Episode 89 - 'Joy, Coaching, Inclusion + More...' - Sharon Jagdev Powell - Black Lives in Music and Brent Music Academy

In this episode Chris chats with Sharon Jagdev Powell of Black Lives in Music and much more. This podcast is brought to you by Charanga.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Music Education Podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by Charanga. In this episode, I chat with Sharon Jagdev Powell. I enjoyed this conversation on so many levels, partly because Sharon was just a great guest. This podcast is all about having genuinely authentic and honest conversations about music education, and Sharon made that possible. It's a conversation largely, I suppose, about inclusivity in music education, but it's one that I hope actually offers some emotional reflections rather than maybe just statistical. Also, Jaren offers some really interesting insight into her work as a coach, of which I think all music educators again find some value in as well. I hope you enjoy listening.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

So that was like, oh yeah, I do belong here. And I think that's one thing that I haven't had for a long time. It's just that feeling of belonging, and that's really, really important to me. Because I've worked with young people for so long. I think it's important that they feel like they belong to the curriculum, to the organization, to the group, whatever it is that we're doing. Um, so that's absolutely key. So for me to feel like I belong, that's a that's a really good thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

That's cool. Yeah, that's very cool. And what are you do what are you doing in it? And what what are they doing as a group? What's the sort of like?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

So Black Lives in Music, we I'm doing a different different events on the um education and program manager. And um, it's just really exciting because I can be creative, I can take projects where I want to go. A really exciting project we're doing is with the Lang Lang Foundation. So we have basically been given uh as many pianos as we would like, or numerous pianos, they're new digital pianos, it's very exciting. They come with uh uh an iPad and an app, which I can't vouch for the quality for, but I'm gonna delve into that. And basically, they've offered these to Black Lives in Music to put into communities with black and brown young people to use them who wouldn't normally get access. So, what a great thing to do! Just to go and speak to people, find those communities where these pianos will make the most difference, and uh and just pull a project together. And what I'm the different projects I've got going on are so so different, but they're all in the heart of the community, which I just love doing that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Amazing, amazing. Okay, so what what sort of oh my word, sorry? Um see, I told you I'm a professional. I'll leave that in. I'll leave that in. Um so no, I'll cut it out. Um so what what does the organisation exactly do? What could explaining it to a white, middle class, heterosexual male born in Sussex with a cello in the background? Like what you know, what's the what's the you see? I play really badly. I just um put it there to have a sense of elitism. Really, I'm just a guitarist. I just sort of put it there to just project. Um but seriously, you know, what what is the sort of the aims and why are those like tangibly like why are those aims needed? Because if we I don't know, talk about you know structural races or sis systemic or systematic within the wider systems, that's kind of something that I don't know, I think most most people are now it's but it's part of common conversation, isn't it? But when it comes to music, I th I think to a lot of people's perception, music is fluffy and lovely, and everyone and you know why why is why how could people possibly be excluded in music, especially you know, based on uh ethnicity or how people look. So I suppose what I'm asking is is how are people excluded? You know, what what work specifically needs to be done? In other words, what's wrong and what's the solution?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah, so it I think it the work that Black Lives and Music do is so important because it's the in terms of the music industry, the music industry brings, as we know, so many billions of pounds worth of uh of money to the country. But black music, black and brown global majority music has always been not in the in the spotlight, but it brings so much to us today, and I think the organization itself sits there to really put the spotlight on that, to ensure that people that perhaps would miss out now have a voice, have a spotlight, can be involved in events and we're reaching out to young people and organisations and orchestras and ensembles to make sure that they can be heard and they can be seen. And that really ties into my values. Um, because I find this really weird doing a podcast because it I don't ever feel it's about me, it's about where I put my spotlight. And I feel that Black Lives in Music does that really well. It's not about us that us as an organization, it's who can we bring in, who can we celebrate, who can we show is doing some brilliant work who wouldn't normally be able to have that and show that work. So I think the values tie in really, really strongly with mine, even though I've moved over from music education to industry, I'm the education person for Black Lives in Music, so I can bridge those that gap because they often exist separately, but they just need to be together. So young people can learn music at school, can be part of the curriculum, can study music if they want to, can be part of ensembles. But if they want a career in music, there's got to be that pathway there. So for people that look like me, for people from the global majority, black and brown people, they often don't have those role models. They don't have that pathway. So this is to give the opportunity to those young people to actually make a career in in music if if that's what they want to do.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

