blog – Ben Clapton

The studies of a life-long learner

January 5, 2024January 4, 2024 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog

Daily writing prompt

What colleges have you attended?

I’ve attended a number of different colleges, and collected a nifty collection of letters after my name. I value education, and I think it is important to always be a life-long learner. Whether that is in formal studies, or through other means, it is important to constantly be improving ourselves and what we are doing.

WAAPA@ECU

My first qualification was an Advanced Diploma of Performing Arts from WAAPA@ECU (WA Academy of Performing Arts at Edith Cowan University). Heading straight here from high school, I threw myself into my studies and performing. Here I got to study from teachers such as Jacek Slawomirski, Rebecca White, and Peter Tanfield, as well as lecturers who challenged and extended my musical knowledge.

Upon graduating, I transferred to complete a Bachelor of Music at WAAPA@ECU, which was another 18 months. When I completed that, I felt like I had enough of university, and went off to try and make it in the world. In hindsight, I should have stuck out an extra year to get a Graduate Diploma of Education, as it would have been incredibly helpful.

University of Divinity

When I was accepted to the Salvation Army Training College to become a Salvation Army Officer, the formal studies were conducted under the auspices of the then Melbourne College of Divinity. While I was there, there was significant changes underway. MCD changed from a college to a university and first became the MCD University of Divinity, and then finally the University of Divinity. The Melbourne based Salvation Army Training College also changed names, first becoming (if I remember correctly) Booth college, before being corrected to Catherine Booth College (and would later combine with Booth College from Sydney to become Eva Burrows College).

Here, I started with a Graduate Diploma of Theology, before moving onto a Master of Divinity, which was mostly completed through Whitley College, the Baptist college of divinity which was also part of the University of Divinity. The biggest part of this was a research project where I explored my own experiences of combining an Activist and Contemplative faith, with the history of The Salvation Army in the actions of the Maiden Tribune affair.

ECU School of Education

After moving back to Western Australia, I enrolled in a Master of Teaching at ECU in order to become a music teacher. Here I explored Classroom management strategies, as well as refining my musical pedagogy knowledge. I initially went in only wanting to be an instrumental teacher, but when I got into the classroom, I loved it and never wanted to leave. I graduated at the end of 2022, and walked straight into a fantastic role that while daunting, I am absolutely loving.

So there’s my colleges, and all the studies which led me to be Ben Clapton, MTeach, MDiv, GradDipTheol, BMus, ADPA. There are no plans to add in any extra letters at this stage… but who knows what the future may hold.

Balancing Demands and Desires

January 4, 2024January 3, 2024 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog

Daily writing prompt

What are your biggest challenges?

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Photo by Jess Bailey Designs on Pexels.com

The beginning of a year brings with it a sense of anticipation for the new. In Australia, as the school year lines up with the calendar year, the new year brings with it a natural sense of change. Heading into 2024, I face a number of new changes and challenges that lie ahead of me. Some of these challenges are what I would describe as demands – those that are facing me as part of my job, or family commitments. Others are desires – things that I want to achieve for my own personal benefit.

Work Challenges

In terms of my work challenges, I enter 2024 with a new position – the music department at my school is now me. I am the one in charge, and its success all lies on my decisions. Part of that is modifying and creating programs that I hope students will find engaging, challenging, and will achieve success that will make them want to select music for the next year, which will allow the program to grow. Build on existing networks to supplement growth, and then support ensembles and performances within the school. All in all, it is a big year, and I have big plans. But to achieve those big plans, it means working through my holidays. Hopefully, not too much, but still a bit.

In an attempt to secure success, I’ve started using the Momentum Planner app. When I was working as a Salvation Army Officer, I used this to achieve my strategic goals. Part of what I liked about it was that I could set yearly, quarterly, and monthly projects that would then be broken down into weekly and daily tasks. What I particularly likes was that it had the flexibility to attend to tasks that would crop up, whilst keeping you focused on your larger, long term goals. What I didn’t like was that it was paper based, which meant a lot of copying of goals down the line. However the new app has solved that issue so I can spend less time copying, and more time focused on my tasks. A little bit of time at the end of each week, month, and term – as well as some time at the beginning of this year, will hopefully set me up for a year of great development.

