This is what I wrote for the Gigbeth conference blog (it will be up soon):

On Thursday Gigbeth kicked off with its conference; a meeting place for music industry bods, musicians and music educators to discuss and reflect on the sector, I quote: “bringing education and industry specialists together, the conference is designed for those who work in the music industry and education to offer fresh approaches that can bring closer working relationships between education and industry”.

The conference started with a warm greeting from Clare Edwards – the pioneering force behind the annual event. The keynote was followed by an interview with Fyfe Dangerfield (from the Guillemots) and Janice Long (BBC radio presenter). They had an informal chat about Fyfe’s experiences of the music industry and music education, Fyfe shared a few anecdotes about working as a music teacher, describing his difficulty in classroom management and engaging students with wordless rapping tasks.

Personally, the panel discussions, workshops and space in between for informal chats and networking proved the most useful. I went along to all things music education starting with a panel debate titled ‘Music Education and Industry’ which explored their relationship. It discussed how a new approach to education could inspire, engage and give a pragmatic representation of the different career paths in the music industry. Eugene Martin who is regional coordinator for New Deal West Midlands (Musicians) notified us how most of his clients were solely interested in the career of ‘artist’ and unaware of the other careers within the sector. There was much discussion about the ‘tough love’ needed for young people to hear the truth about the gritty realism in the Creative Industries, and that X-Factor style careers were competitive and minimal.

Marc Jaffrey gave some interesting insights into the music education system often leaving young people feeling ‘uninspired’, how those in the education system itself weren’t quite sure what they were educating young people for, and the large disparity in the way we are taught to think about creativity and intelligence. He spoke about the necessity for young people to be taught hard skills to survive a challenging workforce, such as divergent thinking, innovation and creativity and their relationship with music education.

I attended an excellent workshop regarding Creative Apprentices where Liz Appleby gave insights into this recently launched initiative, working in groups we spoke about the challenges of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises to ensure that there were incentives for them to sign up to the scheme, and discussion of logistical issues and inclusion; such as with young people who are classified as NEET, to just name a few.

*The Creative Apprentice Scheme was launched in September 2008 and boasts ‘a new and alternative route into the Creative Industries’. Creative Apprentices are granted the chance to ‘learn valuable skills and earn a qualification, GCSE or A-level equivalent, designed and approved by industry’.

Last year the Gigbeth Conference gifted its attendees iPod shuffles but this year we were treated to a champagne fueled VIP party, with music from local artists Jo Hamilton, Scott Matthews; I loved his voice and melodic writing, in particular the arpeggio-esque ideas he used for voice; lovely! The party ended with Nigel Clark of Dodgy with some more upbeat, acoustic renditions as well as a few chart successes.

Enjoy the rest of the festival!

I had a lovely time, apart from a rather messy VIP party – gulp! It was great that music educators, musicians and industry peeps in the region could come together to celebrate and discuss wider issues of the music sector!!

Apologies for the rather poor photography, champagne curbed my amateur skills…

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