Graham Clayden
Retired consultant paediatrician, amateur: bassoonist, choral baritone, woodcut and engraving printer. I used to run a course on medicine and music
Location Greater London, UK
Activity
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I appreciate illustrative or explanatory links that other learners supply in the discussion section_
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Graham Clayden made a comment
The university hosted an important meeting we had trying to develop a pan-European undergraduate syllabus for the study and competence in paediatrics and child health. It is where I first tasted Leiden cheese and have loved it since!
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I am interested in how the structure of languages evolved, interacted and give some insight into how people were thinking at the time.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I think the the country has the right to limit migration but a responsibility to balance the impact on both the migrants and the indigenous. So a sort of deontological necessity tempered by a utilitarian algorithm.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
If a medic temporarily migrates to learn an new skill and then uses it in his/her country of origin, it is a win-win situation as during the period of learning the medic has been filling a middle post in our pyramidal professional structure. If this scheme is used to asset strip resource poor countries then the balance of benefit fails.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
The NHS is dependent on migrant workers because of selfish policies by most UK governments. Training a medical student is very expensive for universities and so stealing overseas graduates saves UK taxes. Nurses are the lifeblood of any health service but have been grossly underpaid in UK so again attracting vital workers away from their needy but resource...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I struggled to answer this in the last discussion. Conclusion was yes and no.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
We can divide up the issues a. Do they do harm (yes drowning or suffocating migrants) b. Do they lead to any good things (yes controlling arrival of dangerous criminals or terrorist or colonisers) c. Are they fair (yes as long as the rules are clear and transparent and are supported by a majority of the indigenous community). The other question is whether an...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Several friends have and the reasons: racially exiled from Uganda, for freedom from old communistic Czechoslovakian, marriage, surgical skill training, imminent political threat and sometimes a combination
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I think it depends on the information available and the degree of trust in its veracity.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
The advantage of contributing via charity rather than taxes is my having control over what is being supported. Am I more likely to trust a charity where I can see details of their finances or a government body which may be influenced more by politics than ethics. How much of government aid goes into the hands of corrupt leaders or as a bribe for individual...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
We must try to encourage whistleblowing and transparency and be prepared to take some form of action when the truth appears. This may be merely voting for a different party, avoiding certain manufactures or actively protesting.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I guess it’s all about the degree of culpability. In a global sense, if I voted for a government that cuts aid to needy communities that would increase my personal responsibility to do something to recompense. In reality I don’t think that happens as evidenced by the widening inequality at present.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
This suggests that truthfulness trumps doing good - we need evidence of effectiveness before causing even minimum harm
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Graham Clayden made a comment
My answer “yes” for me is valid if I can trust the aid agency to use my donation to provide lasting benefit to the recipients (nets, wells, pipelines, farming or fishing tools versus short term food aid that might destroy local farms thus leading to longer term hunger)
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I give to charity to reduce my personal sense of guilt for the inequality, to reduce the distress of seeing others suffer and to squeeze a bit from government via gift aid. A less altruistic reason is to enjoy the activity linked to it e.g. Sing for Water concerts for Water-Aid.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
The utilitarian justification for rationing that occurs in health provision depends on the truthfulness (accuracy and reliability) of the evidence of value. E.g. a new drug at a high cost that appears to extend a quality life by a few months may be rejected even if the measures of “quality” are crude because that cost to the health service may limit care for...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
A good example of an ambiguous question that undermines the value of the poll. Clearly in the world everyone does not have these rights eg education if you are female or sufficient food and dignity if you depend on charity. By adding “should” the question would be clearer.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
If I don’t attempt to maximise the rights of others then I risk alienation of those who may in their turn not respect my rights. So it is basically a form of self interest.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
For me justice is the balancing of rights with the acceptance that as many factors are considered truthfully before infringing the rights of one group in support of the rights of another. Even very young children are acutely sensitive to what “is not fair”
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I found the use of “ought’” helpful and the explanation of the empirical as a way of refining truth. I guess it is only fair to define what societies ought to do when we can know with a high degree of certainty both the need and the outcome of our recommendations.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Perhaps a more straight forward issue is FGM. Mostly condemned on the basis of doing two major harms; cause of pain, increased problems in childbirth, continence difficult and the lack of choice either by age or gender discrimination. Comparing FGM with male circumcision exposes some underlying principles. There are some health advantages in male circumcision...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
With all these vital issues I began to wonder whether there was an underlying structure of ethics and their hierarchy that can be agreed globally or is it bound by which society / religion provided the foundation during childhood and education?