Family Challenges

If you know my family, you know that we have our challenges. A neurodiverse family will always have that. But 2024 presents a number of significant challenges for us. Part of that is that we’re moving into our new home – a home that we’ve built to hopefully allow us as a family to succeed. Each with our own space. I’m looking forward to moving into my new music room, which will hopefully spark a new creativity for me. But along with that is the challenge of preparing our current house, cleaning, painting, making it look presentable. Packing, decluttering, and a constant sense of living in flux until it’s all sorted. For a neurodiverse family who doesn’t cope with stress, change, and anxiety well – we’re all a little on edge. But a big push and soon we will hopefully be in for some less challenging waters.

Desire Challenges

I have in my head a lot of dreams and desires for what I would like to achieve. Away from teaching, I love performing on my violin. And so I want to continue to develop my technique so that I can hopefully create more performance opportunities. I love composing and arranging music, and I want to spend time doing that. I’ve started work on what I think will be my first Symphony. Will it ever be performed? I don’t know. But part of the joy of composing for me is enjoying writing and exploring textures and timbres that I enjoy listening to. I’m sure that if I had a deadline on it for when it needed to be ready, my approach would change, but for now I enjoy pottering on it when I feel the desire.

But one of my constant challenges is how to balance the work demands, family demands and the demands of my personal desires. How to achieve all of this without letting one drop, or going crazy. This is where I hope that Momentum App will be able to help me keep on track of the demands and help me work towards a successful 2024.

ASME Summer School 2023 – Day 1

January 16, 2023February 5, 2023 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog

Today I attended my first official PD day as a teacher – and I haven’t even started as a teacher. That’s because over the summer holidays, the WA chapter of the Australian Society of Music Education (ASME) hold their summer school. Two full days of professional learning sessions that aim to upskill, inform, inspire and provide networking opportunities for music educators in WA. Teachers give up two days of their school holidays to come and engage in a wide variety of sessions. These sessions range from early childhood through to ATAR streams, and everything inbetween.

music teacher, music, musical notes-7096451.jpg

Last year, I had the opportunity to attend as a volunteer. As a Edith Cowan University School of Education student, the opportunity was provided to attend (and gain free membership to ASME for a year) in return for helping set up, introduce sessions, be a gopher, and pack up. This year, however, I was excited to attend as a participant. The choice of sessions was up to me, choosing ones that I felt would best aid me as I enter my new role.

Keynote address – Functions of Music

The day formally started with a Welcome to Country, initial welcome to the ASME Summer School and a singalong (to which I got many ideas from). Then Dr Jason Goopy – ECU lecturer in Seconday Music Education amongst many other things – presented the keynote on stepping outside the structures of curriculums and syllabus and to explore the various functions of music in our lives and how school-based music education prepares students to become musical people. This was a really interesting topic, and one that would expand into other areas as we consider curriculum changes. In effect, the curriculum will change what we teach. However, the end goal of music education is to prepare children and young people to become musical people, because to be human is to be musical.

Dr Goopy based a lot of his talk of Merriam’s Uses and Functions of Music. However, I was particularly interested in his link to Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow theory, and the idea of music being an autotelic experience. An autotelic experience is something where doing the experience is the reward in and of itself. I also particularly liked one quote by Dr Goopy. He said more and more young people were experiencing music by “messing around to deeper immersion through geeking out.” I think that’s certainly an idea that I would like to explore further.

Neurodiverse music education

Then I had my first session, where I attended Delyse Clayden’s session entitled Teaching Music to Neurodiverse and Disabled Students. Dee is a PhD candidate at ECU, and uses her teaching and personal experience to inspire her study into giving disabled students a voice in the formation of their IEPs. Dee gave us a thorough background about the appropriate language to use (including noting that it is a flexible thing and often changes). She then explored ideas around how to create inclusive education for all students. This was done through differentiation, reasonable adjustments and universal design for learning.