So is it about um so it's a real I guess really almost what my question was is like how how is it a problem? Like, where is it tangibly a problem? And it is what you're saying that it's a visual representation thing of seeing people who look like you doing that thing, and that's those musicians on it.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

I mean, my daughter studied GCSE music, and she turned up one day and she said, Mom, why are we learning about dead white composers? And I know I feel for her, I get it. And being a teacher myself, I taught for 23 years in schools in London and Nottingham, and just the frustration of that curriculum not being relevant to the young people that come in the classroom, and they're not the same young people that come and play in the bands, that come and hang out. That music department that I was in was always the oasis where people would come and they'd hang out and they'd want to be. But when you look at the curriculum, they weren't reflected in that curriculum with the with the set with set works or whatever we were studying. So I tried really hard to make that music relevant in my classroom for young people. But it isn't across the country, it just isn't. And we lose so many people, so many young people who just think the music's not for them. Music's not for them in the classroom, but it always is something that they will dabble in, that they will listen to, that they will make beats on their computers, on their phones. So that that gap is a real concern for me. But then we've also got the issue of teachers and the lack of teachers that are coming into the profession. So it's a huge, it's a huge thing, but it's so important to me. Because when I started teaching in 1996, music was, yeah, it was a long time ago, but music was but but I was teach I was teaching and I went and I enjoyed what I was doing because it was musical, and it's moved so far away from going into the classroom and sharing music and teaching young people, it's all the other things that um make it really difficult for young people, but also to grow as a teacher, so that's why I made a decision to leave the profession in the end.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

I just it's just really interesting. It's just really interesting with that representation idea because even taking out uh visual elements of ethnicity, or even seeing that someone is a woman or a man, or etc. etc. the there's so much to be said, isn't there, about how the music that is studied just generally doesn't relate. Just be out of taste or the time that that music is from, or it doesn't yeah, it doesn't necessarily resonate with young people as a whole. Yeah. Do you do you think do you think like is there such a sort of a structural problem in the sense that in everything everything needs to start again and the way that it's because even the way that music is measured within like GCSE music or A-level music and or or even the it in earlier key stages where which is just looking at music progressing, it doesn't work, and I was talking in the last podcast episode, it those ways of measuring ability they work well if you're analysing a particularly standard song or a piece of classical music, but it doesn't necessarily work with something that's purely electronic and purely textural, or be it something that's very lyrical but with something very minimal sonically that's underneath it, but the curation of it is just as do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I think you're what you're talking about is creativity there, and I think often we don't give young people enough license to be as creative as they want and explore things. When my this goes back to one of the memories I had when I was studying GCSE music. Um we had a composer in, and he was he was obviously on his PGC, but he's he had a specialism in composing. And um I was at the piano and I was just trying some standard chords, uh, didn't really know what I was doing, and he just gave me a license to try that and move up to that end of the piano and try that note that clashes with that. And that was it was like a an hour session, but it really changed the way that I thought about music. I don't need to fit that that uh that that sort of standard, I can do my own thing. So I think people are really influential in that, and going back to um Black Lives in Music, that's why the people are really important to show that it's okay. It's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to take those risks. And I'm a I'm a massive risk taker, otherwise, I'm not gonna learn anything. So I do absolutely do that sort of thing, and I've sort of touched on composition as well from my experiences. Black lives in music offer a platform for young black and brown composers to be at an event. We've got an event in October called Classically Black, and we have um a showcase where young people can come and show their work. And last year, oh my god, it was incredible. We had one young um female composer, and she lived in Brixton, and she talked about the sirens and how she felt at home there. And then she sat at the piano and she switched on her laptop, and this siren came out of nowhere, and she was talking about how comforting it was and how it made her feel at home, and then this gorgeous piano part came in, and it was just like so creative, so like nothing that I'd ever heard before. But she was given the license to do what she wanted to do, to represent herself, to be her authentic self, and show that through a composition. So that's really powerful, and those moments are really unique. And I just think we could do so many more moments like that. It doesn't have to be a big event, it could be in the classroom where a young person feels safe to do that. And I don't think schools offer that safety for young people to be as creative as they probably are.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

