Music Education for Children with Physical Disabilities

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Wednesday 30th July 2014 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Lipsey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to encourage music education for children with physical disabilities.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that I chair the All-Party Group on Classical Music and that I am chair of the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. I thank noble Lords from all four quarters of the House for having stayed on, eating deep into their well deserved Recess, to show that they recognise the utmost importance of the subject that I am raising, albeit for a relatively limited number of people.

The pianist Paul Wittgenstein—brother of the philosopher—had an arm amputated in World War I. He subsequently approached all the best contemporary composers seeking works that he could play. That is why we are blessed with Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand. By a remarkable coincidence, that wonderful concerto figures in the BBC Proms tonight, played by Alexandre Tharaud, although it is perhaps unfortunate that he is a two-handed pianist and the concert is introduced by the British professional one-handed pianist Nicholas McCarthy.

This is by no means the only piece of left-handed piano music. There are, for example, Godowsky's 53 transcriptions of the Chopin études for the left hand. Hearing is believing. I recently heard the extraordinary Goan-born pianist Karl Lutchmayer in Alkan's fantasy for the left-hand. It is to Karl that I owe the insight that in one way the piano is better played left-handed as the top fingers in the left hand are strong fingers—the second finger and the thumb. In the right hand, they are weak fingers—the little finger and the fourth finger—which do not sing out as clearly as the stronger fingers would.

Sadly, the piano is one of the few instruments that can be played left-handed. My wife, who has only one functional arm, is confined to singing, as she does with gusto, in a choir—perhaps she should join the noble Lord, Lord German, in the Parliament Choir—but she could not play an instrument even if she wished to because she has the use of only one arm.

The lack of instruments excludes from music any youngster with disabilities affecting the arms in particular, although there are other disabilities that need to be catered for. The Government grandiosely declared in The Importance of Music: a National Plan for Music Education in 2011 that every child should have the opportunity to learn an instrument and progress to musical education. Perhaps he had not read about this debate, but only last week, Nick Gibb, the responsible Minister said:

“No children should miss out on the inspiration and excitement that music can bring to their lives”.

Amen to that, but the people who penned those sentences had not really given any thought to children with disabilities, who are wholly or mostly excluded from this.

This is a curious omission. No one doubts the importance of music in education for people facing mental challenges. Examples abound of children with profound learning difficulties where music provides a vibrant way of connecting them. They respond to it like nothing else on earth. We would not tolerate for an instant an education system that said that children with disabilities should be excluded from sport—certainly not in the light of the Paralympics and what they see from Glasgow this week. However, nobody seems to give a thought to physical handicap and music.

Clearly, one obstacle is the lack of musical instruments which can be played with limited arm capacity. The violin, for example, provides obvious difficulties. I want to draw attention, as mine was drawn, to the work of a wonderful small charity, the One-Handed Musical Instrument Trust. Among other things, it runs a competition for inventors of one-handed instruments. For example, in 2013 it was won by the toggle-key saxophone built for a stroke survivor. This has the full facility of a saxophone but is played with the fingers of one hand. There are one-handed recorders. I think there is a one-handed flute and I read somewhere that there was a one-handed French horn player somewhere. The OHMI is also collaborating with researchers on electronic musical instrument developments to ensure that disabled musicians can take part in a full range of music-making. Maybe one day there will be a one-handed violin, although it will be a digital one-handed violin.

Such instruments can be expensive, although not as expensive as a Stradivarius, I may say. A toggle-key saxophone costs about £15,000. First, not many people would need those instruments, so we are not talking about a huge expense. Secondly, as the number ordered goes up, the price goes down. Indeed, I think that that is happening with one-handed recorders, for which there is a certain demand. We need to invest a bit in teachers. I know that HMI is developing a plan for a national teaching project in the use of those instruments.

So an attempt is being made at progress, but the real problem behind all the concrete problems that I have identified is one of awareness. If no one knows or thinks about the problem, nothing much will be done about it. We know that music education faces serious challenges. Following the admirable Henley report and the emergence of music hubs, there was a surge of optimism, but provision has turned out to be patchy, at best. Needless to say, and without being a cracked CD disc, cuts in money are real obstacles. However, the £18 million extra for music education announced by the Government last week is very welcome, and a small fraction of that could do wonders for young, disabled would-be musicians.

That is not the only way that Ministers can help with this unique challenge. I am not asking the noble Lord, Lord Nash, for a blank cheque, nor for promises of legislation, nor even for a White Paper or a consultative document; nor that the new Education Secretary casts aside her responsibilities to tour the country crusading on behalf of this single objective. However, I ask the Minister to affirm that this is something of which the Government are aware; I ask for a strong statement that the Government recognise its importance; and I ask for a commitment by Ministers and their officials to raise it as part of their work in propagating music education.

If there is one thing worse than wrestling with an intractable problem, it is wrestling with an intractable problem when the world does not seem to know or care. The Minister has an opportunity to put that right today.