Teacher Margaret Wakefield has been delivering music lessons through the window of her Edinburgh studio. She plays the piano inside while, outside in the garden, one of her students plays the trombone. On a different day, prior to the latest lockdown and weather permitting, neighbours were treated to the melodious sounds of the saxophone, as another pupil eagerly took up this somewhat rare opportunity to play accompanied, given the rules on the playing of brass and woodwind instruments during the pandemic.

Music has been one of the curricular areas worst hit by school coronavirus restrictions, and the situation has been particularly bad for pupils studying the so-called wet instruments - brass, woodwind and bagpipes - and voice.

There have been challenges for those learning instruments such as guitar and piano, too, given the limits placed on the number of schools that instructors can visit, as well as having fewer opportunities to play with others. But for wet instruments, face-to-face lessons indoors have, by and large, stopped, as have school orchestras and choirs (and since the writing of this feature began, the goalposts have shifted again, as a new Covid variant has led to schools closing to the majority of pupils and a move to online). Hence Wakefield’s al fresco approach.

The crackdown on these instruments in school is owing to fears of the increased risk of Covid-19 transmission because of the respiratory aerosols exhaled while playing them, although the scientific basis for this has been disputed. Whatever the truth about the dangers to health, concerns are growing that the limitations put on school music could ultimately have dire consequences.

However, schools continue, for the time being, to live with them and like Wakefield - who teaches at St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh - music teachers and instructors all over Scotland have come up with ingenious ways of keeping practice going, with many moving to online delivery.

As well as Wakefield’s innovative approach and the use of online platforms, holes have also been drilled in a wall between two St Mary’s classrooms in a bid to allow more wind and brass students the chance to play while accompanied. Wires have been threaded through so that microphones, speakers and a camera connect the two rooms. In one classroom, the pupil plays the instrument, and in the other room - separated by the wall - the teacher accompanies them on piano. Teacher and pupil can hear each other in real time thanks to the microphones and speakers, and the teacher can see the pupil via video link, allowing them to correct things such as posture.

The school’s headteacher, Kenneth Taylor, says that when the new set-up was arranged - simple though it is - it brought a huge amount of relief and joy to staff and pupils.

“If you are not in the room with the person experiencing the same sounds, that’s a real problem,” he says. “We have all experienced online meetings. The sound quality is often poor and the time delay just makes accompanying pupils impossible. Some of our pupils will practise for three to six hours every day, but not being able to do that with other people starts to take its toll. This [speaker feed] is such a simple solution, but it has had a big impact on our pupils.”

St Mary’s is a private school but it receives funding from the Scottish government, which allows its fees to be based on a family’s ability to pay. At any given time, usually about a fifth of pupils have their fees paid in full; currently there are 80 pupils on the roll.

However, using technology to link two adjoining classrooms is only of benefit to the wet-instrument players among the school’s 30 or so boarders. They agreed at the start of term to remain on campus and not return home at the weekends, so that they could form a bubble. For the school’s day pupils, who return to their families in the evening, the playing of these instruments on the premises is banned, as is the norm elsewhere.

A load of hot air

In early December, music instructors, teachers and academics were questioning whether such severe restrictions were really necessary, and guidance from the Scottish government had started to soften. While it still recommended that “young people should not engage in singing, or playing wind and brass instruments with other people”, and that lessons should take place online or pupils should record themselves playing, it also added that subject to “the completion of a very robust local risk assessment”, one-to-one lessons and practice sessions could go ahead for pupils preparing for assessment in brass, wind, piping and singing.

However, at the time of writing, schools have had no time to act on this new advice, which was published on 18 December. The following day, first minister Nicola Sturgeon announced details of “strong evidence” showing that the new strain of coronavirus was “spreading substantially more quickly” than other strains and that Scotland would go into lockdown on Boxing Day; holidays would be extended until 11 January for pupils; and learning would be pursued online from that date until “at least” 18 January. Now, of course, the restrictions are set to last until at least next month.

A recent literature review of 80 articles, carried out by the Music Education Partnership Group (MEPG), a network of Scottish music-based organisations set up to advocate for the lifelong benefits of a musical education, concluded that some activities, such as singing, woodwind, brass and bagpipe playing, had been “demonised”, that decisions were being taken based on “subjective judgement rather than objective analysis of the data” and that the government was not following the science.

The report’s authors recommended that, because there was no available data showing “a statistically significant added risk”, music performance and education could resume, provided that appropriate risk assessments were carried out and mitigations put in place, such as the use of screens, distancing, no sharing of instruments and thorough cleaning regimes.

The MEPG review points out that exhaled air - unlike when a person sings or speaks - travels through a brass instrument before it enters the atmosphere, which means the water vapour it contains cools and condenses into liquid, which collects in the tubing and is expelled through water keys.

The review says: “Some water vapour does emerge from the bell of the instrument, but surprisingly little in the case of the longer instruments such as tuba, trombone and French horn, which trap most of the moisture inside.”

A member of the review team, MEPG chair John Wallace, told Tes Scotland - before the new Covid variant led to the latest restrictions on schools - that there was no reason children should be playing all musical instruments in school, provided that rooms were well ventilated and distancing was possible.

“There is not a hierarchy of wet and dry instruments - instruments don’t produce aerosols, human beings produce aerosols,” he said. “There’s this belief that brass instruments and singers squirt germs into the atmosphere. Human beings do that anyway without music - it’s not music that’s the problem, its normal human behaviour like breathing and talking that’s spreading coronavirus, not playing music.