And why why, or what how do you fix that, or why is that? What things are in place that's not making people comfortable to be themselves?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, it's very much assessment driven, it's very much linear progress. So, one of my moments I don't want to completely down dumb down teaching, and I had some really good experiences there, but the moment I decided that I needed to leave was I had everyone playing the guitar in the classroom, and the kid came up to me and he said, Oh, can you just show me that D chord again? Can you just show me that D chord miss? And I said, I'm really sorry, I've got to do my assessments, and I had to say, Off you go, go and find a go and ask your mate while I was sitting at the laptop doing my assessments, and I just thought, This is not, this is not right. This I should be there with them, learning the guitar, helping them. So at that point I thought, I'm out, I need to do something where I can make you know a bit more impact rather than putting in my data because the deadline was leaving. So yeah, it was a bit of a moment.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

That's tough though, isn't it? Because how do you do you even need to measure progress whatsoever in music?

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Well, that's the thing, because it was always it had to be linear. So you would do be doing, I don't know, I used to teach taiko drumming. So for for one assessment, they'd be assessed on taycho drumming, then they'd go on to something on the keyboards or songwriting. And of course, you can't have the linear progression when you're looking at rhythm, when you're looking at stance and everything else, an understanding of the history of taiko. Then you're doing some songwriting. But you had to show that they were that the young people were making linear progress, and it just it just made a mockery of the whole thing and just wasn't a good use of time, my time really.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

So often from these wonderful conversations that I get to have through this podcast, there is a feeling that music itself is kind of at odds with how schools and education as we know it in the Western world function. It's as if music can't really exist in this space and be its authentic self, really. I wonder if some of the work that you're doing with Black Lives in music kind of reaffirms that because it it does, but a type of music that's just as valid, but it's not getting the cred, if you like. It's not getting the A-level tip.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Very much so. But that's where my other job comes in as director of Brent Music Academy. So we we have we uh welcome young people who've shown a bit of a talent for production. We've got two pathways: production pathway and the performance pathway. Got a really good partnership with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and we also have um really good workshop leaders who are from the music industry, so they get that experience. And I we run on a Saturday, and our young people who necessarily don't necessarily study music in school in local schools in Brent, but they come to us to work with industry professionals to gain that experience as a stepping stone if they want to study it further or want to develop a career in music. So perhaps what they're not getting in the schools, they're getting elsewhere. And there are other organisations like Brent who can offer that to young people, where they can just come in if they want to start as an artist, they get all the background um information about how to market themselves, how to look at social media, and then they have the skills. We we're based at um ICMP Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in Kilburn, and the facilities there are excellent, so they get to work in a real studio with with industry professionals. So there are organizations that do offer that. Um but there's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Music is starting to exist outside of school.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah, absolutely, and that's where the young people are excited to be. But the problem with it being outside of school is that young people often have other um interests, sports and whatever. So will they commit to music? And it's often the young people with the parents who get it who will say, Yeah, we'll prioritize that, we'll get you to to the Brent Music Academy so you can learn that. So it's a tricky one, we're always fighting with other other things. Um, but the young people that see it do really well with Brent Music Academy because they can just come in and be creative, and I love the fact that we offer that. We're not offering them this is how this is step A, B, C, D. They just come in and they be creative as they want to do, and we shape that from our knowledge of where that where they want to go. So that's a really special thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Sounds cool. I guess I guess there is a problem though, isn't there? Of if if it does only exist outside of school, when you get to well, particularly A level, for example, if you are a young person, because now you have to be in school till you're 18, right? Which I kind of always forget. It's kind of a crazy thing, isn't it? I think that would have really got me down as a 16-year-old going, what I have to stay. Um, but yeah, as a young person who's yeah, 16, 17, 18, and they're studying their A levels, if they were able to do A-level music tech and an A-level music, even a drama or something thrown in there, they have that amount of time in their day that they can commit to their craft, if you like, or their art. Whereas if it purely exists outside of school, they might be, you know, have all that energy and fire and drive to make a vibrant musical career, but they they are having to put all their energy into chemistry, biology, and German.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, that's yeah, yeah, definitely. I think um I think it's I think you do get the young people that know they want to get involved in music. So it's our role as educators to make sure we tap into that and don't let them get away. Because I think when thinking back to when I was at school, I didn't have anyone that looked like me or that could guide me in that way. And a lot of the things I do, I think, oh, if only I would have had the opportunity to do that, that would have been taught me in a different direction, open doors for me. So I think that opening of the doors is what I'm really keen to do because I know that the doors weren't particularly open for me. So I'm classically trained as a viola player. I went through the system, did GCSEs, A levels, did a degree of uh BA honours. And only very recently I found people that do look like me and have had experiences similar to me, because I was the only brown face in the orchestras and the and the ensembles and that, and that's really hard. But now I want to make sure that it's a different environment for young people, just so they feel how they're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

