Philip Andrews - Contributed photos
Edna Manley College (EMC) School of Music lecturer Philip Andrews is a firm believer in the benefits of discipline.
"If you don't have discipline, you can't play classical music," he told The Sunday Gleaner in a recent interview. His opinion is not surprising. He has been in disciplined environments most of his working life, at Alpha Boys' Home, both as a teenager learning music and then as choirmaster for 27 years, and in the Jamaica Defence Force as a member of the Jamaica Military Band from 1970 to 2008.
Ironically, it is at EMC, the most privileged of the institutions, that Andrews has had most challenges with discipline. As a lecturer there, he said he has found that some students "register but come to only one or two classes". He said the parents pay for them, but they seem not to be interested in learning music.
"They're just passing through to get a certificate," he opined. On the other hand, he added, "Some students are very talented." Andrews teaches percussion at EMC, giving instruction in the playing of the xylophone, congo drums, marimbaphone, trap drums, among other percussive instruments.
From the college he received a music teacher's certificate in 2004, and last month achieved a 'first' for music students in the island when he became the only percussionist here ever to be awarded both the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) diploma in performance (in 2007) and the Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music (LRSM) diploma (in April 2009).
Andrews said that playing music with the Jamaica Military Band not only taught him more of the discipline he had begun learning at Alpha, but it took him to every part of the island and on numerous international engagements. In 2007, for example, he was with the band playing for the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, London. And because the band plays all types of music including classical, reggae and pop, he is now able to teach both popular and classical music.
He has been musical director for the Island Special Constabulary Force band, and music instructor at Immaculate Conception High School, the Laws Street Trades Training Centre, the Church of the Transfiguration, Coke Methodist Church and The Music Workshop. He is currently organist at Christ the King Chapel, Alpha Convent. ABRSM Representative for Jamaica Marie Clarke told The Sunday Gleaner that Andrews was one of four music students receiving Royal Schools of Music awards last month. The others are 16-year-old Campion College student Jessica Katherine Yap (who got the LRSM violin performance), music teachers Helen Rosemary Bromley (Dip ABRSM, violin teaching) and Regnarene Brown (Dip ABRSM, flute teaching).
Enthusing over the results of the music exam, Clarke said, "Most of these students, through these exams, can later go on to receive credits for entry to colleges all over the world."
She explained that the Associated Board is the world's leading examining body for music and said that many schools, among them Wolmer's High, Hampton, DeCarteret, Herbert Morrison Technical High and Immaculate Conception High, have had long-standing relationships with the ABRSM, entering students for both theory and practical exams as well as serving as exam centres for the board.
"It is wonderful," she said, "that parents still see the value of their children learning a musical instrument, whether it be the saxophone, guitar, piano or violin.
"The Associated Board conducts more than 650,000 exams in over 90 countries each year, one of them, for the past century, being Jamaica. Established in 1889, the board has well over 100 years of experience and expertise in music education and benefits from links with four Royal Schools of Music in the United Kingdom.
In Jamaica, the board will be holding its annual High Scorers' Concert on June 6 at 5 p.m. in the Assembly Hall, St Andrew High School for Girls. Performing will be students from all over the island who gained distinctions in the 2009 examinations, including the new diploma awardees.
Jessica Yap