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John PAYNTER Obituary
Memories and Condolences
for John PAYNTER
24 Entries
Sean Farrell
February 24, 2011
John's unswerving enthusiasm for music and, particularly, music education has sat deeper and deeper inside me as my career has progressed. As an undergraduate I was aware of his brilliance, but not broad minded enought to partake carefully enough of his education lectures.
I'll never forget his Handel Cantatas project though, and the care with which he brought every inexperienced performer alive.
Some years later when I heard him address a group of conservatoire heads of dept, he spoke (of a piece of Bach) with the same glint in his eye that I'll never forget, and at the moment he circled the ratio of the number of bars and declared with triumph "the golden section" he had everyone in the room in the palm of his hand, as though we were all being enlightened for the first time. Perhaps some were...
It's now with pride that I look back and realise that at every point in my career I've been involved in music education: John began that in me, even though I didn't realise it for years.
An inspirational man
Rachael Maher
February 6, 2011
John was very memorable in so many ways, and an inspiration to all who met him. My memories of being a music student are shaped by him, when he was head of department. I particularly remember his 'sound and structure' project as opening up a whole new way of thinking about music. His legacy will live on, I hope, for a long time.
Peter Seymour
August 7, 2010
I came to York as an undergraduate in 1969. At that time we weren’t aware of the mantra that all the staff were composers – these marvellous staff were musicians who, above all, brought and imparted an enormous love of music, of all music, to all with whom they came into contact. That has remained the great legacy begun by Wilfrid Mellers and continued, at York, by, above all, John Paynter. I, and many others, would not have come to York and certainly not stayed but for Wilfrid and John; I’m certain John was always proud and honoured to follow Wilfrid’s ideas and beliefs. As Head of Department he undertook the hard job of consolidation and development of what had started in the late 60s and early 70s. When an external referee suggested that it wasn’t possible to show understanding of and insight into music by performance John immediately announced he would resign if the University accepted this stupidity – we would have no undergraduate nor postgraduate course if performance and composition was not accepted as research and set at the core of our teaching. Thankfully, the University accepted his argument.
When Wilfrid died two years ago John was at the centre of ensuring we celebrate our founding Head’s life and vision, his creativity, his music and his writings, but above all his concern that we should teach what we are excited by and that students should study what, and with whom, excites them. Staff and students should show what they can do, not what they can’t.
Those of us who are current staff at York are privileged to continue Wilfrid’s and John’s vision and few of us would be here working in the best music department one could imagine but for them and their beliefs. Wilfrid founded the Department but John developed and consolidated. He was a great educator but also a visionary enthusiast who loved music whether as a composer, teacher, performer or auditor. His intelligent and enthusiastic appreciation of a performance was always the most important and rewarding response for any performer.
Reading the comments on this site and the excellent obituaries it is clear the difference he made to so many lives both indirectly to so many who never met him. But for those of us who were privileged to know, to be taught by and to work alongside him and to those who have benefited from his humanity, musicianship, intelligence, sharp mind, humour and encouragement there is a debt beyond that which words can express. He changed our lives.
Jo Glover
August 4, 2010
John was a brilliant teacher and I was lucky enough to be taught by him for four years at York University in the early 1970s. He was, and always will be, an inspirational figure for me as for so many others both professionally and personally. John brought extraordinary qualities of imagination, sensitivity, humour and intellectual courage to his work as a composer, musician, music educator and philosopher. He remained a touchstone and will be greatly missed.
John revolutionised the world of music education by taking children's music seriously as part of contemporary culture; by listening to what they did and by responding, as he did with students of any age, with warmth, encouragement, respect and great musicality. His standards were always extremely high, for himself as much as in his expectations of those with whom he worked. This always seemed to come from great enthusiasm and a whole-hearted commitment to the moment, whoever he shared it with. His influence and his writings will be a rich legacy for many years to come.
Grenville Hancox
August 3, 2010
Was it not John who first thought of the phrase'every child matters'? His certainly was the first contemporary approach to music in the classroom that espoused such a belief through offering children opportunity to be expressively creative. Sound and Silence co authored with Peter Aston was earth shattering and as such it remains as fresh four decades on.It was a great privilege to have been spotted by John as a teacher who was by chance following a similar approach to his primary advocacy in the secondary classroom and to work with him for some years on his secondary schools project.His belief in childrens innate potential as music makers mirrored Picasso's belief in their artistic
potency. He was the most gentle of men and a great source of inspiration for those who were in some way touched by his brilliance. Let us remember that in music every child matters, just as John did.
August 2, 2010
Like many others who have written their heartfelt tributes here, I too have a very well thumbed, hanging together with sellotaped, copy of 'Sound and Silence; which became and still is, my bible. I have found it important just to read and re-read the inspirational words especially in the challenging times we have faced over the last 40 years...'Education does not begin with specialist boxes filled with facts to be memorised. It should be child centered and start from the needs of the individual.' John's thinking did not just apply to music education but to all facets of what it is to be a learner. 'The value of anything we learn in school lies in the extent to which it helps us to respond to the world around us'.