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I have had a long term interest in ethics as related to medicine and now keen to widen my view
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Sellby, greed, infection
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I view all early education as providing a “shop window” for children to discover where their talents or strong interest may lie. Fulfilling an aptitude must off set stress and so reduce risk of mental illness that seems a major population problem at present.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
The ability to perform intelligence test must depend on motivation and tolerance of struggling with difficulty without giving up. The musical trained children would have only been included in this study if they hadn’t given up their musical training and so the correlation may have been influenced by this recruitment bias.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Perseverance and coping with failure without giving up
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Film music is used as a shortcut to emotional impact but drives me mad when it drowns out the dialogue however it can warn you about some disaster about to happen and give you a chance to look away.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I sang Beethoven Ninth Symphony choral movement with a large choir as a sort of protest about Brexit and I was very moved.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I have noticed that when driving I tend to speed up when the music I am listening to becomes rousing or exciting luckily I have never needed to explain that to the traffic police!
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Graham Clayden made a comment
This is an interesting study of the impact of music therapy on preterm babies with their mothers https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/700835/1/Ettenburger_2016.pdf
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Graham Clayden made a comment
The multifaceted nature of intelligence as measured by most of the standard tests can give a useful guide to compensatory education if it appears that a specific area is scoring much lower than the other attributes. Hence the debates about dyslexia and requiring extra time in exams.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I’m Graham from SE London play bassoon and sing in choirs. I think that I am more intelligent numerically rather than linguistically.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I’m a retired paediatrician and keen choral baritone and late onset bassoonist. I have taught a medicine and music course and would be grateful for an update on the Mozart effect as I am sceptical but always feel more alive after playing or singing Mozart
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I would be interested in the movement of the instruments in addition to body movement an visual connection in wind quintets. Does the mood of the music correlate with acceleration and direction?
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I would like to analyse the movements of a wind quintet as I would like to explore whether the nature of the instrument governs the movement patterns. This would probably require quantitative measurement so we could correlate results with size of the instrument. Apart from an iPhone I have no equipment
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Graham Clayden made a comment
So important to store up first hand reporting of how people use tools especially when a skill is no longer used. Is anyone interviewing ageing skilled workers with this in mind?
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I would expect the skeleton to give clues to the repetitive action of muscle groups where these link to the bones. Classically the asymmetry of limbs in archers but I guess other jobs created tale tell signs
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I added two of my favourite Roman fortifications; Porchester Castle that inspired me as a child and the impressive Richborough Castle in Sandwich Kent that was one of the first
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I was previously ignorant of the climate change related to the collapse of the Roman Empire and the importance of animal pandemics in historical impact. I was aware of the various infectious diseases but not of the link between increasing TB and disappearing leprosy
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Graham Clayden replied to Christine Clover
I’m sure your gut doesn’t mind which way up its as long as all its muscles and peristalsis are working
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Very convincing evidence about the natural variations in climate and its impact on society but even more worrying that we are now adding to the factors that cause the changes. One tiny hope is the chance that natural cooling events might balance human climate heating factors but just as likely to add to them if we try to ignore our role in our own potential...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Since I retired I have enjoyed a number of Futurelearn courses on a very wide range of topics. I felt very uneducated about the Middle Ages and so read about that period in English history so now keen to have a more European view.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
We were playing in the background of a church fete when everything stopped for 1 minute silence for Armistice Day. At the end of the minute we played a wind ensemble version of Elgar Nimrod and we and I think those at the fete shared a deep emotion for all those lost in war.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
This sounds challenging as therapy unless the presence of the therapist is an essential catalyst in the process of expressing deep feelings in a secure environment
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I thin this means that through music you can experience something beyond words and understanding
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The universal value of actively engaging with another person and attempting to augment their lives in some way. In music this can be by joining them on the same note or rhythm or by adding harmony
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Shared music making being used in a safe and trusted environment to improve engagement and communication
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Graham Clayden made a comment
It was great to see the development of the ensemble as the conducting student became more and more committed
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I have to admit to getting annoyed at a dominant in a group and tend to compete usually using humour or in convincing myself or even members of the group that I endorse the dominant so that I appear as “kingmaker”. In teaching small groups I used to enrol the more confident students in helping or encouraging the others to contribute but always looking for...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
After retirement my job was walking the grandchildren to school and to defuse anxiety or frustration at leaving a game or TV, I composed a short song “we must go to school right now……” This avoided nagging and succeeded in avoiding being late.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Singing along at a folk club in early days at university gave me a sense of belonging at that strange life transition point
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As an amateur choral bass and a bassoonist, solo moments are rare unless by mistake! - but exhilarating once confident enough with a particular piece of music
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Definitely using music as a 2 way conversation
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Graham Clayden made a comment
He initially seemed to use a marching tune as Karin approached the drum and probably to be welcoming easy beat for her to pick up. As she appears to be having fun, he merges into a playful theme and modifies this when she slows the tempo and descrescendos to p/pp (not easy for a child on a drum)
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Karin engaged from the moment her name was called. She controlled the slowing of the tempo and also the dynamic quietening and the later acceleration. A smile of triumph showed how much she enjoyed that interaction.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I have noticed that I accelerate when driving and listening to some stirring music which I now conscious counter by noting my speed especially on motorways. I always avoid listening to music and driving if feeling tired!
