Howard's introduction to a Teachers' TV series, Take 10 Weeks - Singing School filmed in early 2007, following the Voices Foundation embedding an all-school singing programme into a Cambridgeshire primary school:

Singing in schools, after suffering a period of relative decline, is finally back on the agenda, with a vengeance. There's no doubt that all children, whatever their background, get enormous benefit from singing as a group. It enhances their self-esteem, it boosts their ability to learn and it is also great fun. Schools where singing thrives are happy schools. Scientific studies from all over the world show that singing accelerates learning by improving a child's memory skills, it is a fun way of teaching languages and numeracy, it builds a sense of teamwork and is a great opportunity to bring together children from very different backgrounds into one sociable and enjoyable activity. What's more, you don't have to teach singing like you do a language or a sport or a mathematical skill - all infants automatically know how to sing. Nature's already done the job!

My name is Howard Goodall, I'm a composer and a broadcaster, but you may also have read about my being appointed by the government to a head up a new initiative to get many more young people singing in schools again, not just for a hand-picked few in the choir for 20 minutes a week, but for all children and their staff. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t sing. From my earliest memories there was singing at home, at school, in the playground, at parties, at church, more or less everywhere. Sadly that is not the case for many of the children and young people growing up now. Why is that?

Music is probably more prevalent than ever - from the private soundtrack of an MP3 player to relentless ear-candy in every shop and public space. There is certainly no evidence that young people don't want to sing: look at those massive crowds of X-Factor and Any Dream Will Do hopefuls - but group singing, particularly in school, appears to be something of a postcode lottery. I am told that in many cases the answer is because teachers were told they couldn’t sing as children or have not received enough training either during their teacher training course or through INSET to give them the confidence they need both to sing and to lead singing.

There is also the fact that although there are plenty of great resources for teachers, it is often hard to find them unless you know what you are looking for and of course even if you do find them you might not know how to use them. And then there is the need for those who do want to lead singing to receive better support and understanding from colleagues, heads, governors and parents.

Children need to know that everyone around them likes to sing before they too will venture to open their mouths. So how do we help make every school a singing school? Two years ago we began to look at singing and how it could be a part of helping to provide a better music education offer to children and young people. I chaired a working group for the Music Manifesto which researched and developed a set of recommendations that were published as part of the Music Manifesto’s Report No. 2 – Making Every Child’s Music Matter. This report was presented at an event in London entitled ‘State of Play’ which took place in January of this year. In response, the then Secretary of State for Education, Alan Johnson, made a pledge of £10m to realise our recommendations. What we suggested needed to be done was threefold.

First, we said that there was a need for a high-profile public campaign to show parents, governors, head teachers, teachers, even the children and young people themselves, why singing can be such a valuable tool in the educational, social and emotional development of children and young people. Secondly we recommended that there must be accessible, easy to use resources freely available through publications and the internet, a first stop for all things singing. There are already lots of songs available for children and young people to use and teaching materials to support these songs, but we need to help everyone to know what they are looking for, what might be appropriate for them to use, and how to access it quickly and simply. Thirdly, and perhaps our most important recommendation, was that investment must be made into a comprehensive training programme.

A programme which not only highlights the many excellent existing training opportunities, but also provides additional ones where appropriate, so that everyone who wants to lead singing can gain more skills to do so – whether they consider themselves a singer or not. So, the Music Manifesto National Singing Programme was born and following a bidding process Youth Music in partnership with Abbot Mead Vickers, Faber Music and The Sage Gateshead were chosen by the Department for Children Schools and Families to run the programme.

They have given the programme a name – Sing Up – and have begun to realise the recommendations. It is our goal that as we approach the next decade, children and young people will be able to say that they can’t remember a time when they didn’t sing, and we hope that you will want to be a part of this singing revolution.

Backbeat column in The Teacher April 2007: 'Planting the seeds of song' by Howard Goodall

There is an ethnic group of tribes who live on the Hunan-Guizhou-Guangxi region borders in China called the Dong. They are many fascinating aspects of their culture, like the fact that their indigenous language was only written down for the first time in 1949 after the Maoist Revolution, or that they have constructed huge 'drum towers' that act as ritual centres of their communities (a resident Stomp! for every village).

But there are two particular fatures of their lifestyle that seem to me to be incredibly pertinent right now. One is that for every child that is born a fir tree sapling is planted, so that when the child becomes 18 the wood can be made into a house for the new adult when they marry. Even though nowadays a fir tree can be matured in as few as 10 years, they are still called '18-year trees'. Talk about a neutral carbon footprint.

