Jimmy Rotheram is music coordinator for Feversham Primary Academy, a school in inner-city Bradford which in the last five years has transformed from a special measures school to ‘outstanding’ by prioritising music and drama, and is now in the top 1 per cent of schools in the country for pupil progress. He also supports local schools with music training and events and performs soul, funk, jazz and comedy at weekends.

It’s difficult to find the words to describe the BKA Summer School experience to somebody who hasn’t seen it for themselves. So rather than spouting superlatives, perhaps the biggest testimony I can give is that when I had to go home, I sobbed and gulped like a baby who had had all of his favourite dinosaur toys taken away.

Serious fun
If you haven’t been before, it is a week of intense fun and learning. A week of revelations. A week of having the most fun you can possibly have with a room full of people and their voices, knowledge and imagination. A week of bonding with people who don’t think you’re weird for putting hand signs to distant car alarms. A week of people unselfconsciously walking round in a state of bliss, pressing in their belly buttons whilst blowing a song about rabbits through a straw into a bottle of water. A week of sideways looks from bemused delegates of other conferences. You will be exposed to a smorgasbord of musical styles. You will develop musicianship and classroom pedagogy from some of the finest minds in music education from around the world, alongside like-minded people who take music and having fun very seriously. I’ve never seen so many people having ‘personal breakthroughs’ so expect some – from the lady who had suddenly discovered a wonderful vibrato voice, to the young women who had never sung in choir or public before, to the man who could suddenly conduct easily.

A morning’s work
Let me walk you through a typical Summer School day. We would begin with an hour of rehearsing Haydn’s Missa Brevis with Árpád Tóth. I learned so much from watching him conduct and coach the choir – such as how to make the lyrics crystal clear, or how to ensure balance and musicality on each phrase, as well as how to warm up and prepare your choir in engaging ways for a session of singing.

This was followed by musicianship classes with Esther Hargittai, who showed us how to have fun whilst developing crazy skills like the ability to suddenly switch modes from any degree of the scale. Even singing and playing in the Phrygian mode was ‘always a joy, never a torture’ (guess which notable music educator said that this is how music should be?). After a quick brew and a natter with kindred spirits at coffee time, it was back to Esther who showed us how to consider all the details of conducting a children’s choir and make part-singing easy for them.

Optional Extras – Singing
I signed up for all of the extras, and recommend the investment to anyone. Allan Hubert-Wright’s singing lessons are truly bespoke and extraordinary. He can show you how to do anything, easily, with your voice. He has the scientific knowledge to know exactly what you need to do physically, and the musical knowledge to apply this perfectly to whatever you want to sing. He added an extra octave to my comfortable range, and suddenly a clear, powerful tone was coming out of my head voice for the first time ever, with a lot less effort than I was putting in before. I should also add that Allan could also be a professional stand-up comedian – he’s completely down-to-earth, friendly and hilarious. You don’t really question the reasons why you are singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in huge tremulous raspberries or blowing bubbles into a bottle of water while you sing, but once you’ve done these exercises and got rid of your giggles, you can sing like a champion. My new voice is like getting a brand new instrument to play with!

Optional Extras – Piano
Piano lessons with Orsolya Szabó are worth every penny. There are certain passages in pieces I practised for hours and hours without getting anywhere. Some gentle movement away from the piano, a slightly different posture, miniscule adjustments to my hand shape and suddenly I could play these passages straight away, without even having to practise! This woman has superpowers! If you don’t believe me, she is a Hungarian gymnastic champion, international concert pianist and a respected fine artist and poet, with a PhD in philosophy!

Joyful and inclusive
After lunch, we would have an afternoon of fun and games and belly laughs with the likes of Lucinda Geoghegan and Gerard Klaassens. We also enjoyed wonderfully creative Dalcroze workshops from Jacqueline Vann which I can’t wait to take back to the classroom. Many first attempts at the games ended in chaos and giggles, but soon we were mastering the games, and reassuringly, kids are far better co-ordinated with new things than most of us ‘old folk’ (over 20s!). Following this, we went deep into the detailed pedagogy with Bori Szirányi, which underpins all the fun and games and ensures musical literacy for everyone. In the evening we enjoyed lectures from the likes of Paul Wilson (folk music) and a wonderful performance from the London Adventist Chorale.

At the sun set, the reasonably-priced bar was filled with people making music together. A huge gang of joyful, inclusive musicians, clutching folders of Irish folk music, jazz real books, or just armed with their ears, wielding accordions, guitars, violins, violas, saxophones and ukuleles with up to three people on the piano singing part harmony. Students, tutors, virtuoso musicians, beginners, guest lecturers, all making music together for the love of it. Imagine the best jam or open mic night ever. Every night! But of course we were all up again bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next day to do it all over again (at least we were after a hearty breakfast and a coffee or two).

I wanted to take everyone home with me and keep it all going in my garden. The anger of my girlfriend discovering hundreds of strangers dancing around our garden making strange noises and hand signs would be a small price to pay to stay a little longer in paradise. I’ll just have to settle for keeping in touch with my new family on Facebook, where incredible support is available for us.

