Because People Matter

06.05.20 – Darrell Priestley

Looking at their websites or advertising, it’s interesting how very differently various business are treating the coronavirus. Some businesses, large and small, see it as a selling opportunity, and for a few it has been a bonanza. While understandable though, this approach looks cynical, and those who are seen to have exploited it for gain will no doubt long be remembered as such. Others have eschewed this approach entirely, focusing instead on being as supportive as possible. Then there is reassurance; Sainsbury’s, for instance, has run an advert covering the protective measures they have taken for shoppers, including rules for social distancing.

However, the approach of some businesses, which I confess leaves me mystified, is apparently to ignore the Coronavirus crisis completely. A website can and should be much more than a shop window. It’s a chance for you, the audience, to learn who you are dealing with. You have a right to know that. Here we are then, facing the biggest challenge that most people alive today have ever had to deal with, one that is changing every part of all our lives, and to look at some business websites it might as well not be happening. Surely the public deserve more than that? You almost have to wonder, are they serious?

The approach we took at the Northern Music Academy was that we should offer a voice of support in troubled times. Our relationships with all our students and their families are very much affected by this crisis. The conversations that happen each week when people visit the Academy go much wider than the music lesson. They involve parents and family members, and take place not only with the student’s teacher but with others working at the academy too. Very quickly, relationships blossom into friendships, and you look out for your friends. We know that, even as many students continue their lessons with their teacher online, others may feel they are in no position to do so at this time, and in any event the usual contact is not there. But such contact is important, forming the fabric of our day to day, and helping us get through the week. For instance, many people who are not taking lessons themselves but bringing other family members tell us how much they enjoy visiting every week, which of course makes us very happy, but necessarily all such activity has been suspended.

Our response has been to provide this regular blog, to stay in touch, and we fill it with thoughts on many things, from the insightful to the inane. You may read it for Jessica’s practical insights to home schooling, for Eileen’s lovely recipes, or for my musings on everything from music to life in general, but I’m not sure it matters, becuase it’s contact. It simply means, we have a relationship, where we value one another, and that we are still here for you.

I often fondly remark to my lovely wife Eileen that I feel like everyone’s daddy. I can say this now and mean it because at this point I have been around for quite a long time, and over time many of our wonderful students come to feel like family. Please excuse me for feeling paternal, but I believe that people matter, and though we teach music, it’s probably equally true to think of ourselves as being in the people business. As we see it, people are the most important part of any business; and if you are not meeting the needs of people other than yourself, then why be in business?

Origins… Walking Down Memory Lane

03.05.20 – Darrell Priestley

A fond stroll back in time today, to read as you while away your breakfast. My principle is that breakfast should never be hurried, and what better time to test that idea than now?

Recently I wrote about the opening of this music academy, in January 1989, from an idea that developed in the autumn of 1987. In truth, it’s origins go much further back, back into my childhood in the sixties and seventies. This is a story of family.

I began learning music in 1971, aged nine. And this may surprise you, but it was not my idea. My sister had recently flown the nest, and my father, Peter, decided that I needed to be positively engaged if I was to stay on track. I don’t know why he would think this, but he did have quite amazing child rearing instincts, and though he needed to be both wily and pursuasive, after much effort on his part I finally came on board with the idea, for which I have been most grateful ever since.

Dad had noticed that, as a small child, I loved music, taking a particular interest in our modest vinyl record collection, and often sitting in front of the television watching the test card and listening to orchestral music, trying to work out what instruments were playing. I would have been maybe four or five years old at that time. Also, if we ever went anywhere that there was a piano, I loved to have the odd plonk on the keys, just like all other children. With only this to go on, dad went out on a limb and bought me the instrument of the day, an electronic organ. At that time, even the cheapest such instruments were widly expensive, and by nine I had developed enough to realise that, having agreed to this, I now had some kind of obligation to make it work. So, actually dad was going into this contract with a strong hand, and I must say he played it well. He set practice goals in sensible amounts, going up in baby steps from ten minutes a day until eventually I was practicing for much longer, without ever really noticing.

Of course, there was much more to it than that, and dad was quite crafty. He was a warm, friendly man, but looking back I am amazed that he knew so many people. How it worked was that he would ask friends to stop by the house, offer them a cup of tea, and the next thing you knew he had me playing my latest piece for them. I now half suspect he was cultivating all these acquaintances for this very reason! It probably help that we lived in a house on a corner, because there were so many passers by, and few escaped this process entirely. Happy days! Dad was shrewed, too, because he knew that I would be embarrassed to play the same tune as last time for old Jack Kirk the next time he stopped by in a week or two, so I had to focus on always finishing off my latest piece in order to have something fresh to play.

