I sometimes teach at ChamberStudio, a London scheme set up to provide high-level coaching for chamber groups who have finished their formal education and have therefore lost their automatic access to teachers. Typically they are in their twenties, and individually they are advanced instrumentalists. But often these chamber groups, who may not have started working together seriously until their post-graduate years or even later, haven't actually had much time to develop an authentic approach of their own. While they are doing so, they are glad to have coaching from people who've been there before and performed the repertoire the younger groups are now learning for the first time. I find the ChamberStudio participants a particularly pleasing group to coach because they are idealistic and not so pressed for time that they are unwilling to try new approaches. They seem to find playing to more ‘senior’ musicians a good way of jumping quickly up the salmon ladder of ideas.

Playing devil's advocate, a provocative colleague of mine, a tutor on the ChamberStudio team, recently asked, ‘Why do they want to learn from old people? They should be having their own ideas!’ ‘Yeah, good point!’ I felt like replying. ‘And why should they play old music? Why can't they make up their own music?’