“Meeting after meeting, music teachers were complaining about how children couldn’t access music education. Over 90% of children were unable to get instrument tuition. So I thought, let’s do something. That’s how Music For The Many started.” – Daniel Bath
For years, Daniel Bath has worked tirelessly to create excellent learning opportunities for those who need it most. As the founder of local charity, Music For The Many, his singular goal has been to break down the financial barriers that prevent so many school kids from learning a musical instrument – and to prove a lot of people wrong in the process. Along the way, he has literally transformed the lives of thousands of youngsters.
“A big part of it has been working with diverse groups and diverse communities, especially Muslim communities. There’s been a really big stigma with that, not particularly in the Muslim communities, but in the music education community in Britain. So we have a Nasheed choir, a Muslim choir. We work in the mosque in Todmorden.
“We’ve also had this really exciting project with Roma youth in Halifax. They’re fantastic. They absolutely love music but it’s really difficult for them to access formal music education in the way it’s presented by the British system.”
Daniel hit the headlines in 2023 when one of his long-term students, Lucy Illingworth, was invited to play at the King’s coronation concert. Lucy, who is blind and neurodivergent, had just won Channel 4’s talent show The Piano. A TV documentary followed their journey, including the shocking moment Daniel was denied access to the concert at Windsor Castle, presumably due to his involvement with environmental campaign group Extinction Rebellion.
As he said at the time: “My activism is the exact same reason I teach Lucy. As far as I’m concerned, nothing is more important than children and the future of our planet. That’s my entire motivation. It’s strange that I should be penalised for it.”
Daniel’s passion and drive took root when he studied at Cambridge University. His main interest there was ethnomusicology. After uni, he moved north and settled in Todmorden with his wife and first child – “it was the cheapest place to buy a house at the time”. He started working as a piano teacher in a local school and playing jazz gigs. Before long, Daniel noticed that few children in the school could actually afford instrument tuition. It felt wrong.
“Even the Arts Council government-funded tuition was over 40 quid an hour. For most families, that’s impossible.”
Daniel launched Music For The Many at the beginning of 2018 with his friend, another talented local music tutor, Will Lenton.
“We did a pilot scheme and the amount of children that wanted to do it was incredible. After a few months, we’d taught half the children in the school to play orchestral instruments.”
The name ‘Music For The Many’ aligned to the Labour Party’s oft-used mantra of the time. In fact, Jeremy Corbyn launched a campaign of the exact same name in April 2023. At the outset, Daniel hoped a returning and resurgent Labour government would be the ultimate solution.
“Jeremy Corbyn had talked a lot about music tuition in schools. So that’s part of what got me thinking about the idea in the first place. It was all very optimistic. It felt like we were going to have a government that would support all that stuff. I thought, we’ll set something up, get it going and then it’ll all be fine. That after a couple of years we could leave it. But, of course, that didn’t happen. Our workload got more and more intense. The demand increased.”
There are now 10 tutors at Music For The Many, primarily teaching orchestral instruments – woodwind, brass and strings – as well as guitar. In total, they’ve taught several thousands of local children. A quite astonishing number.
They typically start working with children halfway through year three. They work in groups and provide one-to-one tuition where the child needs it. And while most of the teaching is in a school environment, they also run two out-of-school youth orchestras, one in Todmorden and one in Halifax. They organise community projects as well and put on gigs where the children get to showcase their burgeoning talents and gain valuable experience of performing.
“We’ve got this model now where most of the teaching is based in an orchestra. So it gives the children a context straight away. They’re not just learning an isolated, abstract thing. From day one, they’re sitting in that symphony orchestra, making music. They play Beethoven and Handel and stuff. It’s an immersive experience. And it’s completely flexible. In that context we can then look at what each of the children need.”
Daniel has always been keen to support those who face the biggest challenges. It’s in his blood. He has specifically sought out youngsters who have been excluded from school, those with learning difficulties and children in families seeking asylum.
“A lot of the families that we work with by definition aren’t used to doing this kind of thing, so there’s that extra outreach to make sure the family’s on board. A lot of our parents don’t speak English very well. I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying to learn foreign languages so I can engage with the families more.”
As well as orchestral instruments, Music For The Many has delved into more modern music genres too. They’ve got “a really good guitar teacher” in Jack Hogg who has helped develop local rock and metal bands such as Frantic.
The charity is wholly reliant on funding. Put simply, the money that comes in pays the tutors to teach the children. Previously, Music For The Many has been able to get a reasonable proportion of its funding through grants, but that’s now proving more difficult than ever. There’s simply less money to go round and a greater demand for it. It’s frustrating for all concerned. With more money, Daniel could take the organisation to a whole new level.
“The big thing would be to get some proper salaried positions going. The whole team at the moment is paid hourly on a self-employed basis. To get the organisation structured in a more resilient way would be great. We could then develop the work in a way that meets the needs of the community better.”
Another key challenge is sustained education. As Daniel explains, with the current system, all the children in a class might get to learn an instrument for a year or two, but then the funding stops.
“They say, if you want to carry on, you have to pay. And there’s only three children out of 30 whose families can afford it. So the really important thing for us is to make it sustainable. If we start teaching children, we will keep on supporting them as long as they want to learn, whatever happens.”
Although it’s undeniably hard work keeping the charity going – Daniel admits he often wonders “if it’s all worth it” – the payback moments are inevitably huge.
“We had a concert the other week with John Helliwell from Supertramp. The Youth Orchestra and him were playing a Supertramp song at the end called It’s Raining Again with one of our children doing the lead. That was just great.”
“But the biggest thing is when we do a concert and you’ll get a family come and say afterwards ‘that’s the first time I’ve ever been to a concert.’ For me, that’s always the biggest thing. If we hadn’t done it, that whole family would never have had any access to the world of live music.”
How You Can Help
If you like what Daniel and his team are doing and believe children should have better access to music tuition, you can help.
Donate to Music For The Many: JustGiving.com/MusicForTheMany
What It Means To The Students
A selection of quotes from Daniel’s current crop of students:
“It’s been really good. I’ve made two pieces of music and one of them has been played on the radio. It’s sparked a creative mindset for me, to make music. And when I focus on my music, it helps with distractions, so I don’t pay attention to the outside world so much.”
“In Music For The Many we have a lot of fun and it’s very enjoyable. We can also help others enjoy music through our performances.”
“We take part in band sessions; they’re are a lot of fun. And we work together to create pieces of music. There are lots of opportunities for young people. Learning an instrument is a really good thing to do.”
“I play piano and trumpet. I think Music For The Many is really important. There’s a lot of children that can’t afford to learn to play music otherwise. I’ve really enjoyed doing the concerts in the college and one in the town hall for a 150th anniversary. It’s a way to escape normal life.”
“I play the violin. The people that help us at Music For The Many are very nice. My family are very proud of me.”
“You get free music tuition, you get to learn a lot and it’s very fun.”
“It’s helped me a lot with my skills on the clarinet and it’s helped me to read music. I really enjoyed the concerts we did at the high school and at St Marys. We played lots of music and we ate lots of cake!”
“Music For The Many has helped us grow the band. It’s helped us get better and to play gigs. Music brings people into the town. Music brings people together.”
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