I was privileged to be invited by OUP to co-author a book which was to replace his 'All kinds of music' series and so worked very closely with him over a couple of years. Sadly OUP decided not to publish though we had completed the manuscript which I still have. This experience was the equivalent for me of sitting at the feet of a great guru. It's a wonderful legacy that there are now thousands of young (and not so young) people out there, making music which has been totally encouraged and influenced by John's fundamental philosophies. In one of my last conversations with him he had to be 'persuaded' that what we trying to achieve through Wider Opportunities would be creative enough - and we probably have some way to go here! Perhaps we could persuade Music Teacher magazine to organise and abbreviated version of 'Sound and Silence' to be sent to members of the current government though sadly they would not probably not understand it.
Leonora Davies London
Tim Torry
August 1, 2010
As a music student at York in the late 1960s, I just missed John's being appointed to the staff, but was fortunate enough to be part of several workshops to which he was invited. He came across as a gentle but deeply enthusiastic man, keen to encourage those with whom he worked and, decades later - when I sent an apology for my being unable to attend a university reunion through (my then) chronic ill-health - I was both surprised and deeply touched by the fact that he actually remembered who I was! Despite my enthusiasm for his creative music approach, it unfortunately did not prove feasible fully to carry out his principles after the first few years at the school at which I was teaching, but I was able to pass on my enthusiasm for Sound and Silence to my brother, who proved very successful in using John's approach at primary school level!(see Nick Torry's contribution). I was also fortunate to be a member of the University Chamber Choir when we performed John's wonderfully atmospheric setting of G.M.Hopkins' The Windhover. This has remained as a treasured memory ever since and I was later fortunate to acquire a University L.P. which included a recording of this beautiful piece(and which still have!). A wonderful man and clearly not 'just' a teacher!
Graham Vulliamy
August 1, 2010
I first met John at the University of York in 1972, soon after I had been appointed as a lecturer in sociology in the department of education. Having discovered that I had written my master’s thesis on music education – from the critical perspective of a jazz and rock musician – he encouraged me to edit a couple of books on this theme in his Resources of Music book series. I will always be deeply indebted to him for this, because not only did he teach me much about the processes of writing, but he also introduced me to the ways in which alternative approaches to music teaching could be a truly liberating experience for school children. His continuing friendship, long after my academic writing pursuits had moved away from music education, provided a constant source of interest and intellectual stimulation. He was a truly inspirational figure whose influence went far beyond the confines of music education itself.
Pam Burnard
August 1, 2010
Music education has changed because of John Paynter. As composer, music educator, academic and author, John Paynter contributed to the creative turn in music education both nationally and internationally. John was a champion of creative music making and in his writings and practice led us to consider children as composers. He introduced us to the importance of child-centrality in the investigation of the composition process, and analysis of compositions, on the taken-for-granted assumptions of learners and teachers and the concepts, issues and ideas that inform the 'what', 'how' and 'why' of composition in the music curriculum.
The impact of John Paynter is located and reported in the details of our thinking about the authenticity of assessment and its impact on both teachers and students, of the discursive production of composing as a way to access music.
John's legacy will live on in the vibrant debates about music curriculum, composition and why it is not enough simply to identify how well the aims and objectives of a music lesson is met, as this in effect says more about the ability of the teacher to balance the conflicting aims and values in evidence in education, than it does about the creative music making of the child.
John said we need to be passionate about children as composers and about the sensitivity and imagination of their musical meanings and that we must respond to what they produce with immediacy.
John will be greatly missed by those of us who seek to effect educational policy on the value which is given to music and creative music making.
Helen Coll
July 30, 2010
I wasn't one of John's students but luckily for me, I was teaching in a school in York when he was appointed to the university. Being in the right place at the right time gave me opportunities to encounter his ideas and inspirational teaching at first hand. As part of his work with music education students he taught a couple of lessons to my pupils in school and I still remember these – it was seeing how his ideas worked in practice as much as reading ‘Sound and Silence’ that made me rethink what I was doing. His writing remains fresh and full of insight – let’s make sure that he’s not forgotten.
David Ashworth
July 29, 2010
I first came across John Paynter in York in the late 1970s. At the time I was a very young maths teacher who had decided that perhaps he didn’t want to spend the next 40 years drawing isosceles triangles on blackboards after all. My all consuming passion was music, but the music education I saw around me didn’t seem that attractive – music ‘appreciation’ for the masses and performing opportunities in the school choirs/orchestras for the elite. But I’d heard that there was a professor at the local university who was hoping to change all that. So a quick telephone call and a few days later, I was sitting in his office while he shared with me his vision for music education in schools. What a privilege!