My first music student was my mother, June. I would have been perhaps eleven or twelve, I guess, and I remember being distinctly impressed that she made any progress, in fact she actually did rather well. Her favourite tune, which she played beautifully, was ‘Beautiful Dreamer’. If I listen carefully, I can hear her playing it now. My mum had a lovely voice, and she often enjoyed singing around the house. Oddly, for someone so musical, she had that odd habit of occasionally changing key at random moments without ever noticing. This annoyed me a little, but was actually quite endearing, and I loved to hear her sing.

My next student was my nephew, Justin, who was aged five, just nine years younger than me, when he had a few lessons. Though I was still very inexperienced, just teaching by accident, really, it was clear he was very able, learning everything quickly. Although he did not do this for long, I found the experience to be very rewarding indeed, and it opened my eyes to the idea of teaching in the future. When I was a little older, I began teaching in earnest, but at first really only seeing it as a way to earn a little money to help me be self sufficient. I loved gardening, and wanted to be able to buy tools, seeds, etc with my own money.

It was my good fortune that my first two students both had such musical aptitude. When I began teaching non family members, I came to realise that everyone might not find this so easy. But fortunately, I persevered. I wanted everyone to find it easy enough that they could learn to play, and play well. It turns out that, with the right approach, a good deal of patience and a great enough skill set on the part of the teacher, this is pretty much possible. Needless to say, I did not have such a skill set in the early years, which in fact takes long years to acquire, however what I did have, that has stood me in such good stead, is the passionate belief that music is for everyone, and that if I could only grow enough as a teacher and mentor, I could help them all achieve.

Musical aptitude is desirable, but you can go a long way without any special aptitude, and indeed some students with a high level of natural ability do nothing with it. Now I find the practical limits to achievement rest prinicipally in two things: i) the student’s own level of motivation, and ii) the level of support that they receive at home. Being the parent of a music student is not always easy. Are they inclined to practice without any special encouragement? That can be quite rare. Keeping things on the right track sometimes requires that you be resourceful, and use your imagination, as my father did. He was truly a master at that. In many ways, the Northern Music Academy is my father’s legacy, not only to me, and to my family, but to all the people involved these past thirty odd years, which by now is quite a lot of people. If he could have known this, and the effect his encouragement and guidance on his young son would eventally have on his home town and it’s surrounding area, he would have been so very proud, in his humble way.

There were also excellent teachers along the way, which is a big part of the story. I was incredibly fortunate in finding my first organ teacher Gordon Carr, with whom I studied for years. Gordon was a quite man, good humoured, and a fine musician who showed me the way and made learning the organ seem glorious. I felt richly privileged. Then there was Richard Ingham, a superb saxophonist and educator who set the highest standard for his students. And the man who shaped music for me perhaps more than any other, Dave Smith, or ‘Golden Ears’ as I think of him – in all the time I have known him, I don’t think he ever heard a single chord that he could not immediately name. How he challenged me! Working with Dave, I felt like rhubarb must feel under a bucket; oh, he was tough to please, but, oh, wow! I will never forget what he contributed to my musical career, and I am so much more for knowing and working with him. Yet for all of the education, or indeed the valuable early career I enjoyed as a professional performer, the story of the Northern Music Academy is grounded still further in back the past.

Winding back towards my earliest memories, the roots of the Northern Music Academy run all the way back to the mid 1960’s, to my early home life with my musical mother and devoted father. Many successful musicians have a similar story, of growing up in a home that shared a deep love for music, and that somehow understood the richness that immersion in music making could bring to a child’s later, adult life. Though we lost mum in 1986 and dad in 1990, they inspire me still.

Return of the Instrumental

01.05.20 – Darrell Priestley

Such a topsy turvy world. During the pandemic, there have been winners and losers. On the one hand, travel is a big loser, on the other, the supermarkets romp away. And while the hospitality sector suffers, people stay home and watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, and the new Disney Channel.

I hear today that one of the big winners is Spotify, the music streaming service. We love Spotify, which powers our music endlessly at Northern Music Academy in normal times, though oddly since lockdown began my wife and I have actually listened less, strangely struggling for time. Spotify has seen a big increase in use during lockdown, with more people discovering it’s many benefits. It’s a place to escape to, and you can occupy yourself gainfully by building survival playlists, an antidote to the wall-to-wall covid-19 radio coverage. And this, apparently, is just what many of us have been up to. Particularly popular have been Chill Out music, podcasts, and interestingly, Instrumental music, a subject close to my heart. Those of us who can cast our minds back more than a few decades will remember a time when the instrumental was a key part of popular music.