How did your sorry, sorry, how did your route into orchestral music and classical music come then? Because was it what you know was it at home as well?

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Or what you do for you? I was uh it was when I was in primary school and I got took out of lessons. I think there were about 10 of us that got to taken out of our lesson, and we all stood in this hall and we were all given a violin. And at that point, I just felt like slightly special and different, like I belonged to something, and that was a real key moment for me because there was only a few of us, and then I continued having the lessons. They were free back in the day, so I didn't have to pay for lessons, and then uh I decided I wanted to do GCSE and started having piano lessons. But the key thing for me um was parental support because, in terms of community, yeah, I possibly should have been a doctor or a lawyer, a good Asian woman should be doing those sorts of things, shouldn't be doing the creative music stuff. But my parents said it's okay, do what you want, do what makes you happy. So I do firmly believe that because of their support, I was pushed and able to do what I wanted to do. So yeah, so that's where my classical sort of roots came, but then always aware that there weren't enough people that understood where I was coming from. Um and that's tricky, but then that's why I love the roles that I'm in at the moment, because I can quite openly talk about inclusion, about lived experience, and make it better for the next generation. That's really important to me.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

I'm keen to sort of understand what that um feels like, yeah, tangibly, like emo em emotionally, I suppose, or what exactly what you're describing there, being the only um person who looks like you in well, and even from a gender perspective, was that or was that or was that quite mixed, or was this hard, but then all it's always it's just what I've known.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

So even at primary school, there was me and there was one other person from the global majority in my class. So we were just, you know, it's it's it's just that's just the way it is. But I just kind of got on with it, and I knew my parents wanted me to do well with whatever I did, so I had that support, but emotionally, yeah, it's tricky. When I look back on it, I probably had more of a thick skin. And didn't let it affect me because I was just driven. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to make the best of this. I'm going to be motivated to do that.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

But now I look at it and think Were you in a predominantly white area or you're in a Asian area?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

White area basically. In Wolverhampton, I went to school in Wolverhampton, so from the West Midlands. And most of my friends and communities that we lived in were white. Yeah. And that had a I think it's had a positive effect on me because now I can draw upon that experience. But at the time it just was what it was, and I just fought really hard to do what I wanted to do because I wanted to make it work. And maybe I had to fight stronger than other people. That that perhaps it was that had more privileges than me. I don't know. And I'm not bitter about it. It just shaped what I am today. And then now I know that I can talk about these things really openly with experience and make things better for others.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Really interesting. And what what about um there's this cultural element to which I find really interesting, particularly within music, of where we're sort of correcting an i injustice or what you're trying to make access to music more equal, essentially. And particularly if if you're talking about something like classical music and where energy is then put into well, we've got to make access to Western classical instruments more open to what it could even be people from lower incomes or but also culturally um people from different parts of the globe and non-Western countries, then do we end up neglecting those cultural elements? So for example, a young person who is of Indian descent and at home he's got this his parents are always playing beautiful Indian classical music or you know in his learning sitar, but all the opportunities that are being put in front of his Western his Western classical, here's Western classical, let's make it. Do you know? Do you think there ever becomes a point where it's at the expense of Wittrus trying to, we're almost like trying to save Western classical? Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 24:23