This was a great session – and one that is very much needed. However, as someone who is neurodivergent and lives with a neurodivergent family, I had hoped for some more practical ideas as to how to approach teaching, as opposed to the history and language which I’m already well aware of. But I’m sure that for those who are still new to this space, it was a very helpful unit.

Following morning tea, and a brief Taiko demonstration, we had a panel Question and Answer session. There were a number of questions about panellists’ research (particularly Jason Goopy’s upcoming research into community music groups and their work in trauma informed practice), ways of advocating for music education in schools – both at a school level and a departmental/governmental level, and the use of various programs/instruments in school settings.

Choral Conducting

It was then lunch time, and then I had two sessions with Su-Lyn Chong on Choral Conducting. These were the sessions that I was most looking forward to, as I will be starting up a new choir at my school. I realised it has been near on 10 years since I last conducted a choir. Going through some excellent practices and techniques to support students in their singing has given me an excellent starting point heading forward. There’s still going to be a lot to learn, but I now know a lot of where to be starting from in looking for additional resources.

ASME Summer School Networking

Finally, it was a time for networking at ECU’s Birra Bar. A fantastic time to catch up with friends and colleagues, and discuss what had been happening over the last year. As music teachers, often we are the only one in our school – where as there might be 4 or 5 (or more) English or Maths teachers, there is often only one music teacher. That means that these opportunities to network, catch up, reminisce, inspire are vitally important. An interesting thing that I noted was that there were three students from my high school who were in attendance as music teachers, as well as one of our music teachers, who went on to become the head of music at that school, and the current head of music at that school who had taken over from our music teacher. It’s amazing to think of the legacy that has been forged through these teachers because of the influence they had on our lives.

So that was my experience of Day one of the 2023 ASME Summer School. It’s been a full on day, and I am looking forward to another day tomorrow, for another three sessions that I’m sure will spark a lot of ideas for me.

Orchestral Violin Challenge Week 2

January 15, 2021 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog

I was aiming to get a video out each week, however it’s not going to happen this week. Things have cropped up where I am not in the stage where I’ve got enough footage, nor enough time to edit a video, that I think I will just aim at putting a video out every couple of weeks. But I still want to hold myself accountable, so I will provide a written update of my progress here.

Changing Tactics

Following some feedback from a Reddit thread where I posted my video, there was a suggestion to take some time to focus on my technique, particularly my scales and my shifting. They suggested that I look at Nathan Cole’s New York Philharmonic Audition challenge series, which was very enlightening. I took his 2 hour practice break up as the basis of my own practice for this week. This included introducing the first three pages of Schradieck, Kreutzer 9, and Dont 6 as my studies, a focus on vibrato and trills for technique, and a big section of work on my scales every day.

Tiredness and Exhaustion

This week saw my practice go backwards in many ways. I only had three days of actual practice out of the seven, with another day where I had a piano trio rehearsal but didn’t spend time practicing. The other days saw me being excessively tired, and just not wanting to practice. My son has been coming into my bed at night, and so it’s been quite common for me to be waking up around 2-3am, and not getting back to sleep. Even as I’m writing this I’m feeling tired. My other son came into bed around 2am, and while I did get back to sleep, I’m still feeling tired.

The other side of the equation – which is linked to my tiredness – is exhaustion. When I was practicing with this new schedule with a huge focus on technique, I found my body getting tired a lot quicker. My muscles were working a lot more than they were used to, and as such I didn’t complete the schedule once. This might mean that I need to think more about how I structure my practice as I build up into it – instead of 2 hours with a ten minute break, perhaps I should do an hour in the morning, and an hour in the afternoon. Or 4 half hour blocks. Given my current limitations, that might be more achievable than the solid two hour block. My body will be fresher, and my mind will be more focussed.

