Jim Howie likes to blow his own horn.
But the trumpet player and longtime member of the Okanagan Symphony fosters a love of music as the School District #83 supervisor of music and conductor of the Shuswap String Symphony.
Starting his third year as music supervisor, Howie took over the position and the string symphony when Gordon Waters retired two years ago.
A teacher at Armstrong’s Pleasant Valley Senior Secondary for 27 years, Howie knows well the value music provides to students.
“Participating in making music really enriches their lives and that’s probably the most important thing,” he says enthusiastically. “It also helps them with school and life in general by exercising all the different intelligences.”
Howie explains that making music is unique in the way it engages all the areas of the brain, a notion, he says, is backed up by a great deal of research.
“There are some areas where the association is clear – language development and math,” he says. “Those have been proven so many times that it’s old news.”
Howie says music teachers at the elementary level can help language arts teachers by choosing and working with them on certain activities, something he describes as a real bonus for students.
As the mind develops through music and children are using every part of their brains, their minds become more nimble than they would otherwise be, Howie says.
Just as important as the intellectual benefits of making music, Howie says there is an equally important social aspect in that music has been proven to be self-rewarding.
“So students coming out of a music class have just spent 45 minutes, or whatever, making themselves feel good, which has spin-off effects on their learning and self-esteem,” he says, of the desirable side-effects. “But the most important part of what we do, is working on the musical expressiveness, the ability (for students) to express themselves in a socially acceptable way.”
A graduate of University of Victoria with a BA in music performance and a masters in education, Howie says his role as supervisor is primarily to help music teachers do their jobs.
His one lament is that the job has taken him out of the classroom and limited his engagement with the kids; something he tries to make up for with frequent visits to all the schools in the large district.
And every Wednesday at 4 p.m., Howie conducts the community’s string orchestra in practice at Shuswap Middle School.
“It’s one of the many things that Gord did and when he retired, he gave that to me as well,” laughs Howie, pointing out the orchestra was born in 2002. “It is supported by the district in terms of buying music and offering space for it to happen.”
Members of the orchestra play violin, viola, cello, and acoustic bass and, enthuses Howie, as the orchestra is just starting a new year, now is the perfect time to join.
“There are lots of school-aged students who are learning to play privately, but have no venue to play in an orchestra, and that’s what this could provide them with,” he says, noting the 25 members are as young as 12. “No one really confesses at the other end of the scale, but we have some in their 80s.”
As well as a broad age range, Howie says there are some interesting multi-generational combinations – father-daughter, mother-son, aunt-niece and a number of teachers.
“It’s fun; they have another way to relate to each other because they relate as peers in this group,” he says.
No dates have yet been set, but Howie says the orchestra does perform in concert, including the big band concert that takes place at Salmon Arm Secondary in the spring.
Explaining there is just too much experience to waste, Howie invites Waters to teach now and then. And, when people wonder about the “newcomer” to the school district, Howie has the answer ready.
“I tell them I’m the new Gord Waters – then they understand who I am and why I am there,” he laughs. “He’s a lot taller than me, but I have more hair.”