The second wonderful characteristic of the Dong people's lifestyle is that singing is absolutely central to their existence. Singing is not something they do just to let off steam after a tough week down at the logging plant. It is an everyday alternative method of communication, used in some villages more widely than speech. When a boy woos his chosen girl, he must do so by singing. Poor singers are often coached by expert elders to improve the boy or girl's chances of a good match. This is a world where Leona from the X-Factor would be significantly more important than Simon Cowell or where Norah Jones might be London's mayor, so crucial to one's status is the quality of one's singing voice. All communal occasions are marked by singing, including ceremonial and decision-making gatherings. Imagine county council meetings or the opening of parliament in the UK beginning with a sing-song! Elizabeth II would have to abdicate in favour of Lesley Garrett and Tony would have to brush down his old Ugly Rumours set.

Singing is about as good for you as a thing can be and in my new role as singing 'ambassador' I hope to able to persuade many more schools that starting the day with it would do wonders for the self-esteem, concentration, morale and behaviour of the young people in them. Never mind that it is a wholly positive, non-competitive, team-building, community-cohering activity, it is actually hugely enjoyable when led by someone who knows what they are doing and when the choice of songs is cleverly made.

Asthmatics do not have trouble breathing when they sing nor, for some reason I do not understand, do people with speech impediments always carry that impediment over into singing lyrics - stammering doesn't occur in singing, for example.

Singing makes you feel good about yourself even if you are just bellowing along with others in a rough and ready way. It is as natural to us as laughing and yet it is possible for many thousands of young Britons to get through a whole week at school without doing it once. This can't be right. Indeed it is perverse, like saying no student will be allowed to smile for a week.

Whilst it may be a challenge to persuade a half-asleep 15-year old to sing at 9am on a Tuesday morning it is not hard to get primary age children to sing and so our recently-announced national singing campaign will begin with the primary sector and move upwards, as it were, from there. A habit of singing acquired at primary school is a gift that stays with a young person throughout their lives, even if it becomes less 'public' an activity during adolescence.

For teenage boys, though, the apparent reluctance to want to sing, or the labelling of it as something girlie, is only attached to certain types of group singing and certain types of song. Not many teenage boys would label the singing of Lemar or Gnarls Barkley as 'girlie', nor would many turn down the opportunity of joining a band like The Feeling or The Darkness, both of whose sound relies on high quality, uninhibited lead and close-harmony backing vocals.

So. How about one song every morning, for everyone, staff included? Get the students to suggest the songs as well. You may find that what feels like a strange idea today will probably be perfectly normal tomorrow and anyway, you have to start somewhere. Like planting a sapling at the birth of a child.

Interview in MasterSinger, the journal of the Association of British Choral Directors, Spring 2007, with Kathryn Knight:

How would you describe Howard Goodall? 'Composer of TV theme tunes to Vicar of Dibley/Blackadder/Red Dwarf'; 'choral composer'; 'Channel 4 presenter and writer of various music series ( How music works/Big bangs );' 'BBC TV presenter for Choir of the Year;' 'Compere of the School Proms'...the list goes on! His energy, passion and commitment to music and music education has made Howard one of British music's greatest assets, and in January 2007 he was named as 'Singing Ambassador', with a brief to lead the Government's national singing campaign for primary schools.

I caught up with Howard to talk about his exciting news...in the middle of recording his score for the next Bean film, Mr Bean's Holiday.

Kathryn Knight: Your new role as 'Singing Ambassador' came out of your work on the Music Manifesto's Singing Workstream. What motivated you to get involved initially, and what do you believe can be achieved through the singing campaign?