At one time, there were so many instrumental hits that you never thought anything of it. Memorable examples include Apache by the Shadows, Tesltar by The Tornados, Stranger on the Shore by Acker Bilk, Theme From a Summer Place by The Percy Faith Orchestra, Classical Gas by Mason Williams, Tequila by the Champs, Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene, and of course Mike Oldfield’s legendary Tubular Bells. But there were many less well known numbers that still sound evocative today, such as Soulful Strut by Young-Holt Unlimited, Wipe-Out by the Surfaris, Popcorn by Hot Butter, Love is Blue by Paul Mauriat, and Zambezi by Bert Kaempfert, to name but a few.

Sometimes popular music releases revisited the classics, as with Argentine composer Waldo de los Rios’ fresh sounding 1970’s arrangement of Mozarts 40th Symphony, Bach’s Toccata by Sky, and the rousing version of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Meanwhile, there were latin favourites aplenty, mixed in with modern Jazz standards, tunes like Watermelon Man by Herbie Hancock, George Benson’s Breezin’, Errol Garner’s original recording of Misty, Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Miles Davis’ seminal So What, Guaglione by Perez Prado, Quincy Jones’ riproaringly fun Soul Bossa Nova, Parisian Walkways by Gary Moore, a haunting instrumental version of the Beatles’ And I Love Her by Jose Feliciano, and almost anything early by Carlos Santana.

Then there were those glorious Movie Themes, ranging from the epic to the sublime, like The Pink Panther by Henry Mancini, Un Homme et Une Femme by Francis Lai, The Summer of ’42 by Michel Legrand, Lara’s Theme from Doctor Zhivago by Maurice Jarre, Cavatina from The Deer Hunter by John Williams, the Theme from the Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein, and so very many more. And that’s not to mention the famous pianists of popular music, Liberace, Bobby Crush, Mrs Mills, Russ Conway (Side Saddle), and the sensational Victor Borge, instrumentalists all.

Maybe you have your own personal favourite instrumental, or perhaps you just enjoy instrumental music in general? One of my all time personal favourites tunes, instrumental or otherwise, is A Walk in the Black Forest by Horst Jankowski. That tune is wound up with of some of my very early memories, such that I can’t hear it and not feel good. It transcends fashionable, and for me it is timeless. It’s something I would want played at my funeral. My memories of this perfect example of light music, an up-tempo piece with a jazz flavoured melody and a gentle swing, were formed as little more than a tot when I was inexplicably allowed to amuse myself with the family’s radiogram. I would place the 7 inch vynil on the stacker, set to auto and watch as the turntable wound up to speed, the tone arm lift as the record fell to the turntable, then the tone arm making the short inward journey until it was over the cue-strip on the record before slowly, tantalisingly lowering itself into place, hitting the groove and those exhilerating opening notes a scant few seconds later. Oh, the ecstasy. I wish I could be there now. Over and over I would play this record, probably my favourite disc of our modest record collection, all of which I played at some point.

Thinking about it now, I am still in wonder that as a small child I was even allowed to use this viscerally thrilling record player. It must have been a way of keeping me quietly occupied, because it could not have been any great confidence that I would preserve the player intact, although as I recall I never did it any harm. In any case, it was a noisy, if musical success. However, this early experience contributed greatly to my life long love of music, and indeed sustains me still, with warm memories to cling to and a melody to remember them by.

In truth, the instrumental never went away, it just fell off the radar of mainstream radio. There are wonderful instrumental recordings out there, and this whole genre continues in semi-obscurity, meaning that you have to work a bit more to find it; but when you do, you will be richly rewarded. This is one reason that people like me have been driven away from listening to much music radio. That and the dearth of anything other than banal lyrics nowadays, but that I fear is a subject for another day.

You may have treasured instrumental memories of your own. Why not share them here? Your comments and memories may be of interest to others. Check back with this article soon, as we plan to publish a Spotify playlist featuring most of the above landmarks of instrumental music, and more.

Boy, this lockdown thing can be stressful!

29.04.20 – Darrell Priestley

So, how well do you think you are handling things?

What we are experiencing now is developing into much more of a marathon than a sprint. When lockdown began, we could tell ourselves that it would be just a few weeks, that we could get through it. I suppose we will get through it, but how, and in what shape? And at what cost to ourselves? Even if you are happy, there is simply so much stress from so many sources. Stress is insidious, and it wears away at you.

