I put the two together and with a pipe about 1.9m long, I got a low note. On investigation, using a software tuner on my computer (Auto Tuner), I found that the note was only a couple of tones lower than my bass recorder, it was obviously a harmonic and reducing the pipe to about 94cm produced the note C3. Hmm, maybe this was not going to be a bass recorder, but a great bass.

I took the formulas from the website and entered them into an Excel spreadsheet so that I could calculate my own hole positions and sizes based on the frequencies needed and once I was sure it was about right, I set about drilling holes. I drilled each hole individually and undersize and then, using the tuner for guidance,opened them out with a needle file to bring up to frequency. After a few hours, I had a waste pipe that, by covering the holes with fingers or tape, would play from C3 to A4 on pitch. I will admit the low C was difficult to achieve without the harmonics forcing it up.

It was totally unplayable, as there was no practical way to reach all the holes, however, my daughter and I could play a scale between us. The next stage was to try making some keys. I picked up some brass rod and tube from B&Q and set about fashioning my own keys. The pads were made from more of the waste pipe with a pad of foam. Springs were made by winding a paper-clip around the brass tube. Initially the brass was glued to platforms of waste pipe that were attached with Superglue to the instrument, but this didn’t prove to be long lasting. The next approach was Araldite and in the end I used brass brackets and then re-enforced areas with Araldite. Working out the key locations, I realised that I should have located the holes differently which would have made keying easier, but this was a prototype after all.

Long before I reached the end of the keying, I realised that it was not going to work. My approach to the keys had created keys that were too flexible with too much movement in them. Also, while the diameter tube was the same as my bass recorder, it didn’t work for the lower notes; the harmonics took over.

The above post was drafted back in May and since then I have explored manufacturing alternate keys, more along the lines of a clarinet key. This has been more successful and at some point I will return to my second prototype. I already have the hole positions calculated for a different pipe size that will make it more practical to key.

On 2nd June, Jo and I attended another stakeholder meeting, held by Central Bedfordshire Council at their offices in Chicksands. The tone of the meeting was very honest and encouraging. It was accepted that the fee rise had proved very negative and hadn’t actually raised any additional revenue. However, a proper business plan was now in place and being reviewed weekly. It is planned that as the numbers of people using the service increases the cost savings can be passed onto the users.

Greater emphasis needed to be put on advertising what is available and increasing the number of people using the service. Different groups had started working together to enable activities to be delivered; an example of that was this summer’s courses that had originally been cancelled. I think everyone at the meeting accepted that what had happened was in the past and that we all needed to work together to make a successful music service for the future.

The future of Dunstable Music Centre is secure for the short term, but increased numbers and an individual business plan will be needed going forward.

I planned to write this post after the council released their statement and then missed the announcement. It is encouraging to be able to write a more positive post than the previous ones in the last few months, let’s hope I wasn’t right earlier.

Jo rang Bedfordshire Music yesterday and they were going to investigate where my notification had got to. Looking last night at the email address I sent it to, I realised that the details printed on their fee rise letter were wrong; they had printed the wrong email address. Jo rang them again today and they confirmed that the email address was wrong on some of the letters. I wonder just how many ‘some’ is? I have now forwarded my email to the correct address.

It also makes me wonder how much difference that will make to the reduction in numbers for musical instrument tuition that Central Bedfordshire provided me with. If many people used email to notify of their intent to cancel, then the numbers cancelling could be significantly higher.

So in summary, if you notified Central Bedfordshire by email and the address on your letter was @centralbedfordshire.co.uk rather than @centralbedfordshire.gov.uk, then they probably didn’t get it and you will have to contact them to sort the invoicing out.

This isn’t as high a number as I was expecting, however many people may be doing the same as us, seeing it through to the end of the summer term. It will be interesting to see the figures again in the autumn term.

From the council’s Agenda for the Executive meeting on 7th December 2010, fees, charges and other activities provided funding of £1,105,000. If we said 3,000 people having tuition at £100 a term, that raises £900,000 leaving the ‘charges and other activites’ with the remaining £205,000.

