As a musician is it always a pleasure and a gift to pass on what you know to younger people. No matter what a person’s age or language music can transcend these barriers, it has the remarkable ability to communicate emotions and thoughts without the clumsy use of words and it did just that in my music lesson at Vikumgama preschool.
As always I started my lesson with the traditional ‘Wake and Shake’ routine, something I pinched from a great little school in Birmingham, the children followed my somewhat primitive dance moves to music, a mixture of wild jazz and boogie music, at first the children didn’t know what to make of it with a lot of traditional Sri Lankan music following a completely different rhythmic feel but they got the hang of it and it was a lively and enthusiastic start to the day which carried the pace of my lesson.

The children sat in a circle and learned words such as ‘buzz’, ‘pop’, ‘clap’, ‘slap’ and ‘hum’ all of which had actions, the children loved making the noises, I originally had ‘whistle’ as a word but the children, much to the teacher’s amusement, struggled with the action of whistling so we decided to put that key word aside. Did the children remember the words? Absolutely, the action, the noise and the word itself seemed to fuse to produce a phonics style lesson, these three variables help entrench the concepts and the key words, we then used these words and actions to music.

The main teaching part of the lesson was to show and use some of the instruments I had brought from home, every lesson should be about making new experiences for children, I was once told that lessons should be about making memories and this idea was firmly placed within my thoughts. I not only wanted to show and play each instrument but too often do musicians hold onto instruments too securely as if they were solid gold, leaving your average five year old with a school piano that Chopin would struggle to crack out ‘Old Macdonald’ on. So I had brought percussion, flutes, whistles and my own trumpet, bringing each out of my bag in turn leaving my coloured jazz red trumpet till last; as soon as the children saw it their faces beamed and they chatted excitedly to each other in Sinhala. The instruments were passed around the ring of children, each child saying the name of the instrument and giving each one a go in turn. The trumpet eluded a few, some children swallowing the whole mouth piece and others trying to take it apart to figure out how it worked, which I let them do, exploration is the best way to learn about anything and sometimes it is important for the teacher to take a step back and let children learn. 7

The instruments were then scattered around the school and playground, the name of the instrument was called out and the children had to find it, which proved difficult at first but in the end the children had grasped the concept and enjoyed the game.

Finally it was time for the children to make their own instruments to take home; I had brought 7 large water containers to the school, which gained some odd looks on the rather over crowded Sri Lankan buses, for them to turn into drums. Each container was cut in half and thick card stretched over the top, the children then decorated their drums with bits of paper and felt tips. The designs were really creative and the children showed their parents as soon as they were collected.

The day and the lesson had been one of my best so far, the children had learned a great deal and enjoyed the process. They showed me that you don’t need to be good at music to enjoy it; I have learned that you don’t need to be great at music to teach it all you need is an enthusiasm to learn and courage to get things wrong from time to time and you’ll have a really enjoyable lesson.