A small moment of inspiration for one person, a great joy for another.

I do want to record those small moments of joy, something that touches your heart, even though it may be just a small moment.  It may mean nothing to anyone else, but for you, the participant, it is meaningful and precious.  Is it even worth an entire blog post?  Probably not, but why should a small moment not be immortalised here?

In year 5, yesterday, I began teaching the children about the start of the history of European 'classical' music: the Medieval era.   Some people look surprised when I say I am teaching the children what I am teaching but it's often been the unit of work where I see the greatest surprises and how much the children enjoy it. Last year, when I taught it- the learning really stuck and even now, the children in year 6 can remember the vocabulary, composers and features of the music in great detail. One class, when the children were composing their own inspired plainchant, every single child was willing and brave enough to take the role of cantor/soloist, leading the rest of the group to imitate their lines.

But yesterday,  I began the unit. I started with talking about how we lack a lot of knowledge about the secular music of ordinary people.  The music we DO know about is the vocal music that took place in the monasteries and convents in Europe.  I introduced the children to possibly the first famous composer in Europe, Hildegard Von Bingen, a nun who was famed throughout Europe for her writings on Theology, Natural Science, Medicine and on her visions she had received since she was a young girl.  In addition, she wrote many large scale religious works.   After setting the children a series of questions to listen out for (such as whether the voices were Soprano, Alto, Tenor or Bass, whether the melody was a stepwise melody, whether it was accompanied or not, etc etc- questions which would help them to understand the typical features of Medieval plainchant, we listened to Columba Aspexit

We probably listened to it about 4-5 times, allowing the children to have time to listen, contemplate and have time to consider their answers and then we went through the answers.  At the end of this, the last question had given the children an opportunity to write about any other features they had noticed or wished to comment on.   Y, a lovely girl, commented that the music was very soothing.  She said to me, "I absolutely LOVE this music. It's so soothing, I just want to listen to it all the time." I told her that if she liked it that much, that she should find it on Youtube and listen to it, and that there was lots of other music by Hildegard Von Bingen available too.  She replied that that was an absolutely brilliant idea and she would do that tonight. She added that she had real trouble getting to sleep and sometimes couldn't fall asleep until midnight and she thought that the music of Hildegard would definitely help her to relax and sleep.  And so, in that one moment, perhaps a life-long love of Medieval vocal singing has begun? Perhaps, she may go on to be a researcher on Medieval sacred music.  Or perhaps it was one moment of happiness, clarity, understanding and enjoyment that will mean nothing.  But for me, the educator, to be party to that conversation, to hear that that music had had that impact on that child in that moment, was a special moment. One to cherish, remember, rejoice in and draw upon when times might not be that good.   Anyone who says you have to teach children the music and things they like already clearly hasn't had one of those moments where you show someone the entrance to the secret garden and I am sorry for them.  If you have a joy, enthusiasm for something and a willingness to share it just as it is, without bells on it, without making it overly fancy, then how can the recipients fail to respond?

One small moment of inspiration for her, one moment of great joy for me.

Have you had a moment like that?

xx