The fees went up 69% and the numbers dropped 40%, so that would be 1,800 people paying £169, raising £912,000, not a massive change from the original amount raised. Does this mean the fees have to go up again to cover the shortfall. I guess not, as the number of staff hours needed to teach would have dropped by 40% in line with the cancellations. Maybe the 40% staffing costs is enough to provide a cost neutral service, but at what cost.

Intentional or otherwise, the impact of these reductions in numbers of users of the service cannot be good for the future of music in Bedfordshire schools.

From the minutes:

The Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services provided the Committee with the following information:-

…

A meeting had been held on Tuesday 22 March 2001 at Dunstable Fire Station, to which all stakeholders associated with the music service were invited.  It was reported that only 18 people attended which was very disappointing.  In response to this, several Members of the Committee raised concern that they did now know that the meeting had taken place and that they did not receive an invite and therefore questioned the method of communication taken to inform stakeholders of the meeting.  Following a detailed conversation about these concerns, Councillor Mrs A M Lewis clarified that a letter had been issued to all stakeholders and that schools had been asked to cascade the invite to all parents.

…

Now either Councillor Mrs A M Lewis is wrong about the date of the meeting, the one that Jo and attended was held on Tuesday 15th March, or even worse another meeting was held a week later. Either way, I have to agree with the comments made by the members, the communication regarding this meeting was very poor. We only knew about it because our names were put forward by Dunstable Music Centre. We received our invitation on the Saturday for the meeting on the Tuesday. We did not receive any communication through the schools, and given how much is at stake here, I cannot believe that schools simply did not pass this information on. I am also a parent governor at Watling Lower School and have subject links with music, so I cannot believe that the school decided it wasn’t important enough to bother me with.

As parents of children taking tuition and using Dunstable Music Centre, I would have though we were stakeholders and that we and all other parents in the same situation should have automatically been invited to attend. In the days leading up to the 15th March meeting, I checked all the websites for details of this meeting to see if it was a public meeting or who could attend and could find no details of the meeting, so concluded that, as we had been told, it was open to a small group of invited people. No small wonder if it was not advertised, there weren’t as many people attend as they would have liked. That said, the room was only set out to cater for about another 20 people, so they didn’t have high hopes.

It really annoys me to find this swept under the carpet in the minutes of a council meeting, when the the reality was so different. Knowing how passionate people are about this, I know the attendance would have been higher if people had sufficient notice to arrange to be at a 17:30 meeting and had been given the opportunity to attend.

It just re-enforces my view that any input was irrelevant, the decisions regarding the music service had been long made and it is now just playing out to the bitter end. I wonder when we will find out the results of the consultation and how that will be communicated to the stakeholders.

The 20 working days for my request under the Freedom of Information Act for the number of people dropping instrument lessons due to the massive fees rises is up on Wednesday, I wonder if that information will be forthcoming.

We were also one member of staff down, who is, I understand, not being replaced. Central Bedfordshire say that they intend to continue with the music centres, but to me this is looking like winding down.

I have put the new Dunstable Music Centre summer timetable up on their website.

The obvious outcome, is that your customers will take their business elsewhere, rather than paying over the market price for your goods.

What has this to do with Central Bedfordshire Music Service? Well, this is the approach they have taken with the music fees. In most businesses, the review would conclude that it is costing too much to produce the widget and cost cutting exercises would be introduced to lower the manufacturing cost. That way, you can still sell at a competitive price and still make a profit. However, Central Bedfordshire have looked at the cost of providing the service and concluded that they had to increase the fees 69% to cover the costs.

Jo and I attended a stakeholder meeting tonight hosted by Central Bedfordshire to discuss the future shape of the music service. It was personally very disappointing to see how ill prepared they are to carry the music service forward. The questions that we, as groups, were asked to answer seemed to focus on what does a music service need to deliver and does anyone have any idea where to get any funds from.

