By Chris Nicholls

“Arts pro­grams keep kids in schools. When kids drop out of schools, schools lose appor­tion­ment from the state, so they lose money and the com­munity gets the addi­tional bur­den of uneducated kids loose in the com­munity with noth­ing to do, who fall prey to drug deal­ers, gang mem­bers and sexual pred­at­ors. It’s really a false eco­nomy that the esteemed man­agers of our state gov­ern­ment have painted them­selves into this corner and are seek­ing to solve their prob­lems at the expense of our kids. And it’s never at the expense of kids from affuent homes, is it? Instead of invest­ing in our most vul­ner­able kids to make them the lead­ers we need to improve our com­munity, we ignore them, we push them away and then when they get in trouble, we lock them up. It doesn’t make sense, and fun­da­ment­ally, it’s not cost-effective. I’m a fscal con­ser­vat­ive and it’s a waste of money and it’s a waste of tal­ent and lives. Viol­ence knows no zip code. We get what we pay for when it comes to our com­munit­ies. When we don’t invest in our com­munit­ies, well you see what we have … It’s actu­ally cheaper and more effect­ive to address and head off prob­lems while they are devel­op­ing than try to deal with them after they’d developed. We just don’t tend to think or work that way in this coun­try. But if we play our cards right and are able to deliver our pro­grams, per­haps we will be able to deliver a sea change in that regard.” — Mar­garet Mar­tin, Har­mony Pro­ject, Los Angeles.

This was writ­ten about the Amer­ican pro­cesses, but it could so eas­ily have been writ­ten right here in Aus­tralia, about ours. This is fun­da­ment­ally what arts pro­grams should be about. Not for the affuent alone, but for all. And it starts with kids. With pro­grams such as ‘El Sis­tema’ — the amaz­ing Venezuelan music edu­ca­tion system.

So when I am asked why do we need a com­pre­hens­ive instru­mental and choral music edu­ca­tion pro­gram here in Aus­tralia, I think like Mar­garet Mar­tin — because it is import­ant on so many levels to give chil­dren music — to inspire in them a future, and not neces­sar­ily in music. Music gives chil­dren a boost to their human­ity, to their abil­ity to relate pos­it­ively with oth­ers and their com­munity. It helps build their self-confdence and their abil­ity to ima­gine and real­ise good futures, to fol­low their pas­sions and be ulti­mately suc­cess­ful. Why? Because it is through the rigours of music, learn­ing to sing and to play an instru­ment with oth­ers in an ensemble that we learn about ourselves — and in the con­text of oth­ers, we learn what it is to strive for some­thing beau­ti­ful and diff­cult. We learn ines­tim­able ‘joy’. And we avoid future pain and suf­fer­ing from the lack of such exper­i­ences and qual­it­ies in our society.

One of the most power­ful ways to ensure the best pos­sible out­come for the chil­dren and for the com­munity as a whole, is to intro­duce a com­pre­hens­ive instru­mental and choral music edu­ca­tion sys­tem based upon the hugely suc­cess­ful ‘El Sis­tema’ music pro­ject in Venezuela, South Amer­ica. Tested and suc­cess­ful, this pro­ject has been run­ning for over 35 years. ‘El Sis­tema’ — ‘The Sys­tem’ — is a free and inclus­ive immer­sion music edu­ca­tion pro­gram for chil­dren, built around the teach­ing of music via instru­ments, singing and move­ment within the con­text of the sym­phony orches­tra and choir. It was devised to cre­ate a sys­tem for social action, in that it was cre­ated to social­ise and instil a cul­ture of joy and ima­gin­a­tion in dis­ad­vant­aged, depressed com­munit­ies — prin­cip­ally amongst the chil­dren of those com­munit­ies and thence into the com­munit­ies as a whole — to empower their minds, improve their belief in them­selves and to inspire them to lead suc­cess­ful, fulflling lives.

As fant­astic as it is, it is noth­ing more nor noth­ing less than a sound, well sup­por­ted, sys­tem­atic music edu­ca­tion pro­cess, which uses mod­ern and old tech­niques of music tuition, with an unbreak­able belief in the cap­ab­il­ity of chil­dren not only to mas­ter music and its per­form­ance to a high stand­ard, but to see and treat them as highly cap­able people — and to instil that in them; always encour­aging and never berating.

The sys­tem has now been estab­lished through­out Venezuela and is open to all com­munit­ies — to any child wish­ing to par­ti­cip­ate, com­mit­ting to prac­tice and to learn. In addi­tion it has now spread to 25 other coun­tries around the world includ­ing the USA, Eng­land, Scot­land and Canada.

And it really works — in cre­at­ing happy joy­ous and com­pet­ent chil­dren, in pro­du­cing many very good musi­cians and so much won­der­ful artistry.

This paper was con­trib­uted by Chris Nich­olls to the Music Coun­cil of Australia’s ‘Aus­tralian Musical Futures 2010: The Clas­sical Sum­mit’. You can read more about The Clas­sical Sum­mit here.