small town newspaper in the country seems to publish a story about some local school participating.
On the face of it, this is a trivial idea, a stunt without much musical or educational merit.
In fact, the results are rather surprising. Kids in outback hamlets LOVE the idea of being part of a real-time national event. There are lots of unsolicited testimonials from teachers telling how music's singificance in their schools has been boosted. School leaders are making decisions to put more resources into music teaching.
We don't yet have real data about the changes but we are attempting to generate them.
Curiously, the program is funded by the national government and if it is really successful, the result will be increased community pressure on the government to do something about the so far unremedied crisis in primary school music. A rod for its own back.
Long live masochism!