Djembe

I have two music clients on the go at the moment, so I was very pleased to be invited to attend the Scottish Association for Music Education (SAME) conference in Stirling today.

Whilst the content was not really aimed at me (being aimed at music educators of which I'm not one) it was really interesting to see how music education has moved on since my day and some of the cool ways they now use technology within the music teaching environment.

I played clarinet back in the day and was in orchestras and choirs and all that, but I have not really done any formal music stuff (Singstar doesn't count) since 1998 when I went to university.

The hands on session about teaching Balinese Kecak music was thus slightly beyond me. I was alright when we were counting in eights, but when we went into tens with a 4/4 beat behind it (aaah!) I got pretty lost.

Later I went to a hands on session about African percussion, where we were playing the djembe (pictured). I was reasonably competent at this. Possibly cos we were back in 4/4 time.

The day reinforced to me how privileged I was to have access to a music education when I was ickle - thanks M&D!