There's probably I think it will always be there. There will always be the people that will, you know, people in orchestras who will will will sort of um champion that that viewpoint. But I think what needs to happen is to have that safe space for people to feel comfortable enough to bring their own cultures in to that space and have that recognized on an equal footing, which it isn't, I would say. I think that's key for me. And you can only have that by creating those spaces, call it a safe space, call it a brave space, where people feel confident that they can come in and bring that tradition in, talk about the sitar, maybe even bring an instrument in. Um I did a project um with a music hub where we had um a Muslim beatboxer come in, and he did he went right into the community, um, the Asian community, and young people talked about the food that they were eating, then they bought in their languages, and then then they built a piece of music around that with beatboxing, and and it was so creative, but they felt comfortable in doing that, and that was part of their school, and then they'd go home and they'd teach their parents how to beatbox, and yeah, it just it's it's infectious, and it's embedded into that curriculum, and that was part of what happened, which was really positive. I think often if things are seen really separately and there isn't that space for them to gel, you're missing out on so much, so much joy and so much energy and so much creativity, where and making people feel comfortable is is a huge part of that, so they feel safe.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

To be yeah, to be part of any of those musical cultures rather than seeing them as a divisive thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Um I talk a lot about psychological safety as well. Um, with Black Lives and Music, we've just done a symposium called Moving the Dial at um Guildhall School of Music and Drama. And we had a lot of the conservatoires in there, a lot of music organizations and orchestra representatives. And that conversation about psychological safety, I think we're just scratching the surface of it with Black Lives and Safety.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

What is it?

SPEAKER_01 26:33

So psychological safety is is well, we talked about it from various aspects, from staff aspects and student aspects, uh, from student perspective, just on how you can be safe in a space to bring your authentic um self to celebrate your own achievements, to celebrate your background rather than being the only blackface or the brown face in that community. It's about making sure that you belong and um and feeling safe to do that and feeling safe to if you've got a concern about something that's said to you or something that you're learning, that you can share that and you can be confident to share that, knowing that something will be done about it. So psychological safety is really important for me at the moment because it's just on my agenda and the things that I talk about, but that's got to be key to ensure that those young people feel safe so they can then be as creative as they want to be without fear of being told that that's wrong or that's not good or that's not the way that we do things here, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay, okay. So we I so talking musically, that could be offering yeah, a particular musical idea, exactly, but then being told like, well, that's not really what we're after. We're sort of moving it over to that sort of place.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Yeah. It's weird, isn't it? Because music is ultimately insanely exclusive, more so than even something like sport, which you know, um requires like has physical requirements on it. It just without without even actively saying something, I think the well I joked at the beginning, so I put my cello there as a sort of like a elite symbol, but it has I know my my relationship with that instrument in particular has been um it has so much association with it that it must be um so for example I I play instruments in different ways and play them percussively or whatever, but when I do anything like that on the cello, the reaction to that is totally different to on an instrument like a guitar or working electronically, but because it has a cultural connotation of something being proper and correct, and you know, so it's like speaking properly the Queen's English. That's that is right and that is wrong. It doesn't have to be said, does it?

SPEAKER_01 28:58

It's just there, it's just like and I think I think that's one of the things that I'm keen to do is to change that perspective on that. So music is accepted for being music, and often we put things into boxes. Oh, she's a classically trained viola player, she must be doing this and this and this. Whereas I'm not, I'm happy to challenge that and and listen to ideas and be open to creativity. Whereas I think some people, some organisations perhaps don't think in that way, where everything should be in um integrated, it's not a dumbing down of it at all, it's an absolute celebration of of set of creativity, and I think that's missing from certain aspects of the curriculum and sort of organizations as well, perhaps, where it's seen as diversifying is dumbing down, but it absolutely isn't, and that's a big mind shift, a big culture shift that the sector needs to make to appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

But there's got a it's it's got to change Western classical, though, hasn't it? Because if Western classical music education is predominantly based on well, for a start, learning to be a performer rather than a composer, so focused on performance over creativity, that's like a fundamental uh sticking point, isn't it? Because between do you know what do you know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Yeah, I think so. I think it would be really good to sit down and start from scratch and see what our young people are into, what they're doing, and how we can best serve their needs. But that's a huge thing to do because we're kind of set. But I would love to go back and have youth voice at the heart of planning curriculum, making sure that they have a voice so it's more relevant for them. And I think we would immediately see more young people looking at careers in music and looking at studying it further because it would be made relevant and because they have some ownership over it. That ownership's really important.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we it's been built, it's been built, and we're just chipping away, making little changes, whereas it would be better to start again.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

