This photo of Sunshine Express was taken over twenty years ago on some farm down in Kent I seem to remember. It was a band that played music for kids, touring schools, etc, using lots of traditional and wacky homemade instruments. I’m the idiot wielding a broom on the left and the fork strummer was Stefan Friedman – the two of us were the bands mainstays and at various times others joined us (in this version Chris Speller was on bass and John Armes played drums).
Since those days I’ve mostly been teaching Design Technology at a Gateshead special school (just singing and playing on the side) but was also in charge of music at a primary school in Oxfordshire. Now I’ve been asked to teach music again which should be fun. I have loads of resources built up over the years – songs, plays, stories, etc – which could be revived and new material written. First task, however, apart from checking out the QCA schemes of work and so on, is to reacquaint myself with Christmas carols since they will be a priority during the Autumn term.
All this may seem a far cry from ‘The Singer Songwriter’s Last Stand’ but maybe not. Woody Guthrie, my all-time folk hero, wrote lots of children’s songs. Performing for children can be enjoyable but it’s no easier than for adults as kids sure let you know how they feel and can be brutally honest. You also have the added problems of keeping control, as in any classroom, and delivering lessons acceptable by the powers that be (entertaining or not they still have to be educational). But, by and large, I’m looking forward to returning to teaching music – and it may serve to get me back into offering workshops in other venues. My main focus remains adult songs and fiction writing, but I’d be happy to perform for children as well. Despite music for children not being taken very seriously by most people in this country (there’s far more of it in the States and Europe) it offers huge creative opportunities, freeing songwriters from the narrow constraints most adult genres allow.