I recently attended a training day for music services where the Keynote Speaker and one of the trainers both mentioned, with enthusiasm, learning music with Leicester music service in the 1960s.

This interested me as I too started learning the trumpet at a Leicester school. In my school in the mid 1970s the Head teacher gave me my first trumpet lessons and started my brother on the cello. I assume he taught all the other brass and strings too. I believe that the woodwind were started off by a bassoon playing y3 teacher. Once I could play 'Trumpet Parade' I joined the school orchestra (led buy the head) and started having lessons with the school's brass peri. I was only in that school for two years but thirty years on I'm still performing and teaching.

This isn't academic research, I'm just after some anecdotal accounts of what has worked in the past.
Were you involved (as a teacher or pupil) with Leicester music service in the 60s or 70s?
How was it organized?
Was the way it was run unusual at the time?
Was what I got from my primary school typical of Leicester schools in the 70s? Was it a result of what had been happening in the music service in the 1960s or did I just have the good fortune of meeting an inspirational teacher?

I started Junior school in Leicester in 79, I think, so I don't quite fit with your timings. However, my brother had already done 4 years at the school and his experience was similar. It was changing (for the worse) by the time I left, so perhaps my anecdotes will be useful to you.

We had a specialist music teacher (that is, a class teacher with special duties) for weekly lessons. She always differentiated the work we did so I was never bored e.g. she taught everyone to play recorder but since I could already play descant she sent me off by myself to teach myself treble, tenor and bass. She was a real recorder enthusiast and ran a group for students who had left the school but who wanted to continue playing recorder. She let me join the group even though I was still at the school because it gave me a challenge.

I took up cello when I was 8 and had lessons with peripatetic teachers. The class music teacher ran the school orchestra. I can't remember the series of music that we used but it when I started we were on book 3. By the time I left we were only able to use book 1. I think that was because lessons for woodwind and brass players were starting later in their school career and so pupils weren't as good on those instruments until they were older.

The teacher also ran a choir and we sang in harmony. It convinced me that young children have the ability to sing in parts (and when I went to secondary school and the choir only ever sang in unison, I was soooo disappointed). She ran hymn practice, with us singing from hymn books that had the music in, and I think this really helped me to sight-sing.

While I was at junior school, the peripatetic violin/viola teacher suggested I join the Preliminary Strings, the starter 'orchestra' for the county (I later progressed to the Intermediate and Training orchestras and just missed out on the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra because we moved. Leicestershire had a comprehensive series of orchestras that allowed students to move up through the ranks at a suitable speed. My next county tried to operate something similar but didn't have the range of orchestras and bands offered by Leics, nor anything that could touch the standard of the LSSO).

The peri violin teacher also started up some string quartets, mixing students from the various schools he taught at; we rehearsed at his house. That gave me my first taste of chamber music. There was also a nearby community college who ran a junior and senior orchestra and choir - I got involved through my cello teacher, who also taught there. I found the senior orchestra difficult as they were somewhat above my standard, but I was exposed to a wide repertoire and certainly learnt a lot from taking part. They also ran chamber music days which, thanks to the violin teacher, I was confident of taking part in.

My conclusion is that the teaching I experienced was something pretty special. There seemed to be a network of teachers who encouraged students to cross over between schools and colleges - everyone joined everything in the area, regardless of which school you were actually at, and this made a real difference to standards as there was so much more variety and competition available. The teachers obviously all loved music, loved teaching and devoted much of their spare time to encouraging young students.

By contrast, my experience of music in secondary school from mid 1980s was that there was no enthusiasm from class or peripatetic teachers to the point where I all but ditched involvedment in music. It's entirely thanks to the teachers I had in Leicestershire that I studied music at university and became a music teacher myself - hats off to them!

Thanks for that interesting post. I too had a musical drought when I left the Leicester. (Two years in a Shropshire primary school with no peri input where the only music in school was half hearted hymn singing and Tuesday afternoons in the hall with Mr W and his Dubliners LPs.) But I I was already hooked on music making by then and got back into playing when the opportunity arose.

It would be great to see a posting from anyone who was involved in music teaching around this time, to find out if the flexible, crossover approach you mentioned was music service policy, or a group of teachers who were getting it right. Also how was it funded? Anyone know?

I was at primary school in Leicester at the end of the 60s/beginning of the 70s. The school had a specialist music teacher who taught music to each class. He also ran a recorder group, a school orchestra, a choir and a lunchtime music club. I remember him playing us a tape of some of his son's compositions (Daryl Runswick). A woodwind peri came into the school & my older sister started playing the clarinet & continued with it to grammar school. She also started playing the violin in school but that was short-lived. I was chosen to play the cello, probably around P5. No-one else in the school had had that opportunity before & I had a wonderful peri teacher ( she even came to my house in the summer holidays so I wouldn't go without lessons for too long.). As far as I can remember most children got the chance to play something (if they wanted to) & I think it must have all been subsidised. I don't think I would have been able to learn if there had a been a charge

I think it was understood that if you were learning with the music service that you would play in 1 of the city orchestras or wind bands. There was some re-organisation of the orchestras when I was about 12 and I think our orchestra then rehearsed on a Friday night, rather than on a Saturday. My sister & I also played in a recorder ensemble - directed by a Miss Ward. Again the children playing in it were all from different schools within the city. There were also residential summer music schools.

Miss Ward was my teacher! I guess we're talking about the same recorder group, or different incarnations of it. Evington village hall on a Monday evening. She organised concerts for to showcase the group and invited members to perform solos or duets on other instruments they played. Fantastic learning experiences, I feel privileged to have been part of it all.

I can give you an up-to-date account if you're interested

That would be interesting for comparisons. Thanks.

Well, I guess I am talking about the music service rather than music in schools as none of the schools I went to were particularly specialised in music and didn't really have any musical ensembles. My primary school had a company called 'Normans' who provided the music service and definitely weren't specialised!!! (ie. I got told to put grease on my flute joints). My next school had Leicestershire Arts teachers in a variety of instruments and this continued at the school where I did my GCSEs/A-Levels. I don't think the lack of music was a reflection of the music service; just that musical people tended to go to another more musically orientated school nearby.

Regards to the bands/orchestras, auditions were/are every year which were quite useful as you got some good feedback! The bands/orchestras are staggered by age and grade, so as someone else said, you progress at a good pace. I was only in the bands/orchestras for 3 years as nobody told me about it until I was around year 9 (which is a huge shame)! Rehearsals were/are every Saturday. There was the opportunity to go on tour (I went to Germany, Italy and Belgium) and also to perform in some top quality venues. I played in the National Concert Band Festival finals at the Royal Northern in Manchester as well as having termly (?) concerts in Leicester. I really loved playing in them and wished that I'd known about it sooner - some of my friends had been playing in them since they were really young.

I was at primary school (Overdale) in Leicester in the sixties .. all I can remember is trying (and failing) to learn the recorder. The rule was, if you forgot your recorder, you had to practise the fingerings on a six inch ruler! The fact that this made it impossible for the pupil to connect fingerings with a particular sounds didn't seem to strike anyone as odd ...

I'm sure that for a child this is frustrating but I don't think it is that "odd." As a teenager I used to "practise" piano pieces on my lap in boring lessons. As an adult I practise oboe fingerings without the instrument when I am commuting to work, invigilating exams... However, I try to be inconspicuous so I don't use a ruler (or any other accessory), nor do I hold my hands in "oboe-playing-position".

My primary school in the early 70s (but not in Leicester) used to provide recorders but disinfected them in dettol (or something similar) between each group. When my parents bought me my own recorder I thought they must have made a mistake because it didn't have a horrible taste.