A lot of organisations do do a lot of youth voice work, and that's great. Um, a Brent Music Academy, we're looking to get some young people on our board, but I'm not quite there yet because we want to make sure that the young people feel comfortable and they know what their what their view is, what their role is on that board. There's nothing worse than putting a young person into governance and them not knowing what their relevant, what what their relevance is. All the acronyms that we use in Music Ed are awful, so it's just to get lost in that. So I'm really keen for it to be positive experience for young people. But there are more boards, and there's some really good boards where young people do shape the way that organisations work, and I think that's got to be key in the development of organisations and the curriculum in the future. I think to have them as part of it has got to be a good way forward. Because it shouldn't be me or anyone else sitting in an office saying this is what young people need. I think we need to ask them more because they will know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

And it's got and it's got to be locally to each class as well, hasn't it? Surely because rather than and the cur the curriculum is ultimately so open anyway, isn't it? I know that's kind of an unpopular thing to say.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Because I appreciate there's a lot of maybe seeming rigidity in model music curriculum, but in what is possible to deliver as a teacher in this country is actually incredibly broad and it is, and I always used to look to my young people for the latest developments in tech or what are they listening to, share a playlist with me so I can learn more. And I felt that was the right attitude because I went into the classroom and I didn't know everything, and I was right really comfortable with that because I'm there to learn as well. But perhaps some people, perhaps some teachers go in and feel like they need to know everything, they need to deliver everything and be sort of ahead of the kids. But I was not ahead of the kids in my classroom a lot of the time, and I embrace that. I think that's a good attitude to have with all of my work. I don't know everything, I'm there to learn. Uh, and I think that's a good way to shape what happens in the classroom is to learn from those young people.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Fantastic. So tell me about the coaching work you do.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah, so I've recently when I was made redundant from my previous job, um, and that was a bit of a oh my god, what am I gonna do now? But it was actually the best thing that ever happened to me because now I've got my two brilliant jobs with Black Lives in Music and Brent Music Academy, but I also retrained to be an executive coach and I coach with music and I coach for joy, and these two things have completely shaped my work, my vision, my values, my thoughts on music. Um because I've listened so much better than I had done before. A lot of people listen to get their own point in, to say the next thing. I'm often in so many meetings where there's just that one person who has to speak, who has to say what they've got to say. And it's not relevant at all. So I'm very much a considered speaker. I will think about what I want to say and then I will say it if it's relevant. But the coaching with music has been like something so incredible. So music is a leveller, as we know. Anyone can have put a piece of music on and talk about it. So in my coaching sessions, I asked my coaches to bring in a piece of music, and that starts the conversation because we can all share a piece of music, we can all talk about a piece of music, and that really helps with connection. So with my coachy, with my clients, I can connect on a with a piece of music, doesn't matter what it is, we can talk about it a little bit, and then we're right, we're on the same level, we're on the same page, and then we go into coaching, and that works really well. And I've built up playlists with coaches because often they bring in a piece of music that's quite powerful, so they might bring something in to uh that's relevant to the coaching session about how they're feeling, and then that takes another level of conversation, and that works brilliantly. So I'm really excited to do that work and listen differently with my coaching.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

And well, when you're talking about coaching, is this sort of broader life coaching, or is this as a musician coaching like a musical career?

