Haringey Music Service

The Nelson Way – a Training Session for Strings Teachers in Haringey

On Friday 9th January 2025 fifteen strings teachers assembled in Alexandra Palace, for the inaugural ‘Nelson Way’ teachers’ event. As Head of Strings for Haringey Music Service, this event was one I had keenly anticipated. I know how invaluable Sheila Nelson’s teaching philosophy is having learnt with her myself from an early age into my late teens. I was delighted then when the Sheila Nelson Stringwise Fund offered the support to make this event happen.

The event was led by Deborah Young and Cathy Elliott. As well as being renowned strings teachers themselves, Cathy and Deborah were close colleagues of Sheila over several decades.  In recent years they have painstakingly archived Sheila’s teaching materials so that they can be used for future generations.  

We began with a video of Sheila teaching at the pioneering Tower Hamlets String Project of the 1980s.  Then followed a host of entertaining activities ideal for large group or individual teaching.  Areas covered included innovative rhythm games, teaching bow holds, sol fa, whole class repertoire, circular bowing, the difference between passive and active arms and the need for relaxed technique.  

The activities were very ‘hands on’ with teachers taking the role of students for much of the time.  The morning was fun, challenging and creative, with a lot of laughter and discussion.  Diverse repertoire was covered including some from the Essential String Method, written by Sheila with Cathy and others.  

For me, the morning brought back happy memories of learning with Sheila.  But as Cathy and Deborah emphasised, despite her strong philosophy of teaching, Sheila was opposed to keeping ideas preserved in aspic.  Instead, she continually refined and developed her ideas in response to students’ needs.  

Our HMS strings team rose to this theme of continual creativity with their excellent contributions and observations.  Their feedback was warm and enthusiastic with comments such as ‘inspirational’ and ‘brilliant’.  In a few weeks teachers will be invited to give further feedback about how the ideas they encountered have worked on the ground.  This valuable research is also kindly supported by the ESTA Bursary Committee and Sheila Nelson Stringwise Fund.

In a year in which Sheila would have turned ninety I like to think she would have been pleased and proud to witness this excellent event.  At HMS we hope it is the first of many to come so that teachers can continue to benefit from Sheila’s ideas and creativity.

Buskaid

To the Sheila Nelson Stringwise Fund

On behalf of Sonja Bass, Keabetswe Goodman and myself, I am writing to express our
very great appreciation to the Sheila Nelson Stringwise Fund for generously agreeing
to fund our visit to present three workshops at the ESTA Summer School 2026.
These workshops, involving children from the local community, will demonstrate how
we work in Soweto during our weekly group lessons. These groups always have an
element of surprise and fun, which we hope will be the case at the ESTA course!
They will include a lot of singing, solfa, movement, and right- and left-hand techniques,
all based on the Essential String Method and other Nelson repertoire. And, depending
on the age/standard of our young ‘guinea pigs’, we’d like to introduce them to some
simple township music, to be played by ear.

From Buskaid’s early beginnings, I have acknowledged Sheila, a very close friend and
colleague since 1972, as the mentor and advisor whose support and wisdom informed
my teaching in Soweto. In the 90s, this often took the form of my phoning her from
South Africa in some panic, for advice on how to lead a workshop of more than 40
young string players from Diepkloof Soweto! This was for me a new and very daunting
prospect!

To be acknowledged as a successful example of how Sheila Nelson’s approach,
together with that of her Stringwise colleagues, has been the driving force behind all
our teaching at the Buskaid Music School in Soweto, is an amazing validation of what
we do. Thank you so much!

We shall also present a concert involving an additional six young Buskaid teachers
who will accompany us to this event. This concert will reflect the extraordinary capacity
of our young African musicians to understand and interpret various performance styles from historically-informed baroque and classical, to romantic and township Afro-Jazz.

Deborah Young – research write-up

The presenters of the Haringey Music Service INSET, which took place on 9th January, are grateful to the SNSF for supporting the research into development of the Nelson Way which followed and which will inform the planning of sessions to be given at ESTA’s Summer School in August.

The INSET was attended by fourteen HMS teachers who, between them, have a wide range of experience, from two former SMN pupils to those at the beginning of their teaching careers, including those who trained in other countries. Most have some experience of whole class or small group teaching, but a few only teach individuals.

The workshop was based on the ideas and strategies developed by Sheila Nelson, starting with a group of songs, both historic to her sessions and some more currently used. It continued with some heavy vs light arm exercises with the teachers working in pairs, and explored active vs passive movements. The following activity took simple songs from the Essential String Method bk.1, including sol fa and hand signs. Katherine Chibah’s backing tracks for Tall Red Bus were much admired! Next came a wide variety of games using rhythm cards; ranging from the very simple to the extremely challenging. The teaching of pulse and movement was discussed. Bow hold teaching and the importance of big arm movements ended the session; Stir the Magic Pot from ESM bk 1 was demonstrated.

The teachers were asked to try some or all of these activities in their spring term teaching and evaluate their effectiveness.

Almost all tried the sol fa and rhythm card activities, which many had not used before, finding the rhythm
cards generally easy to use and incorporate, but some found pupils shy about singing and sol fa and found hand signs tricky. Many tried the bow holding exercises and big freeing movements to improve string crossing and general physicality. There was mention of some behaviour problems when children worked in pairs to find light vs heavy arms. Many tried different songs and repertoire and were enthusiastic about getting backing tracks for ESM. The opening up of a more playful way of teaching and more relaxed pupils was mentioned.

Of the 11 teachers who responded, all were very positive and said they would continue to use the activities and welcomed further training. In summary this was an extremely useful preparation and basis for planning what to include in the summer.