Britain is said to be suffering a gradual decline in musicality. The conductor John Eliot Gardiner recently told the Guardian that Britain’s musical culture was “getting worse.” The director of King’s College choir, Stephen Cleobury, complained about sightreading standards among choristers and the fact that students no longer have to study harmony or counterpoint at A-level. Composer and conductor James MacMillan spoke of a “monumental dumbing-down in Scottish music education.” Last year, Exeter University closed its music department. And, worst of all, runs the argument, music teaching in state schools remains in crisis. Our status as the listening nation is unchallenged—on average, we each buy three CDs a year, more than anyone else—and our big-name professional musicians are thriving, responsible for up to 15 per cent of global music sales, second only to the US (and a bigger global market share than any other sector of British industry). But out on the British streets, polo-necked bohemians are no longer seen lugging double basses off buses for the love of jazz, no more do local folk musicians play the “Bells of Rhymney” for a free pint—the pub now needs a licence for any live performance—and the dust thickens on family pianos across the land. Is this the end for British musicality?
Yet while parts of the musical establishment offer one kind of evidence, another is to be found in the terraces and cul-de-sacs of secret Britain. It only takes a trip to the local village hall or a knock on your neighbour’s door to discover that millions of Britons are still getting together to make music. Folk groups, rock bands, religious choirs, samba troupes, a cappella singers, programmers, rappers and DJs are all performing somewhere near you. Far from forgetting how to play, it appears that Britain is experiencing a musical renaissance, albeit a very amateur one.
The variety of repertory and styles is vast. The Music Industries Association (MIA) has found that more than one in five of the British population plays an instrument to some level. 11m households own at least one musical instrument. Of those who have never played an instrument, 7m would like to learn, and another 9m lapsed players would like to take up their instruments again. Hundreds of thousands of us are also singing regularly—some claim that singing groups are the new book clubs.
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