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The main difference for me is playing in a group listening to each other seems to amplify the expression and therefore the emotional impact of the music via dynamics and subtle tempo changes.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I was most impressed by the enthusiasm that embraced the full value of the children especially at a time in history where they humanity was often neglected
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Graham Clayden made a comment
This stresses the importance of accurate listening to the response of the child and the careful modification of the tempo to keep the communication going. I have found that keeping to a strict tempo generated by computer playback of music scores in the Zoom sessions I have been playing in during COVID 19 lockdowns so dead compared to the flexibility and...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I am not sure about the title Music Child as it seems to suggest that this disappears beyond puberty which is clearly wrong. Two way communication through musical improvisation is hardly a snappy title or maybe changing our species name to Homo Musicus would be unfair on the Neanderthals who had flutes or bird species that seem to improvise.
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The method focuses on the child’s repertoire of skills and acknowledges their importance by adding them to the music the child hears thus reducing their social isolation and broadening the canvas on which they can create as we saw with Anna varying her top note and being amused by its effect on the therapist
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Graham Clayden made a comment
My comment on no.3 is that this illustrates that this is not teacher directed grammar teaching but child paced creative therapy which does fit into what we have heard so far of this method
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Graham Clayden made a comment
It was great to hear Anna chuckle when she pitched the second note of her “I school’” song beyond the adult male range. Clearly she seems to relish the power that must be unusual in her restricted experience
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Graham Clayden made a comment
These anecdotes are convincing but in this evidence based obsessed world of therapy, does any beneficial effect last or is it just beneficial but short term entertainment? Sorry to sound sceptical but that is about what health service management need to be convinced.
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I noticed a mutual listening and responding to the music but I wonder what the first session with the children looked like
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I noticed the way Nordoff followed the child’s sweeping tempo and then gradually used tempo to modify the sweeping pattern. The song involved everyone and the movements brought the group together with plenty of cooperation with the more able helping the others to join. The response to Nordoff as they left is evidence of how they valued the session.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
This seems such a natural approach. I guess most parents have played actively with even small infants using song and movement whilst watching the impact on the child and encouraging even the youngest baby to dictate the length of repetition of the game.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I worked with child psychiatrist Dr Eva Frommer and saw firsthand the impact on children with multiple special needs the value of Steiner methods combined with ordinary medical help. Our greatest problem was convincing those controlling the NHS finances that this was both important and effective.
