Folk Music is the music of the people open to interpretation. Classical music – supposedly serious music – is where the composers write down exactly what to play and they mean it.

I have my feet in two camps – I am a folk musician and attempting to be a classical one. Simply Music curriculum allows for both areas to be developed. You can be both a folk musician and a classical one! Cool?

An area of importance in the early levels of the S.M. Programme is the blues. You can do many good things if you know how to play it well! You can be rough, experimental, creative with the blues forms.

What is interesting to me is when the student starts playing the blues as if it is Mozart – in a very elegant, almost lyrical way. I have to tell them to be rough on it. It’s not Mozart it’s the blues. It is street music, the music of the people.