There are many reasons for me to be happy right now. My family are well, if temporarily remote, but we are constantly in touch. I am keeping up with good friends, and they too are ok, and handling things well overall. Most of my students are now having lessons online, and it feels incredibly good to see them each week, a reminder to me just how valuable such relationships are.

But still, this stress. I have it now, and as an underlying feeling in my chest almost all of the time. And this is normal now, with many people feeling just the same. From all sides, we have concerns. Work is an obvious one, and finances with it. Future health prospects represent another, and not only due to the virus. Many conditions are going without timely treatment, as routine treatments and elective surgery have taken a big hit, and it is reported that it may take several years for the health service to get back to where it was before the outbreak, when waiting times for many procedures were already lengthy.

What about our childrens’ education? How will they cope, and will it affect their development? And then there is the concern that year ten children in particular may feel the impact on their GCSEs next year; would that have any long term impact on their prospects? Speaking with the children I now teach online, a picture is emerging of wide differences in their school’s approach. Most children appear not to have had any direct online contact with thier teachers, though some schools are proactively staying in contact to monitor children’s progress each week. Others find they are expected to pick up work from a school portal, but there are big variations in the volume of work set, and where there may be any lack of good coordination between teaching staff there is the danger that, though well intentioned, the volume of work set could in some cases be overwhelming. Any projects, after all, must be fitted into already stressed lives, and being overworked is as bad as being underworked.

Although working at home, a problem I have, which I think is very common, is a difficulty in switching off. Because I am now at home, the distinction between work and the rest of my life is becoming ever more blurred, which means I’m finding it hard to put the computer down and let go, which somehow seems to build tension. Even just to relax and watch a 45 minute TV programme can be difficult to do, and we achieve this surprisingly little. Another bad habit is working late into the evening, now that in theory we work in the day time only. Stopping work altogether in time for the evening meal is a very good idea, but one that is hard for me to pull off in practice. I put this down to a combination of relief, guilt and fear; relief that miraculously my work can continue, guilt at the thought that I might ever not pull my weight, and fear that if I slack off at all the whole thing might collapse. I am quite sure that some combination of this toxic mix of motivators is driving many others, just like me.

A further source of stress for most of the people I speak with is shopping. Hours a week can be spent just trying to book a home delivery with one of the supermarkets, while the thought of going out and successfully maintaining a social distance for the entire time winds us up, even before you start to think about all those contact points like doors and trolleys, etc.

Besides all this, the future looks different, but what no-one really knows is, different how? Coming out of isolation, how will our mental health stand up? What will our working lives look like, will our family’s health prospects have changed, what changes will there be to holidays, to travel, to cafes, bars, hotels and such? That is an awful lot of unknown for us to handle.

Faced with all of this, it pays to have something that you can be sure of. Many people have told me that what helps them get through this is routine. That can be a routine you didn’t have previously, but routine helps to define our days. Reading hour is something we have tried, and though we rarely manage a whole hour it has become a time of relaxation and lighter hearts. I take an entire day off during the week, the only permitted work related activity being this blog, and while I love my work find this helps so much in coping with stress. Physical exercise is really helpful, especially if it makes you a little out of breath; I’ve not been managing this much lately, and feel worse for that – must try to fit it in. Any activity that engages the mind, and takes you away for a while, can be very beneficial, and could include crafts, gardening, journaling such as keeping a diary, and of course playing music.

I know I am not alone in feeling stress during these uncertain times, but it is important to try to build a strategy for coping, to help us find a way through it all that will deliver us safe on the other side of lockdown. I was especially encouraged recently when the parents of a student I used to teach contacted me, sharing their thoughts and concerns, and how they were dealing with things. Subsequently I have had an email converstaion with their daughter, now a scientist, at whose wedding I played organ and piano last year. She and her research scientist husband seem to be making a reasonable success of life during lockdown, taking up regular reading (and loving it), and going for regular walks. It is really encouraging to know that people can adopt new habits to help protect themselves and endure these difficult times.

Another thing to take strength from is appreciation of others. Look around you at society, and people in general are developing a deeper appreciation for the each other, for one another’s work, and for the contribution that other people make to our lives. Perhaps we were too busy to see this before, but it is a wlecome change now. I hope that in a post lockdown future this warmth will remain, and that we will acknowledge other people more than ever – it would surely lead to a happier world if we do.

Thinking of you all at this difficult time.

Darrell Priestley