Jonathan Savage

Remember all those musical flashcards that used to be the rage? This tutorial shows you how to make rhythmic and melodic flashcards with Sibelius. I’ve just added a link to this new blog to this site. Some really useful stuff here.

The Guardian is reporting that the government has pledged to reintroduce music in every primary school with a £332m investment in choirs, orchestras, new instruments, performance and free music lessons.The moves will include pilot schemes based on the highly successful Venezuelan project El Sistema, whose performers won acclaim at this year’s Proms. The projects will target deprived areas and encourage young children to explore the benefits of music by playing in groups. El Sistema is an interesting youth project from Venezuela which uses classical music to reach young people from the shantytowns of Caracas and beyond. You can read more about it in this Observer article. It will be interesting to see how policy makers intend to use this model to re-inspire music education in the primary sector in an affluent country like the UK.