School music teaching is 'too shallow', warns leading composer Howard Goodall

A leading composer has launched a stinging attack on music in schools, warning that current GCSEs in the subject are too "shallow".

Howard Goodall argued that pupils should be studying about individual pieces in depth rather than simply learning lists of musicians and writers.

And he suggested that growing UK industries want schools to produce more creative young people, not "advanced mathematicians".

Speaking at the Festival of Education at Wellington College in Berkshire, Mr Goodall criticised current music exams and said teachers should be left to decide what music pupils should study.

"Music GCSE at the moment, in my view, is too wide a subject," he said.

"It is too shallow and too wide. What happens in the real music world is that detail and nuance is what people are interested in. All musicians are interested in the detail, the nerdy stuff. That's what really turns musicians on."

Mr Goodall, who served as National Singing Ambassador for four years, said teenagers should study one or two pieces of music in real detail, rather than skimming the surface of many, to ensure they gain a depth of knowledge and appreciation for music.

"The reason for this is not because I want to make things more difficult for everybody, I want to make it more interesting. And it's the nerdy detail that's interesting and you get passionate about. Music literacy is the aim."

He argued that music teachers should be told that pupils need to leave school at 16 with an understanding of the subject.

"When they come out at 18 they need to have more extended skills, but we will leave you teachers, who we trust, for two years to do that job," he said. "And we're not going to tell you how to do it. We're not going to prescribe what music you do.

"It's a nonsense, the idea that captains of industry are telling us how to run schools now - 'oh you've got to have these subjects'.