Viruses entry 23
'No one should be deprived of music because their parents were too poor and thus unable to provide music lessons'. (Kodaly)
This is one of the most damaging things about Thatcherism. The lie is that the market will find the right price for things. Any regulation will get in the way of finding that. However price and value are different things. How valuable is music as part of the education mix? If you think that music is very valuable then who pays? And how do you even quantify it in the first place? Much of what I learned on my early days wasn’t actually taught rather I picked up skills and experience along the way. Sometimes someone else would make a mistake - I would learn from that, for example. So the decimation of the music services in this country is reckless vandalism. Nowadays we have got into the situation where only people with money can have music lessons. There’s no bands. Schools are stretched. There’s no leadership. Music is dying in our country.
I feel very responsible for trying to reverse this awful situation. I have been working very hard with others to try and get something going. Trying to keep it fun and relevant. The pandemic has thrown up many difficulties which we are creatively trying to get around. It’s very difficult.
As the virus continues to wreak havoc today’s news is about PPE, immigration and when will lockdown end. It’s all ridiculous. We all know that the data is totally flawed. They are not doing anywhere enough testing. PPE shipment from turkey apparently arriving tomorrow? 888 deaths today. Total 15000 (not including care homes or not in hospital!)