“For wind and brass and bagpipes, the aerosols or droplets travel about 30 centimetres beyond the instrument so social distancing should eliminate most of that.”

Alastair Orr is a brass instructor who has been carrying out his lessons exclusively online since lockdown started in March. He has called on the Scottish government to review its guidance because last term showed that it had been interpreted differently in different local authorities.

By early December, Tes Scotland had learned of some authorities resuming face-to-face lessons in wind and brass - although in the vast majority of areas, lessons remained online, or pupils recorded themselves playing so that their instructor could listen to them and give feedback.

However, it is the most disadvantaged pupils that will be hit the hardest, music educators predict, given that they are more likely to have problems with the move to digital learning, from accessing the right technology and having a reliable internet connection, to having a suitable place to practise at home.

Ultimately, the fear is that engagement in music - which was already being affected by local authority budget cuts - is going to be irreparably damaged. A recent briefing from the EIS union told of the “stark” challenges faced by music instructors - ones that would likely have “long-lasting consequences”. It warned that instructors of voice, wind and brass were “anxiously” waiting to hear “whether they can safely return to face-to-face teaching in schools”.

It added: “Given the current limitations on access to practical tuition, particularly in voice, wind and brass, IMTs [instrumental music teachers] are concerned about the impact on young people studying for SQA qualifications this year and consequently on the number of entrants in future years.”

Already, the figures are worrying. The number of pupils in Scotland learning a musical instrument has dropped by almost 5,500 since 2016-17, with councils blaming “increased charges and a reduction in teaching capacity due to financial constraints” for the fall, according to the annual survey of councils’ instrumental music services.

In 2019-20, the number of pupils receiving council instrumental music tuition hit its lowest level since 2012-13, when the Improvement Service - a local authority body - began its annual survey. Instructor numbers have also taken a hit, going from a high of 660 in 2015-16 to 604 in 2019-20 - a drop of about 8 per cent.

A music teacher and head of a secondary expressive arts faculty says she is worried about the future “viability of the instrumental music service”.

“My mother couldn’t afford lessons for me and I will be eternally grateful that I got my lessons in school,” says the teacher, who does not wish to be named. “However, the instructors have been out since March and at the moment they are only allowed to teach SQA pupils face to face or online, which means all the broad general education pupils get set assignments.”

The consequence, she says, is that younger pupils “are disengaging and giving up their lessons”. Ultimately, she predicts that there could be “a generation of pupils who do not play orchestral instruments”.

Tudor Morris, the director of the City of Edinburgh Music School, based at Broughton High, has said in the past that some instruments - including the bassoon, oboe, and French horn - were in danger of becoming extinct, but now says: “Whereas they were neglected before, now it feels like they are being culled.”

He says that instrumental music services are the “lifeblood” of schools like his and “the foundation of everything we build on”. Morris believes teachers have “done all they can” but, equally, that “the awful truth is all the people who didn’t start back in August probably won’t”.

There is a way to help mend the situation, though, Orr believes. And it is the solution that music educators have been demanding for years: the instrumental music service needs to become a core part of the curriculum.

In Scotland, instrumental music is a discretionary service provided by councils which, Orr argues, makes it “the easy target both for cutting and constantly rising charges”. Making it part of the core curriculum, he says, would place it on an equal footing with other mainstream subjects such as maths and English, and would end “the annual bun fights” over funding, as well as bringing an end to charging for lessons.

Wallace also believes that ending charges could provide the boost that school music will need to get back on its feet. Now, the goal of music advocates is to persuade political parties of the merits of the approach - which they say would cost the government about £4.5 million if it were to cover the money raised through charging - in the run-up to the Scottish Parliament elections in May.

Let the music play

Soon after Tes Scotland first spoke to Wallace, the new, tightened Covid measures were announced. So, what does Wallace now make of how they will affect music and the efforts to protect the teaching of it during the pandemic? He says he is hugely sympathetic towards schools and their leaders given the “severe duress” they are under - and the distinct possibility of further disruption.

He continues: “It’s only when they have an ability to return to some sort of planned curriculum that they will have the brain space to organise music lessons and ensembles. The only answer at the moment in Scotland is online and getting up to speed with best-practice pedagogy in that medium.

“We are going to run a series of online training sessions during January and February through MEPG so that teachers can continue to upskill and keep the home fires and the student passion for music burning brightly despite the lockdown [see box, below].”

Ultimately, there is a belief that the battle for free instrumental music tuition for all is one that could be won in the courts. In 2019, Ralph Riddiough - a solicitor and community musician - started a crowdfunder in a bid to clarify that charging fees for music lessons was unlawful, given that the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 states that local authorities shall not charge fees for the provision of education.

The Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee concluded in 2019 that, in principle, “music tuition should be provided free of charge in every local authority”. However, when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Riddiough paused the campaign: it was hard to fundraise during a pandemic when you could not hand out leaflets, hold fundraising concerts or address meetings.

Now, however, there is a belief that the government’s plans to enshrine the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in law could give a new lease of life to any legal bid. Article 31 states: “Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.”

Ultimately, what is eminently clear is that campaigners will be pulling out all the stops to protect music - until such time that the government and councils change their tune and show that music remains a priority, whatever Covid throws at it.

Emma Seith is a reporter for Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith

This article originally appeared in the 22 January 2021 issue under the headline “The wind is going out of music tuition”