Physical Therapy

The other thing that I’ve been contemplating is that my body isn’t really ready for two hours of practice. I jump in and practice, but I’m not giving myself any preparation. I saw a composer on twitter suggest finding some benefit from adding in some stretches, particularly for his legs, as he is sitting most of the day. The stretching was increasing flexibility, and strength in his body, and allowing him to focus more on the task at hand, and not on the stiffness in his body.

I borrowed from the library a while ago Six Lessons with Yehudi Menuhin. I had an idea for a video of following these lessons and seeing how my playing improved. However, the first lesson starts with a number of stretches, one of which is a Yoga pose that I wasn’t confident of my ability to pull off. But given how my body is feeling, I am wondering if it might be worthwhile adding these exercises into my daily routine, warming up and building up the muscles in my body so that I can have greater stamina in my practice.

Practice Log

So Here’s my practice log for this week.

8/1/21 – No practice

9/1/21 – Piano Trio rehearsal (2 hours). Playing the Schubert and Saint-Saens piano trios.

10/1/21 – First day utilising Nathan Cole’s schedule. Practiced C Major scales from Flesch up to and including thirds, Schradieck pages 1 and 2 at 60BPM, Vibrato Work (From Simon Fischer’s Basics), Kreutzer 9, Mozart Concerto, Dont 6 and some trill work. 80 minutes practice in total.

11/1/21 – Same as the day before, but using A minor scales, with a focus on the one string scales and arpeggios, getting smooth shifts. Also did 10 minutes on the Bach St Matthew Passion excerpt, before exhaustion got the better of me. 90 minutes practice in total.

12/1/21 – I completely missed that this was a palindrome day, until just now. I only completed the first half of the practice today – E major scales, Schradieck, Vibrato, and Kreutzer 9.

13/1/21 and 14/1/21 – No practice.

Focus for next week – introduce some warm up stretches to get the body ready to practice. Break up practice more, with an aim for more days of practice, and completing the routine. Focus is still on technique, particularly on shifting. Instead of the vibrato and trill work section, introduce specific exercises from Basics on shifting.

Catch up on Week 1

Dealing with Criticism

January 11, 2021 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog

I would be surprised if there is anyone who deals with criticism well. If someone actually likes being harshly criticised for work that they did, I’m sure other people might have some concerns about that person’s psychological profile.

Criticism is something that we deal with on a daily basis – whether it’s our own self criticism, or the criticism of a teacher or trusted mentor, or if you’re someone who releases your creative work to others, then you can be criticised by random people who may or may not have any concern for your mental well-being.

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Orchestral Violin Challenge: My goals for the next two years

January 8, 2021 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog, Practice Log, Videos

One of the things I absolutely love about playing the violin is playing orchestral music. I love the variety of repertoire that it brings – from Bach Cantatas to Tchaikovsky Symphonies, Bizet’s suites, and modern, cutting edge compositions. Orchestral playing is constantly interesting and challenging.

Rehearsing with the Bendigo Symphony Orchestra

When I was going through my Bachelor of Music, I loved orchestral playing, and I even did a research project on what was required to win an orchestral violin position in an Australian orchestra. But my playing was never at the stage where I could consider applying for an audition, let alone winning that audition.

I went away from music for a few years, but now I’m back – currently studying to be a High School music teacher. I’ve got two years of study to go, so I’m setting myself a goal.

In two years, I want my playing to be at a stage where I could feel confident in applying for an audition. I’m not going to say that I’m going to win that audition – but to borrow a line from a hit musical, “I want to be in the room where it happens.”

So to start with, let’s look at what’s required for an Orchestral Violin audition.

First, you generally need to have two violin concertos prepared. These are broken up into two categories. The first is a Mozart Concerto – by which they will either specify, or at least expect either the Fourth concerto in D Major, or the Fifth concerto in A Major. The second category is either a Romantic or Twentieth Century concerto. These have a bit more flexibility in them, and do allow for a bit more choice, but most audition panels would be expecting to hear the Tchaikovsky or Sibelius Violin Concertos.