The rest is history – but it is a living history that continues to profoundly influence music education today. Although my well thumbed Paynter books are starting to yellow with age and the photographs are definitely looking a bit dated, the ideas are still a breath of fresh air. I return to them again and again – and I would urge others to do likewise. When John Paynter wrote about music, he was in a class of his own.
The classrooms of today may be much better resourced than they were 40 years ago – but today’s resources with Paynter’s ideas, now there is a dangerously powerful mix!
I last saw John when he came to the NAME conference in 2009. A frail man but still as insightful as ever. Thank you John for putting me (and many, many others) on the right road. May your legacy live on…..
Roger Crocker
July 29, 2010
There was always something missing from my life until John appeared on the scene although I did not really know it at the time. His contribution to music education, the seminal impact on its development, and the realisation of the potential and power of music for all children and young people was what did it for me. I was hooked. The emergence of the Schools Council work on music and in the arts, the recognition of music at national level with the Shirley Williams Green Paper and many other areas were directly or indirectly influenced by his work. His vision and incision have always underpinned the last 40 years of my life in music and music education and his loss is all the more poignant as the last time I met him he was clearly up to speed and thinking through principles and practice as he had always done. There is 'Silence before and after all sound', and, while we can no longer see and hear him, he is 'just in the next room. His spiritual influence will remain and has changed the course of history.
Richard Jones
July 28, 2010
I was lucky enough to be at York University from 73 - 76. I had wanted to read Mus Ed, but my school music teacher thought I should just do Music. Well I did what she said but I can honestly say that my happiest studies were when I was doing Music Education projects under John's leadership. As the government will probably want Mus Ed to go back to being about knowledge rather than skills we should remember John's work and celebrate it.
Ted Bunting
July 28, 2010
Whislt I didn't know it at the time, it was John's thinking about music education that inspired me to teach music - and still does.
Alan Smith
July 28, 2010
I have many happy and vivid memories of John and of his inspirational teaching from my time at York University (1970-1974). His thinking and his writings have been the very foundation of so many people's work in music education, and I am grateful and proud to number myself among them. His influence has been profound and his legacy will surely endure.
Julie Evans
July 27, 2010
John Paynter inspired so many of us who are involved in music education. We must remember his philosophy of music education in these times of rapid educational change and ensure that we build on his legacy.
Chris Philpott
July 26, 2010
I never met John Paynter but as a student teacher in the 1970s his writings were an inspiration. His approach to creativity and composition underpinned much of my own work as a music teacher, values that are still with me today. Modern instrumental concepts of the musical imagination are impoverished in comparison. He was one of a very small handful of significant English music educators - a legend.
Martin Fautley
July 26, 2010
I still have my signed copy of 'Sound and Silence'. John changed music education in a profound way. His clarity of thinking is sorely missed.
Nick Torry
July 24, 2010
John was well loved by children too. Way back in 1973 I brought a small group of 10 and 11 year olds to York to perform a dance-drama called "The Dragon of Galatar", composed and directed by John. He was unfailingly patient and good-humoured and an inspiration to the children, many of whom were not particularly musically talented. They talked about that day for ages afterwards.
Janet Hoskyns
July 14, 2010
John was a brilliant teacher and educator. He inspired so many, including me, through his teaching at the University of York, and through his work in schools. As a composer, he wrote many beautiful and touching works. Those of us who were taught by him had access not only to his amazing insights and thoughts about music and music education, but to an extraordinary philosopher and thinker on all issues. His work will live on and his loss is very deeply felt.
Richard Heason
July 12, 2010
John's influence and legacy within music education and creative music making is enormous. He was one of those rare individuals who through his genuine and generous personality and intelligence commanded respect and admiration from everyone who came into contact with him and his work. He opened doors in people's creativity and enabled them to express and communicate with others and led the way in opening up music from an elitist preserve to a joy that everyone could participate in. John's unswerving support and help in developing the University of York's New Music Group Education Workshops enabled myself and countless colleagues to develop skills and abilities that have formed the basis of much of our professional lives and we all owe him a debt of gratitude for the opportunities he presented to us or even more so perhaps for empowering us to unlock our own potential.
Piers Spencer
July 8, 2010
John was an inspirational figure both to me personally and also to countless colleagues. His loss to musical education, particularly his ideas about music's role in the general education of all children had a far-reaching influence on developments in school music and on the training and continued professional development of music teachers. It is through John's wonderfully eloquent writing and advocacy that composing as well as performing now features in the curriculum. He taught us all that music could be a powerful means for developing the imagination of every human being. We are all in his debt for the fresh and illuminating insights that he brought to our thinking and professional practice.
Clare Griffiths
July 6, 2010
John was my first boss at the age of 17 from 1990 till he retired in 1994. I have very fond memories of the time we worked together, he was a very fair and considerate man. He will be sadly missed.
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