Spring-clean & Old school

Over the weekend just past most of my time was spent moving all the instruments from Brades to the new music classrooms, cleaning up the space and setting it up to be ready for this week. We have been moving stack-loads of violins, clarinets, keyboards, guitars, trumpets, trombones and the odd tuba here and there from a warehouse in Brades, where all community-based music activities used to take place, to two dedicated classroom spaces which will be taking over as the music education 'hub'. These two classrooms are actually part of a block, which used to be the Salem Primary School extension. It was, however, only used for a year as the 1995 mass evacuation due to volcanic activity nullified any use for the extension.

Relatively speaking, these classrooms are newer than the ones in Montserrat Secondary School (MSS) - there's a whiteboard (as opposed to chalkboard - yes, old school indeed), and one of the classrooms as a working A/C. However, having come from a teaching environment of interactive whiteboards, PowerPoint presentations using projectors, on-demand wifi which translates to instant YouTube access, and even the odd 50-inch LCD screen made to mirror an iPad, this has certainly been a challenge to adapt and improvise. Thanks to Spotify, I can sync the music tracks that I need to use during teaching to play offline on my iPhone. Thanks to DropBox, I can sync view PowerPoint and PDF resources on my iPad. And now one can also easily download videos off any video streaming site using 3rd-party software to save them for offline viewing. Which does, in turn, translate into even more lesson planning as I have to anticipate way ahead as to exactly what music resources I'll need and make them all available offline before I leave my flat.

The big clean-out - that's only half!

Many of the instruments that are already on the island have been donated by organizations overseas, mostly from the UK and the USA. Given that almost everything (especially food) is imported, all instruments on the island have, more likely than not, come from some distant land by some generous benefactor. However, regular upkeep of the instruments seems to have gone somewhat astray. I'm not doubting that they have, over time, been put to immense use - however, when I was sorting out, cleaning and tuning all the instruments after they'd been moved, there was more than a dozen violins without a bridge, two or more missing strings, and bows so neglected that I think no amount of rosin will bring them to life. Rusted euphoniums caked in dust, guitars with cracked necks, and foldaway metal music stands that could take a finger or two off were also commonplace - all of them had to go.

At present I also have six keyboards, but all without adaptors to power them - which effectively renders them useless. If anyone would like to generously donate six standard 12V adaptors (UK-style plug), please get in touch with me. We would really be immensely grateful.

Before the spring-clean.

A little more respectable-looking.

I also chanced upon a very old-school Casio keyboard which, by the looks of it, has survived for at least a good decade and a half, perhaps even two. It weighed about twice as much as your regular keyboard and had a nostalgic array of pop-in and pop-out buttons which sufficiently distracted me for a minute or two. Sadly, that did not come to life when I plugged it in, so that, too, had to go.

The celesta never goes out of style.

And a big shout-out to the chalkboard in the corner.

If you should be reading this and you think that your school, organization, foundation or company would like to contribute towards Montserrat's music education scheme, we are in urgent need of instruments such as flutes, drum kits, and most of all hand percussion instruments such as the djembe, caxixi, egg shaker, cabaça (or shekere), guiro, agogo (or cowbell), claves, tambourine, darbuka, and triangle. All donations will be gratefully received and duly acknowledged. You can get in touch with me at jonathanang@ovi.com.