There seemed to be no comprehension that putting up the fees the amount that they have would cause most of the people to stop using the service. The meeting was well attended by many people involved in all aspects of the music service and the consensus was that it was highly likely over 90% of people would stop using the service. Many had already cancelled lessons at their schools.

Other points were raised:

• The disruption to childrens’ instrument lessons the price rises causes will be phenomenal.
• Children in the middle of preparing for exams and then not being able to continue having lessons (or even have an instrument to practice on if it is a music service instrument).
• Schools not able to arrange alternate provision if the music service are still providing lessons in the instrument.
• Peripatetic teachers uncertain about their future.
• What will happen to all the instruments, will they just end up in storage.
• Will there actually be a music service providing the 4 tiers of provision by the time it comes to apply for funding as described in the Henley report.

Because the music service is so important to us, all of this is very frustrating and caused a lot of controlled anger in the discussion at the end of the meeting. Another really frustrating thing, is there are no answers to the obvious questions that had to be asked – they are still being worked out with legal or HR or waiting for further input. Basically the bomb has been dropped, but no-one had considered the implications.

There is an on-line music consultation questionnaire by Central Bedfordshire Council from Tuesday 15th March to Sunday 27th March

http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/surveys/Music/service.htm

Please provide your feedback, I’m not sure what it will achieve as I personally believe the damage has been done, but I hope I’m wrong.

Following the consultation, the council will deliberate on the results and sometime , probably around May, we will find out the future shape of the music service, including whether the music centres will close.

Edit: I have also posted about this on the Dunstable Music Centre website http://www.dunstablemusiccentre.co.uk/2011/03/17/stakeholder-meeting-15th-march-2011

Jo and I hope to find out more on Tuesday evening; we have been invited to attend a meeting as parent stakeholders.

I have put up a new website, http://www.dunstablemusiccentre.co.uk, with the intention of keeping all interested parties as up to date with information as possible.

Their Overview and Scrutiny Committee met on 23rd November 2010 and recommended that any decision about the service should be deferred until after the Henley Review had published its report – due in February 2011.

On 7th December 2010, the Executive Committee met and it was reported at the time that the committee had accepted the the recommendations of the Scrutiny Committee. The main recommendations were:
• to await the report of the Henley Review, which was expected in early January, before making any decisions about funding for the Music Service, and
• to disaggregate the Service – i.e. to split it up between Bedford Borough (which is currently not proposing any cuts) and Central Bedfordshire.

After looking at the minutes of that meeting, http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/modgov/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=3370&T=1, there is no mention of waiting for the Henley Review, only the disaggregation.

The Henley Report was published on 7th February and, among other recommendations, suggested that cost savings could be made by developing wider partnerships (Recommendation 15). This could include the merger of senior management and support functions over a number of Local Authority areas, just the opposite of what is being proposed. This was a question asked by Michael Rose at the Extraordinary General Meeting of The Friends of Bedfordshire Youth Music on 8th February http://www.fbym.org.uk/minutes/110208-FBYM-EGM-08-Feb-2011.pdf.

The consequences of the decisions became apparent yesterday when we found that the music service fees will rise by a staggering 69%. Evidently we will soon receive a letter from the music service letting us know about the rises and giving us until 1st April to terminate lessons before the rises come into effect.

At the moment, my son and daughter both have violin lessons (10 per term); my son has an individual lesson of 20 minutes, costing £103.95 a term and my daughter a group lesson costing £69.30 a term. These costs would rise to £175.68 and £117.12 respectively. Before my son had music service violin lessons, he was having private lessons; the private lessons were costing us £20 for 45 minutes. Looking at the maths, a private lesson for £20 or a music service lesson costing £17.57 for half the time, it doesn’t look like Bedfordshire Music is planning to remain ‘the principal provider of instrumental education and musical enrichment opportunities in the county of Bedfordshire’. What this will mean, is that the demand for peripatetic music lessons will drop to the point that Central Bedfordshire will no longer need to employ the teachers, leaving them to find their own employment and opportunities for children to learn a music instrument in Central Bedfordshire will be seriously curtailed.