You then are required to play some orchestral excerpts, which allows them to see how you might fit in to the individual stylistic playing of the orchestra. Over the many years of orchestral auditions, there have been a number of excerpts that have proven themselves to be required more often than others, so even though you may not get a list of required excerpts until the audition is announced, or even closer to the audition date, you can still prepare these excerpts knowing that it is likely they will be included.

When I consider my own playing and my own repertoire that I know at the moment, there are a few things that are missing. I’ve learnt the fourth concerto by Mozart, and I refreshed it in 2020. But I’ve not really learnt any of the major romantic concerti. And while my head knowledge remains relatively fresh, a lot of my technique has slipped. And if I’m to seriously tackle the Tchaikovsky concerto, then I need to address the weakest part of my playing – my double stops.

A Bendigo Symphony Orchestra chamber music rehearsal

When taking on any challenge, it’s important to note the things that can get in the way, or make it more difficult. I’m heading into full time study this year, which is no easy feat on its own, but my studies will see me be required to complete three month-long practicums – two this year, one next year. That will take up a lot of my time. I have three kids, one who is diagnosed ASD, and one who is undergoing diagnosis. As such, there are a lot of appointments and therapy sessions to attend to. And while this is an important challenge to me, my family will always come first.

As such, I’ve come up with a plan that I feel is achievable despite these time constraints, but is still enough of a challenge that it will stretch me. I’ve divided it up into semesters, but it basically means the first half of the year, and the second half of the year.

	Semester 1	Semester 2
2021	Polish Mozart 4 Learn Mendelssohn Technique focus on Double Stops Excerpts: Bach St Matthew Passion; Beethoven Symphony 2, 3 and 9; Mozart Symphony 35 and 39	Polish Mendelssohn Learn Mozart 5 Technique focus on tone production Excerpts: Brahms Symphony 1 and 4, and Variations on a Theme by Haydn; Elgar Enigma Variations; Prokofiev Symphony 1; Shostakovich Symphony 1
All 2021	Kreutzer and Fiolillo Etudes
2022	Polish Mozart 5 Learn Tchaikovsky Technique focus on intonation Excerpts: Prokofiev Symphony 5; Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade Solos; Strauss Don Juan; Tchaikovsky Symphony 4 and 5; Bartok Concerto for Orchestra	Polish Tchaikovsky Technique focus on bowing Excerpts: Mahler 3 and 5; Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet Orchestral Suites; Strauss Ein Heldenleben (Solos) and Der Burger als Edelmann (Solos); Tchaikovsky Swan Lake (Solos)
All 2022	Rode and Dont etudes

In terms of the amount of practice I am able to do, I am aiming to do two hours of practice a day. That might be a bit of a stretch some days, so it might only be one hour, but that is the aim.

One of the things that I am really trying to focus in on is learning the right way. So I will also be really looking at my practice techniques, utilising resources such as Practiceopedia by Philip Johnston (no longer in print); Youtube, and others, to improve my practicing and make it as effective and efficient as possible. I’ll be sharing these in my weekly videos as I share what I’ve been working on, how I’ve been working on it, and how well it has worked.

I’m excited to see what this program will be able to do for my playing, and for my teaching. I hope you’ll be able to join me for this journey by subscribing to my YouTube channel. But for now – I need to go and practice.

Practice Techniques – Blocking

November 12, 2020 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog

This is the start of a new series where I’m going to highlight practice techniques. I know that as a teacher, I often don’t have time to go into specific techniques of how to practice, because there is so much to get into during the lesson. However, learning how to practice is just as important as learning how to play an instrument – if not moreso, as you can take the skills you learn in how to practice over to different instruments. Today, we are looking at what most people think of when they think about music practice – blocking.

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The Lark Ascending

November 11, 2020 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog

Today is Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day – the day the guns fell silent in World War 1. And I thought it fitting to look at this incredible piece of music by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending.

