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Last Easter, at the same time as the Bolivars were doing their , the National Youth Orchestra had their Easter course, including a broadcast, during which a couple of them were interviewed. On comparing the two orchestras one of the NYO players commented that, "Of course, they (the Bolivars) are different". I've been puzzling since then: What is that difference? The Venezuelan players talk a lot about 'the love'. OK, we love our music as well, though it's a bit un-British to be demonstrative about that love - you might even fall into the trap of forgetting how to 'feel' that love. At the conference there were a lot of exchanges attempting to explain the difference between Venezuelan and European culture. A good example was offered: Imagine trying to get a huge youth orchestra organised for a trip abroad, including visas and inoculations........at a couple of days notice. They did it. European bureaucracy would just be so busy being apoplectic that it would fail to achieve anything. Strange......the rules and systems that are meant to make things nice and safe for us become the chains that hold us down. Helen McVey, one of the Big Noise teachers, was surprised at how hard the Venezuelan cellist pushed the young children - hard and competitive - and the children flourished under it. Would she get sacked if she taught like that in a British Primary school? The lead violinist of the quartet talked passionately about urgency and lack of time, as if life itself depended on the music beginning to flourish - for the kids in Caracas life does depend on it. And what about the lady trying to start a Big Noise in Baghdad? Lives could depend on it there? Double-take that: In Baghdad something like this could save real people from gruesome deaths. We think we've got problems in Raploch! Another question asked: 'Why classical music, and not one of the other arts?' Nice call. What's your answer? I found myself in a small coffee break group considering if it would be possible to outlaw the word 'classical', with its wagon train of middle class elitist luggage. Group music is at the heart of this matter, and the orchestra is a uniquely powerful expression of human co-operation. And co-operation is what you have to learn to do when you find you don't agree with others - which is most of the time for old grumps like me.

Maybe some of this is getting me excited because it's in my background. My main school was l, the Bluecoat School in Horsham, a unique charity school which keeps music central to education. In my time, the military band was a feature - all children were encouraged to join it, instruments and tuition were provided free, and everybody learnt together as a group, even individual practising had to be done communally in one big hall. The bandmaster then was a Marine sergeant major - and he didn't take prisoners. Within weeks kids with no background in music, just kids enjoying being kids, could be performing as part of this band, the pride of the school. Virtually none of the children came from families that could afford anything like this. Cello tuition was free on condition that I joined the orchestra - which led on to concerts, trips away, orchestral and chamber music opportunities etc. The highlight of my school career was performing the Leonardo Leo cello concerto on Founders Day, during which the Lord Mayor of London, sitting a few feet in front of me, fell noisily asleep. At one of our concerts in Prague a few years ago Steven Isserlis was performing the Dvorak A major cello concerto (same key as the Leo) - a man sitting directly in front of him fell asleep, and was rewarded by having the soloist's bouquet thrown down into his lap. I've digressed. Ninety years ago Rudolf Steiner established a truly inspirational ideal curriculum, embracing the principle that every class should form its own orchestra, having already started with singing on the first day. The teacher is expected to arrange or compose music that would fulfil the potential of each individual child in the class, on whatever instrument might be appropriate - no exams or competitions. And, guess what, this was not in order to produce lots of nice merry noises to entertain the parents at the Christmas concert, which it does anyway - this is fundamental to the learning processes, and the learning of self worth within the group. Maths, languages, astronomy, any subject, is learnt better as a group activity. Will someone tell our wretched government that? Two weeks ago they rejected, once again, the findings of an extensive survey by on how to improve literacy - and the UK is near the bottom of the European literacy league tables. (You'll have heard the clip-clop of my hobby horse.) Middle class parents won't vote for them if they change anything. We, the sensible middle classes, don't really want change. (I have to admit that my red flag is a bit dusty.) Is there a deeper more intractable problem here? If we sense something that might challenge our status, we flunk the jump, whinnying. We structure society to maintain our status, and ridicule challenging ideas, even if we suspect that they are common sense. These educational theories might lead to people becoming equal to us - we don't want them to be equal - our survival instincts drive us to maintain our advantages.

So, back to my question, what is that difference? When all the hype has been swept away, and binned with the fading flowers, and the show biz vultures are gorged - what are we left with? Watching the four Venezuelans play was a delight. Full frontal smiles, mutual awareness, a sense of sharing something special - this all radiated out from them. The physical style of their playing looked right, natural and appropriate, like the movements of a native hunter on the savannah - and this is already apparent in the Big Noise children. Comparing them with myself, as on the telly, I feel awkward, clumsy, and inarticulate. Maybe there is something stemming from that impulse of 'the love', something which naturally flows out through their limbs. Here, all our hours of lone practice and one to one tuition deny us the interplay available in the more natural group learning process. Our system is based on practising alone until you're good enough to join in with others, or pass exams, or compete in 'one winner - the rest of you are losers' competitions. These pressures chip away at, even destroy, the child's confidence. Confidence has to be grown in a group - that's how we evolved, and that's how children still do it, if our systems let them. That our system is not the best has been proved beyond dispute. I'm not suggesting that any of us lack love for playing - but I am suggesting that our system might have damaged our love. Thousands go to see the Bolivars - for many of them it's their first 'classical' concert. The hype and the novelty will soon wear off, but in that first contact something deeper than hype and novelty strikes home. It's certainly not the musicological details that make audiences stand up and shout. Something is sparking across the gap. They see young people rejoicing in their skill and team work, and maybe they feel - even if they can't verbalise - "Yeah, that's how it should be, that's how I should have been". Yes.