But where the real magic happens is when you take all this back to the classroom and try it out. I’ve been studying the Kodály Approach in some depth over the last few years, and the more I learn and apply from my studies, the easier it is for my pupils to excel. People unfamiliar with the approach are amazed that my year 4s can aurally dictate pentatonic melodies, or sing in harmony, or keep a rhythmically complex ostinato whilst singing in canon. Especially when they are having SO much fun doing it. This is how music should be. Always a joy, never a torture.

Louise Cooper is Head of Music at William Perkin C of E School in Greenford, West London.

I want to learn about this Hungarian school of music. What is the method by which I can achieve great results in my classroom? There is no method. There is no rule book. But go to the Summer School and you can find out more.

Looking back on it, attending the Summer School was akin to developing your mind in the way of the great spiritual traditions. Alongside rigorous scholarship (in our case, endless classes, study, homework, classes, study, homework), I learned as much by being in the presence of those who carried a great light for music education. Although I did not know much about Kodály the man himself, listening to Orsolya (and others) speak about him made me consider what an incredible gift he left us and what an incredible vision this man had. Cecilia Vajda was one of many who were so inspired by him that she carried a beacon for music education to this country. Through her endeavours, my education had been made possible. In my own humble way, I saw myself as part of this tradition of music educators: how would I carry that vision forward? What were my responsibilities to help others share the joy of music?

Making GCSE music accessible
As head of music in a secondary school, one of my challenges is how to make the study of GCSE music accessible to those who wish to study it. How can I teach them to read notation, carry out dictation, identify cadences and analyse scores when their ears (and eyes) may not be trained in Western Classical music? And how can I get them to love this?! About ten years ago a friend of mine recommended the Kodály approach and I went to evening classes with David Vinden. I immediately understood that this approach gave me a framework for introducing students to notation so I began to replicate many of the exercises with my students. Ten years on, I had embedded this approach into the curriculum and it was working. But I had a feeling there was more to learn…

There are no rules, but…
The Rule Book does not exist. But what did I learn? I can summarise my learning about this philosophy of music education in three points. My points may not be the same as yours and I reserve the right to change the points in another ten years! But this is where I got to:
1. Learning music should be fun! It can be learned at a desk, but the learning does not have to all be intellectually-based. Learning can be multi-dimensional: through movement, through singing, through games. Learning can be audio, visual, kinaesthetic, social. There are so many ways to explore music which are applicable with older students as well as younger students.
2. Through a well-planned, systematic, step-by-step approach it is possible to train students’ ears (with particular focus on the ‘inner ear’) in order to appreciate art music at a deep level. The ultimate goal is not a GCSE grade or even a class of perfect sight-readers; the ultimate goal is to share the joy of music with our students. If the methodology is good, we can get there.
3. We should have high expectations for our students. Frankly, I was blown away by the videos of the Hungarian primary school children as what they were able to achieve would be challenging with an A-level class. It has made me consider that I need to set the bar higher for my own students.

I came back from the Summer School buzzing with ideas. (I also momentarily considered retraining as a primary school teacher: how effective could this approach be if used in the early formative years?) Then back to school and dealing with the usual deluge of work which has swept me through September. Realigning my secondary curriculum with this approach will take me some time to effect. But as I carry the light of that inspiration I gained from the Summer School with me, there is no doubt in my mind that it will happen.

Laura is a 25-year-old musicianship teacher and classical singer from Northern Ireland, and has recently accepted a place on the MMus Vocal Performance and Kodály Musicianship course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. She has also recently taken on the role of musicianship lecturer at the Junior Conservatoire of Scotland. Her plan for the future is to go back to Northern Ireland and teach musicianship in areas of deprivation, especially in the rural parts of Northern Ireland, as well as develop creative hubs and spaces for people living with dementia and special educational needs to come together and experience the life-changing power of music.

I don’t really know where to begin… The BKA Summer School was one of the highlights of my professional training to date. It is almost surreal now to think that I was fortunate enough to not only experience the highest level of musicianship training from the world’s most incredible Kodály experts, but also to be selected as one of the recipients of the CVMS award, which in all honesty, made this experience possible for me.

Bringing theory alive
During the course I attended a range of different musicianship classes during the day, and every evening I took part in the extra activities which included Morris dancing, Elgar part songs and of course, the Irish céilí. As invaluable and worthwhile as every single class was for my personal development on the course, I want to give a particular mention to a few of my own personal highlights. Firstly, to my amazing musicianship tutor, Esther Hargittai. Somehow, she managed to turn all the mathematical information that lay dead in my brain from those previous, scary ABRSM ‘theory’ exams about figured bass, chordal progression and modal harmony, into solfa magic! Already, I have started embedding these new ways of thinking with my new class of 10 – to 16-year-old musicianship students, who, after just one month of teaching, have already told me how much easier and FUN their musicianship class is… Magic!