Once we add in the rise in cost for the Saturday morning sessions at Dunstable Music Centre, our termly costs would rise by £224, which I don’t see as sustainable. If a large number of people decide these rises are too much and either reduce or cancel their use of the provision, then Central Bedfordshire Council will be able to say the message is that ‘no-one wants the music service’ and be able to start closing down, rather than just running down aspects of it.

If they had said that they were closing the music centres, then the friends of the individual centres would have an opportunity to put together a plan to keep them running. Just putting up the fees means that by the time they finally close, they will have been run down to the point that there is no chance of re-opening them.

So that, in my view, is Central Bedfordshire Council’s plan for the destruction of the Bedfordshire Music Service, ending its long established national reputation for excellence.

My new found enjoyment of playing the recorder convinced me to try taking ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) exams in recorder. I set my sights low to start with and started collecting the music for Grade 1 Descant. At first it seemed difficult, but after a bit of practice, I realised it was within my ability. I took the exam at the beginning of July (on my birthday of all days) and to say that I was nervous was an understatement. I must have got something right as I passed with merit.

My son started playing the clarinet about Easter time and before long I had bought a Boosey & Hawkes Regent clarinet off Ebay for him. It needed re-padding and the tenons needed re-corking. I found an on-line source of repair materials and armed with a degree of confidence and no experience I began. I remember his clarinet teacher saying “it looks complicated doesn’t it” and thinking “oh yes, when do I take it apart”. The technical complexity of it didn’t frighten me, it intrigued me. Anyway, I proceeded methodically removing key by key and bagging them and the screws/posts individually. I kept the bags in the order that I removed the keys, so assembly should be a case of reversing the order. Once the keys had been removed, I removed the cork. That wasn’t difficult, it more or less just unpeeled. Next, the body of the joint was washed in warm soapy water and then thoroughly dried. I then cleaned the keys the same way and the pads just sort of disintegrated in the water. I’ve since learnt it is a lot easier to remove the pads before cleaning the keys. Once the keys were clean, I polished them using my Dremel.

Re-corking the tenons wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined, but very time consuming. Re-padding the keys was a case of melting the glue in the pad cup with a soldering iron on the outside and then locating the new pad into the cup. Then the key was re-fitted and the glue re-melted and pad finally positioned. All in all, the first clarinet took a couple of days to strip and re-pad, not going to make my fortune doing it for a living. I had to tweak one key when my son’s clarinet teacher played it, and his verdict was that it was a nice instrument. His first clarinet was a Regent and he said that the feel of it was the same.

After this, I re-corked the music school Boosey & Hawkes clarinet that my son had been borrowing and adjusted a bent key on a music school Braly clarinet. When my son’s clarinet teacher played the Braly, he was so impressed that he said I could have a look at his clarinet. So a couple of weeks later I was asked to look at his Evette. He let me know what needed adjusting, but the more I looked, the less convinced I was that we were adjusting the correct key. After some discussion, we went with my gut instinct and the end result, in his opinion, is that the instrument hasn’t played that well for 30 years.

By this time, Jo had been telling me for a few weeks that I would end up playing one, so using a spare reed, I had a play on my son’s clarinet one day and was pleasantly surprised with how good a sound I got from it. So, it was only a matter of time before I had my own, which of course I stripped down, cleaned and re-padded. I am enjoying playing the clarinet; the fingering in the lower register is similar to the treble recorder, so there are transferable skills. Blowing on pitch is taking some getting used to, but I’m getting there.

Time after time I keep coming back to the recorder and I don’t imagine I’ll ever leave it. Since September 09, I have been going into my daughter’s school, after school on a Friday, teaching a beginners recorder group with the assistance of one of the other parents. They have been making good progress and have played in each end of term governor’s assembly.

I have recently added a Moeck Rottenburg rosewood treble to my collection. Hopefully it should be nicely played in for my ABRSM treble grade 1 exam that I have in my sights for the summer.