SPEAKER_01 35:26

So I trained um as a leadership coach, so it's an executive coach. I'm currently working with senior leaders in schools to coach them. But with the mu So I'm still develop I'm still very new, I'm still developing my coaching practice. I will be setting up my own business, but I've as I found well I'd coached a lady from the music industry, I coached a uh a music specialist within the college, and um it music is so important to these people, but it's just I've just I've embedded it into everything that I do. Um, even when I'm coaching people that are not uh not related to music, it works brilliantly to really focus on what we're what we're talking about with that leveler, with that creating that safe space where we can talk about other things on the back of that piece of music.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Is that partly because it sort of opens up uh I don't know, uh an emotional connection? You're just you're sort of leaving the rational words behind and just okay, yeah, I'm feeling stuff, you're feeling stuff, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Yeah, it's good. And we I always encourage my coaches to bring part of themselves into the into the session. It's not about me, it's not about, you know, I don't I leave my assumptions at the door, they bring what they want into the session. If it could be based around a piece of music, you're on to a winner. It doesn't particularly have to be an upbeat, happy piece of music, it could be something that's more meaningful that we can unpick during the session, but that just proves the power of music is so important, and it can be used in for non-musicians if or or anybody really as a leveller and a connector. Um, I also coach for joy, so I'm developing a theory of joy, and that's very much linked to the music as well. Um just so theory of joy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

I want to hear about that.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

So tell me. Yeah, so like we have theory of changes for everything. Um, so most organizations, so I I work um I'm stepping into co-chair for the music education council. We have got a theory of change that embeds uh that links to everything that we do. But the problem with the theory of change is that there's no endpoint. Theory of joy, you know that you need to get to the joy at the end. So, how do you get there? And it's how you coach and design your session to reach that goal of joy.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

What sorry don't apologize. What's the theory? So, can we do the theory of so this the education council that has a theory? Theory of change of change. Okay. And how can you explain that in a sort of you know?

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Yeah, so so it's what what you want to achieve, you look at your long-term, uh, short-term goals and outcomes, uh, what the assumptions are within the sector. So for the music education council, it isn't as inclusive as it could be. Um, the curriculum isn't probably as relevant as it could be. So you have all you set set out your assumptions and what you want to change and how you're gonna get into the theory of change.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Okay, fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

And then your theory of joy is yeah, it is is it's it's just how it's just what you need to put into a coaching session, the things that you need to um work with your client on in terms of their goals, so they can achieve the joy at the end of however many sessions you do. And it's bringing finding that joy and with within little little moments and celebrating those moments to celebrate that joy, which builds up a person, which builds up the confidence, particularly if you're a new leader and you're in a new leadership role. Confidence is always a big thing that I've addressed with coaching. So once you get more confident, you find that joy, you get that pat on the back or pat on the head, and that makes you achieve more and more as you go through your role.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

That's a substantially underused word, I think, particularly in music education. Oh, yeah. Joy. Yeah. It's that's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Yeah, I'm all about the joy, always trying to find the joy daily in whatever I do. I think that's so important. Otherwise, I don't see the point of doing what I'm doing. And I've all and I'm that's where when I talk about the roles that I do. I'm so enthusiastic about them because they're absolutely in my heart where I want to be. They chime with my values, and I'm so happy doing that. I get it, some people just work because they have to work, but for me, it's more important to me. It's absolutely tied up in my values and who I am. That's different.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

That's very interesting, but yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't get um mentioned, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Yeah, I'm here to change that.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Um yeah, yeah, just just never really. I've I'm writing something, uh resource for music teacher at the moment about composing and well-being, and this the resources uh on yeah, uh for teachers to uh help young people to compose for the pure and simple reason of making music to I guess feel better, to make life more enjoyable and joyful. And writing about those things is it's kind of like talking about finding joy in music, yeah. And they seem so they're so obvious, they're so obvious. You I almost feel ridiculous when I'm writing them down. But I think we so often, especially as musicians, we just sort of take that as we don't need to say it because that's why we're all doing it. But actually, it does. I mean, right at the beginning, you mentioned um the economic element of music, and that always comes up, isn't it? Because we feel it's we're we're like justifying the magic to you know to the normals, aren't we? We're going, no, no, no, no, no, it does, it makes money, it does. But it's just joyous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It will improve your life. But don't worry about that.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

But you know, I know, I know, it's mad, and I think it's so important that we talk about that and find that joy. Go to that gig. That's what that's one of my mottos for life is you know, book the gig, figure out how you're gonna get there later. You know, you've got to do it, go and have those experiences because that's what life's all about, surely.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Amen. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

All right, Sharon, thank you so much. Thank you. Lovely to chat to you. Thank you, Chris.