Wang Zhefeng
December 7, Global Times: “An instrument of inspiration” Report on former Eton College Director of Music and Eton Choral Course founder Ralph Allwood and his upcoming Junior Choral Course.
Ralph Allwood visits Shanghai to talk about the inspirational power of music
Ralph Allwood, former director of music at Eton College in the UK, and founder of both the Eton Choral Courses and the Rodolfus Choir visited Shanghai recently. The senior music teacher was invited by YK Pao School to deliver a speech to students and their parents in late November about the inspirational power of music.
"We know music is good for children as we are music teachers," Allwood said.
He played a video to show which parts of the brain get stimulated when music plays. "When you play music, both hands hear about what you play, compare what you hear from your fingers with what you hope to hear when you look to the music, then feed back to the brain, tell the fingers what has got wrong, oops then to do something different," Allwood said. "When you are working with a music piece, there are more parts of the brain involved than anything else. That's amazing."
Allwood believes music adds vitality to children's lives. "That vitality they have can be applied to all sorts of other things," he said.
Allwood worked at Eton for more than 26 years. As a prestigious boarding school, Eton has 75 music teachers. Only around 10 teachers work full time.
The reason why Eton has so many more teachers than other schools is to cater to the music tastes of its students.
Allwood said he never demands that Eton students play a certain kind of music. Instead, he lets them choose what they love to play. However, to ensure the students take responsibility for their choices, he demands they learn about the music they like.
"One day, a boy came to me and said he wanted to do steel drums," Allwood said. "I told him, if he can find me a teacher, find me where to buy steel drums, find me four other boys that would like to join the class together, he may do the steel drums."
"Next week, the boy came again," Allwood said. "Here is the name of the teacher; here is where you can buy steel drums; here is the name of four other boys," he said.
So now boys do steel drums at Eton. Allwood said that 800 children at Eton play diverse instruments, including classical piano and violin.
Allwood believes that the way one inspires children to become interested in music is critical. "Based on my own experience, although my parents are passionate about music, they were very careful not to ever say you should go to register at some music teacher," he said. "Instead, they were very sweet about it. They let me pass the piano teacher's house, and said a piano teacher lives there."
When Allwood eventually asked for piano lessons, they immediately agreed. "I think that's very smart," he said. "It's really teaching. Let's make him say it. Let him feel like doing it. So when he becomes a music teacher himself, he will also follow the same method."
"When I first started teaching, I was at school with no music and I went to all of the country, collecting instruments in a van, because I did not have much supporting money then. After I came back to the school, I put all of the instruments in front of the school, I laid out all of the instruments across the stage, and played a few of them," Allwood said.
As Allwood expected, the students were attracted by the sound. "Please form orderly queues by the one you'd like to play," Allwood told them.
Allwood could teach some of the instruments, and he had 12 other teachers to help him. By the end of the term, he had a band. By the end of the two terms, he had an orchestra at a school previously had no music program. "Although it was not very good, it was an orchestra," he said.
"Music has such magic, if children hear the sound, see people play, they will want to try. What I have to do is say yes to them," Allwood said.
But Allwood said he never pushes children. He agrees that sometimes some children lack a natural interest in music. "That's fine. Parents and teachers need to listen to their child," he said. "A child knows, if she does not like playing piano, she may like the violin, or painting or sports. Children should be fulfilled in many ways."
Students at YK Pao School play the violin
As a teacher, he emphasized that enthusiasm is important. "We don't take good out of the bad. We take the enthusiastic," he said.
Allwood loves the sound a good choir makes. "Choir is teamwork. At least four constitute a choir. Children like to do something together, breathing together and singing at the absolute same time. It's much more interesting than to practice alone," Allwood said.
He said that compared with other music, singing is less expensive because people do not spend a lot of money on instruments. "Most of the families could afford it," he said.
After Allwood left Eton, he did more work at state schools in the UK. He will return to Shanghai from July 27 to August 2 next year to hold Junior Choral Course for singers aged 8 to 15. It will be held at the YK Pao School's Primary Division campus.
(Global Times 2014-12-7 )
