Leading notes

MusicLeader was set up by Youth Music three years ago with the aim of supporting the workforce that delivers music-making opportunities for children and young people. With six Regional Networks up and running (and more planned for later this year), a vast online resource (www.musicleader.net) and a combined national membership of over 10,000 individuals and organisations, MusicLeader is taking a lead in professional development. Each MusicLeader Regional Network provides three core services: one-to- one support and guidance; training and networking opportunities, and online information and resources, but with its own regional flavour. In London for example, our shorter courses complement, rather than duplicate, the range of accredited courses already offered by the capital’s colleges, conservatoires and community music organisations. Other regions run longer programmes. ‘Music Ambassadors’ was a programme run by our Yorkshire Region in partnership with Opera North, combining longer-term workshop training with placements and project work.

Our training also has to mirror the work our members actually do. The ‘portfolio career’ will be familiar to many practitioners in the arts struggling to juggle creative work with teaching or ‘workshopping’. Many music leaders working long-term feel they have lost their creative identity – precisely the identity that inspired their education work in the first place. Our sharing events, master classes and networks are all vital to keeping this creativity ‘fresh’. Music leaders can be conservatoire trained, but are just as likely to be self-taught. Diversity and richness in the workforce is vital, so the training we offer has to be relevant to both.

Changes in the wider music education and learning sector also bring major challenges. The Government-led Music Manifesto recommended changes to the way music leaders are trained and the content of that training. It recommended that music leaders need to be flexible in their practice, have an understanding of the wider learning, creative and musical contexts and a clear sense of where they fit amongst all this. The challenge is to decide how we translate these high-level recommendations into real packages that our members understand and can aspire to. Of course any training programme worth its salt needs to focus on what the employers within that sector actually need from the people they employ. Music leaders too want training that leads to paid work. This is one area where MusicLeader is already making inroads. The ‘Music Igniter’ programme in our West Midlands region is one example where combining training with on the job placements is bearing fruit.

Finally, the issue of quality of practice is one that has long been debated – just how do you prove that what you do is any good? We developed the ‘Code of Practice’ for music leaders with Sound Sense, the national umbrella organisation for community music, as part of the solution. The Code outlines six areas of good practice – from planning to evaluation. Music leaders sign up to show their commitment to quality. It’s a small step, but commitments like this by grass-roots music leaders themselves will help to shape the workforce of tomorrow.