Actually, this blog wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for teachers!
- My parents were teachers;
- I benefited from many excellent teachers at Norwich High School, GDST;
- Lecturers are teachers too, so let’s add everyone who taught me at the Universities of Durham, Exeter, Aberystwyth and Glasgow. And those who led the PG Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Arts Education at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland;
- Instrumental teachers whilst I was learning the piano and the oboe at school and at Durham
- and all the teacher colleagues who surround me at work. Whilst I was never a full-time teacher or lecturer, I’ve collaborated with many, contributing specialist expertise. My thanks to them for letting me help!
So, having paused to thank several dozen influential teachers, we come to this blog itself. How many teachers have I mentioned over the years? Well, you only have to type teacher into the search box on my home page, to get a good few for a start!
- Clarinda Webster
- Mary Kerr, Euphemia Allan, Rose B. Smith, her mother and an older sister, and Kate Logan (they’re in my recent RMA Chronicle article)
- James Easson
- Herbert Wiseman
- Allan Macbeth
- Edward Harper
- Nimmo Christie (Dundee)
- Margaret James (Gloucestershire)
- Hugh Gibson Millar (Paisley)
And there are plenty more music teachers hiding in my A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951. Alan Reid, who did a lot of educational music materials for Parlane, the Paisley publisher, for a start. I haven’t mentioned him on this blog, but I spent a lot of time examining his output whilst I was Ketelbey Fellow at the University of St Andrews. Or William Anderson Moodie, who set Wee Davie for a magic lantern Service of Song, and taught at the forerunner to Jordanhill Teacher Training College.
Not to mention the teachers I encountered in the archives of Thomas Nelson & Sons last year, about whom I’ll be writing later this year.
So – yes, I owe a debt of gratitude to an enormous number of teachers, both in my own education, and in my historical research. I think I need an orchard rather than just one apple!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 