First composed in 1914 for violin and piano, due to the outbreak of the war it wasn’t performed until 1920. During this time, at the age of 42, Vaughan Williams volunteered for military service. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a private, where he drove ambulance wagons in France and Greece. In 1917, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, and saw action in France from March 1918. The war left an emotional toll on Vaughan Williams, losing many friends and comrades, including young composer George Butterworth, who was shot by a sniper at the Battle of the Somme, buried on the battle field, and his remains never recovered.

Vaughan Williams stopped writing music during the war years, and after the war took some time before he felt he was ready to write new works. It was in this time that he reworked some of his previously composed works, and the reworking of this piece for violin and orchestra is the result of this time. First performed in 1921, it is this version that is the more famous version.

The first performance was given by Marie Hall, to whom the piece was written for and dedicated to. She gave the premiere of the violin and piano version in December 1920, and again with the orchestral version on 14 June 1921 at Queen’s Hall, London with the British Symphony Orchestra. It was, however, not the main work on the program which was dominated by an early performance of Holst’s The Planets, another piece that was started in 1914 and seemingly affected by the war, with Marilyn Cooley writing of the first movement, Mars, “there’s a truly visceral sense of horror; what must have seemed like the end of the world to those who experienced The Great War.” At the time a music critic for The Times newspaper wrote that this performance

“stood apart from the rest as the only work in the programme which showed serene disregard of the fashions of to-day or of yesterday. IT dreams its way along in “many links without a break, and though it never rises to the energy of the lines “He is the dance of children, thanks Of sowers, shout for primrose banks,” the music is that of the clean countryside, not of the sophisticated concert-room.”
Music Critic in The Times, 15 June 1921 (likely H.C. Colles).

Compared with the spectacle and visceral horror of The Planets (which does end with Neptune’s quiet introspection), The Lark Ascending is one that tranquil, and in a way promotes the hope of peace that was longed for after the war.

Sheet Music Editions: Oxford (preface by Michael Kennedy), Oxford Full Score, Oxford 1926 edition, Eulenburg Study Score.

Wirrangintungiyil – Eric Avery

November 10, 2020 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog

It’s NAIDOC week in Australia, where we celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture as a vital and important part of Australian culture. There is a strong culture of music in Aboriginal culture – in their beliefs they talk about songlines – the paths across the sky and sometimes the land that mark the route followed by creator-beings during the Dreaming. As such, it is unsurprising that there is a group of musicians who are breaching the gap between traditional Aboriginal music and Western Art Music, and using this new medium to share their stories and culture.

Eric Avery is a Ngiyampaa, Yuin, Bandjalang and Gumbangirr artist. Formally trained in Dance (NAISDA Dance college and a mentorship at The Australian Ballet) and Music (Bachelor of Music from the Australian Institute of Music), he combines his skills on the violin to perform classical music and create new contemporary music that expresses his Koori (NSW Aboriginal) heritage. He works with his family’s custodial songs, reviving them and continuing the age old legacy of singing in his tribe.

Galinga (water song) is an incredibly emotive piece that incorporates Avery’s native tongue with traditional violin playing and looping textures to create a rich tapestry that evokes a babbling brook.

Galinga (water song)

In Wirrangintungiyil, Avery performs with his father on Didgeridoo, utilising a healing lullaby that he learned from recordings of the King Family. Avery talks about how utilising native languages has been transformative and healing for him in reclaiming his culture.

ABC Classic FM has a fantastic page highlighting a number of stories and performances around Indigenous performers and composers that is well worth checking out.

Top Five Modern Violinists

November 9, 2020November 9, 2020 by Ben Clapton, posted in blog

Following up from yesterday’s post about the top five historical violinists, today we have the top five modern violinists. These are the violinists that if they come to do a concert in your town, you should do everything you can to get to see them. These are the ones that you should be watching and listening to for the best quality recordings of today. And these are the ones that I just prefer to listen to. Let’s get into it.

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