HG: My musical experience began with singing at a very young age and I believe that singing is both a basic human activity as fundamental to our well-being as, say, laughter, and it is also most children's first access to music. Even if, within a few years, the young person will hve migrated from singing to some other musical activity like playing an instrument by preference, that first opening door through their own voice is vital. Everyone reading this article will know the many benefits to a child that singing can give, but often outside our choral silo it can be reduced to the function of a learning accelerator (which it is, undoubtedly) and therefore a carrot for aspirational headteachers, or as something 'nice' for children to do that looks good at the school showcase. For me it is far more than these things and I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that the three key ministers behind our initiative, David Lammy, Andrew Adonis and Alan Johnson wholeheartedly agree. This is therefore an historic opportunity for singing and I would have been mad not to want to do my bit if at all possible. Singing enhances self-esteem and improves group behaviour - it teaches concentration, performance and focus without feeling like it is teaching, since primary-age children really enjoy it. It coheres communities (what other communal, non competitive activities do we have at our disposal to effect this?) and it can be a safe place for self-expression and the letting off of emotional steam. What drives me on, most of all, is a sense that music can be about social justice as much as it is about notes, rhythms and chords, and if by giving every child a rewarding experience of music through singing at an early age we have helped to compensate in some way for the total lack of it in too many homes, then this will have been worthwhile. My aim is not to fill future concert halls with passive listeners but to give all children a musical toolbox that is at their disposal for the rest of their lives, a gift that they too can pass on to their children.

KK: The abcd membership is made up of choral directors up and down the country, with a massive variety of experience and contexts. What's your vision for how they might get involved with the singing campaign?

HG: One of the things which makes me confident our national singing campaign can make a difference is that the leadership in singing has modernised and improved dramatically in the last 10-15 years or so. abcd can take considerable credit for this. Only a halfwit would now tell a 6 year old they 'couldn't sing', that they were 'tone deaf',or that they should 'mime at the back of the choir.' The repertoire and methodology of singing has become much more focussed on the needs of the child, at last. Choir Schools have begun to see that a creative, open-hearted relationship with primary schools in their area could possibly hold the key to their own futures as well as being of great benefit to those primaries, and also understand that their particular expertise may need to be widened further to get maximum benefit from the enterprise. Accepting and embracing these challenges will be key to the success of such outreach projects. Many abcd members will know that persuading young women to sing is easier than persuading young men. If we can, through the campaign, enable the very best practice in this field, whether it be Berkshire's various boys' choirs or the extraordinary 'Bring on the boys' programme run by The Sage Gateshead, to be shared and better understood by the singing leadership at large, that will be a job well done. What I have learnt over the last two or so years researching the field is that no one conductor, no one choir, no one music service, no one school or college has all the answers to all these challenges, but that some of them do have some of the solutions, some of the time. If abcd members can count themselves in the 'still lots to learn' category rather than the 'expert knows it all' category then we have reason to be very optimistic about what will unfold in the next few years, since wherever I have encountered charismatic, versatile, dynamic singing leadership it has always been in the former category, not the latter.

KK: Tell us more about the National Songbook, and how we all might get involved.

HG: Every good singing leader, animateur, choral director or class music teacher working with primary school children has a collection of favourite songs in their back pocket that they know work with young people of this age. They are fun, connect well with the children, generally avoid the overt promotion of one religion over others and may include movement, games or some flexible component that suits the group or the time or place. Crucially these favourite songs are pitched to suit the young voices concerned and are not simply regurgitations of songs written for, by and about adults. Often these mini-collections have a strongly regional feel to them; dialect, local colour and recognisable place names all feature. They are songs for groups, not solo songs (there seems to be a widely-held misconception that our 21st century song book will be a compendium of pop songs - even if it were desirable on some level and clearable on another, most of the hits of the last 50 years are suited to an individual performance and would therefore disqualify themselves). The idea of our proposed song book is to collate all these back-pocket collections into one mammoth, update-able resource for all singing leaders and teachers at primary level. It should be cheap, easy to access and simply presented, with an online version as well as hard copy. My colleagues and I in the Manifesto vocal strategy group were hugely impressed by Maurice Walsh's Singing School books that are used in all the primaries in Greater Manchester and to some extent the Manchester model is an inspiration for ours. The widely-reported figure of 30 songs for our song book, by the way, is wrong by a factor of ten: I am after something equivalent to a hymnal - 300 songs at least!

KK: Composing and broadcasting has been your full-time profession - making you a household name. How will you be able to juggle your new role with your existing work, and do you think they are complementary?

HG: Well it's going to be tough, since I'm not exactly sitting around looking for ways of filling my days as it is! However, there is no doubt that my profile as a composer and broadcaster has been part of the reason we are having this conversation. I am determined that I must seize the opportunity and act as an advocate and supporter of my colleagues up and down the country who actually do the singing work with young people. Call me a megaphone. I can also say with some pride that two of my best-known theme tunes, The Vicar of Dibley and Mr Bean, feature SATB choirs as their main sound (and there's another that pops up from time to time in the new Mr Bean's Holiday score too!) so I do practise what I preach, so to speak.