Lucky kids!

[MatCoward@xxxxxxx]

Wasn't like this when I was at school; saw this in the Independent on Sunday 
newspaper yesterday:

<<Schools opt for "cool" mouth organ
By Nicholas Pyke
Good news for parents. The piercing squeaks and tuneless quaverings of the 
treble recorder may be silenced in school for ever.  A rival has emerged in 
the unlikely shape of the mouth organ, better known as the instrument of 
choice for lone-
some cowboys and Bob Dylan than its place on the primary school curriculum. A 
government-backed experiment has replaced the recorder with the soft sound of 
the harmonica, part of a campaign to persuade more children to take up music. 
The recorder may be traditional, but official advisers fear it is too 
difficult to play and lacks street cred. Many adults view it as an instrument 
of torture. Youth Music, the quango established to breathe new life into 
school music teaching, has given £23,000 to Lyndhurst junior and Langstone 
junior schools in Portsmouth. All seven- and eight-year-olds get a harmonica 
to take home, plus lessons from the American jazz professional Johnny Mars, a 
leading exponent of the instrument. The result is astonishing. Dozens of 
children are playing music at every opportunity, both in the classroom and 
the playground. At other times they walk around with the instruments sticking 
out of top pockets like fashion accessories. "The recorder is not cool
and kids see the harmonica as being  cool,"  said Mars. "Maybe I'm a little 
biased but the harmonica has incredible potential You can get a soundfrom it 
easily and it's portable." Johnny Mars has already worked with eight schools 
in Portsmouth, introducing hundreds of children to the instrument. He runs 
his own
private harmonica school. "One of the reasons for choosing the harmonica is 
that it hasn't got the stigma of the recorder,"  said  Andrew Atkins,head of 
the Portsmouth music service. "You do get boys who take against the recorder. 
The harmonica is a real alternative. You don't get the complicated fingering 
and you have that whole blues feeling as well. "There are more tuning 
problems with a recorder. A harmonica is much easier to play in tune.">>

- - Mat C <A 
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