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Both therapists appear to have a real relationship with their musical partners- it’s clearly much more than a job to them
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Both are able to modify the world around them however briefly which must be rare beyond the therapy session unless success in the session encourages them to try expressing themselves in other situations although Kath may not recall
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Mary is conducting the music and so empowered to express herself through changes of rhythm and apparently urging Antonia to play more melodic episodes at times. I guess this was not their first session as Mary seems confident that Antonia knows what she wants
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Mary appears to be controlling the music by anticipation the 2 handed discord’s and deciding when to move from this to visually encouraging Antonia to change tempo and pitch. This must be one of the few occasions in her life where she can influence the world around her and thanks to the skilful and clearly empathic therapist
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I expect to see the therapist providing individually tailored access to help their patient/client to express themselves in an environment that the therapist makes safe according to their needs and vulnerabilities
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I found Elgar Dream of Gerontius very helpful during times of mourning
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I think I have background music going on in my head most of the time but switching BBC radio 3 on at breakfast is much more bearable than hearing radio 4 and evasive interviewees
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I think film directors use the impact of music to prepare audience for emotional change. You know something nasty is going to happen if violins play repeated notes and if the double basses join in watch out for sharks
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Following sad events working in a childrens hospital, I listened to moving music in my car on the way home which greatly helped in helping me express my emotions in a socially safe place.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Listening to short extracts is always a bit uncomfortable for me but I also fidget with long pieces. I prefer making music to listening to music depending on the context. Music as an addition to another activity can be very moving even if very basic (eg the last post on the bugle) but can also be very annoying (eg obscuring dialogue in films or canned music in...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
My earliest memory of making music is singing the high note of "Morning is Broken" in infant school. Then enjoying communal singing after rugby matches then as a teenage folksinger sliding into choral singing as a student (lured by Mozart Requiem). As a form of midlife crisis I took up the bassoon (same clef as my singing) and enjoyed doing both musically and...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I think Pinker missed the point that the universal presence of music in very diverse human sapiens (and Neanderthal) cultures must have had biological survival value. Perhaps the parent who could quieten an infant with a calming lullaby may have prevented a predator eating their offspring. Even more likely is success in finding a mate if you made musical noises.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I’m a retired paediatrician enjoying making music (bassoon and choral baritone) with memories of working with music therapist in the past. I was impressed that one child with very complex neurological problems responded by singing back a short tune whenever she saw the therapist. No previous human engagement seemed possible. With the extreme financial and man...
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Graham Clayden made a comment
This course filled a void in my understanding of that period in history and very nicely illustrated. I’m already planning to visit that area of museums. Thank you
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Unbearable infant and child mortality with death in childbirth common also
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Fungus as tinder
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Finding a stone with a hole in it is thought to bring luck according to folklore. Perhaps this relates to these artefacts in some way
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Graham Clayden made a comment
It could represent feathers and have magical properties to attract birds (therefore food) that might be come to the lake
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Graham Clayden made a comment
They may have been talismen as I guess our sense of luck and misreading of statistical chance is an ancient limitation but probably had survival value
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Chipping a flint rock also gives of sparks and so fire which must have improved both quality and safety of food and murky water
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I’m retired and use Futurelearn courses to fill the many gaps in my very specialised medical science education. Prehistory has always been a fascination so I am excited by this course
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I may be cynical but could it have been that foreigners arriving with a number of enslaved men may have suggested a threat to the security of the English landowners. What better way to reduce this than offering freedom.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I was surprised and inspired by the wealth of content in the National Archive that can be mined for this depth of evidence
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Music was one of Henry VIII’s interests and even if we can’t prove that he composed Greensleaves there are examples of ones he did, so petition from a loyal musician was likely to succeed
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Graham Clayden made a comment
My imagination, influenced by Hilary Mantell, makes me suspect that Catalina’s surprising but very convenient repatriation and marriage was masterminded by Henry VIII’s court fixers (?Cromwell)
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I am also interested in evidence of the very early migrations of peoples into Britain and whether they merged with or murdered those from earlier migrations. I think there is linguistic and genetic evidence that integrating was common.
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I agree with the school boy who said he must have been strong. The long bugle and the hanging flag would have been heavy and would have caught the wind. How he and his brother trumpeters manage that, their horses and the variable pressure of the trumpet on the lips to make a right royal fanfare is amazing. Has anyone on this fascinating course tried it?
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Graham Clayden made a comment
Although anxious that I may fail to avoid all the linguistic pitfalls in my ageing ignorance of what might offend, I hope that accidental failures will not be likened to the disgusting racist comments following the recent football final
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Graham Clayden made a comment
I run an amateur woodwind group where we have been exploring compositions often ignored unless by white males and have found Ignatius Sancho fun to play and wondered whether he would have been aware of tudor predecessors
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Graham Clayden made a comment
This video has increased my interest in the missing roots of English history so neglected in teaching in schools and in Tudor themed literature where it seems only royalty and aristocrats moulded our development as a nation
