Comment 5 on Is Music any use for International Development?

Thanks, Allison - that's a really interesting and thought-provoking article. Putting together a choir to sing non-sacred songs in Nigeria might well be a way of crossing the religious divide, but I wonder whether people would come to it, with the religious zeal that people feel over there. I hope they would.

The article made me want to cheer at some points and cringe at others. It's putting music as a mechanism for "inclusion", which I cheer about. I cringe when they say "scrap a song if it takes more than 45 seconds to learn." I couldn't run anything like that. It seems to ignore the "self development" desire that people like to have and the ability that improving in music has in developing self confidence.

Maybe I am a bit zealous myself, but having been involved in lots of amateur shows I know the sense of achievement that people get from singing barbershop harmony for instance, when they have never done it before.

Still, I think you are right - developing a community choir across religious divide is a wonderful idea and I will put it to NFI for their view.