Stringbabies

On Mothering Sunday 2025, I had an epiphany while sitting quietly by my bed. Nearing the end of my MA in strings teaching, I found myself reflecting on the previous months of study, and my thoughts turned to Jerome Bruner’s spiral curriculum.

It suddenly struck me that Stringbabies, in its current form, was already a living example of spiral learning. Musicianship had been distilled to its most basic components, and throughout the scheme these core elements were revisited, each time with a little more complexity added.

I thought of how spirals occur in nature, of their elegant mathematical properties, and realised that Stringbabies had been intuitively built on the same principle: learning musicianship, instrumental skills, and composition from the ground up.

For two decades I had assumed that once a learner could read and work confidently with conventional notation, the work of Stringbabies was essentially complete. I could not have been more mistaken. I realised that the core principles needed only slight adaptation and refinement for the spiral to continue well into advanced stages of learning.

This revelation thrilled me then, and it still does. I am now testing these ideas with my current students, using improvisation and composition as the vehicle that carries learners from one turn of the spiral to the next.

All of this will find its place in the book I am writing.

Photo by Thomas Kinto via Unsplash

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After graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and completing my PGCE at what is now Middlesex University, I began my first teaching post with Surrey Music Service (now Surrey Arts).

As part of my probationary year, I spent half of each week teaching classroom music in a secondary school, where one pupil was widely regarded as extremely difficult to reach.
She was about 14, frequently in and out of foster care, and often rude or disruptive — and this was certainly the case in my classes.

I made my first lessons very practically based. The school was fortunate enough to have a suite of keyboards, and the children worked in twos or threes on short composition tasks I set them.

After a few weeks, this particular pupil began turning up in the music department at lunchtimes, asking if she could work on a keyboard. During that period, my teaching colleagues noticed her behaviour improving significantly.
I considered it a real mark of success when, at the end of the year, she chose to take GCSE Music — much to the head of department’s surprise.

This early experience stayed with me and has shaped the way I approach teaching ever since.

Photo by Amir Doreh on Unsplash

When I was 18, I auditioned unsuccessfully for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It was a traumatic experience that left me in a mild depression for months.

My teacher sent me to Anna Shuttleworth at the Royal College of Music for a consultation lesson. She didn’t mince her words: I was musically talented, but my playing technique simply wasn’t solid.

So I took two years out. I had to learn to play the cello all over again — slowly, carefully, and with the help of an osteopath because I was completely muscle‑bound. With the support of Susan Lowe, I rebuilt my technique and eventually reapplied to Guildhall, this time receiving an unconditional offer.

That experience lit a fire in me. I promised myself that no pupil of mine would ever have to go through what I had.

Over the years I’ve learned that tension in cellists often comes from trying to achieve too much too quickly — especially when left‑hand placing or bowing isn’t secure. So I’ve long taught students to learn a tiny section of a piece very slowly: left‑hand pizzicato first, then bowing exactly as written.

Only during my MA did I discover that this instinctive process has a name: Reduction of Degrees of Freedom, a concept from Nikolai Bernstein’s pioneering work on motor control, later referenced by Susan Hallam.

I didn’t know the theory then — I just followed my instincts, and they worked.

I’d love to hear from other teachers: when have your instincts led you to a breakthrough in your teaching?

Stringbabies is all about encouraging creative musicians and one educator I very admire is the late Sir Ken Robinson.

I first encountered his work online and thought how unusual it was to see a renowned educator arguing so passionately for reform in our schools.
He argued that the current education systems were designed for an industrial era which are no longer appropriate and in the process, the individuality and creativity of children suffer.

To be honest – this is music to my heart and that same philosophy is at the heart of Stringbabies and my work in general.

His TED talk in 2006 entitled ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ is a must to watch if you haven’t already.
In the introduction to his book, 'Creative Schools', he mentioned that it had been seen by an estimated three hundred million people worldwide. His observation ‘I know that’s not as many views as Miley Cyrus gets. But I don’t twerk’ made me laugh out loud..I would have loved to have met him.

I have just started to read ‘Creative Schools’ and already wondering how much of his ideas will influence the book I am writing.

Recently, I was contacted by an adult with ADHD and who was asking to try out the cello.

This person had read somewhere that low resonance frequencies could help regulate the less pleasant symptoms of these conditions.

So I invited her along and let her talk to me about her experiences for a while before trying a cello out. One of the things she said to me was how unusual it was to find someone prepared to listen to her – which rather took me aback.

We then went into trying to play the cello and departing from what I would normally do with a beginner, I showed her how to hold the bow, and we went straight for the lowest sounding string – the ‘C’ string.

Her facial expressions were beautiful – reminding me of a little child awestruck with a wonderful discovery and then a beaming smile. At the end of the session she was visibly moved and said she wanted to carry on.

Without qualification, it was one of the most memorable lessons I have given in recent times – if not ever given.

I was reminded yet again, that music is not just for pleasure, but it carries real power to comfort and heal.

Photo by Quentin Ecrepont (Pexels)

Today I’ve been reflecting on someone very special in the story of Stringbabies — Pat Legg.

I first met Pat at the Tower Hamlets String Project, where she worked alongside Sheila Nelson. I still remember her so clearly: pure white hair, purple top, cello in hand, sitting amongst the children with calm authority.

A year later, during my post graduate certificate in music education, Pat reappeared — this time as a visiting lecturer. She would arrive with enormous art folders full of posters, songs and games designed for young string players, long before interactive whiteboards existed.
I copied her idea in my first teaching job, carrying around my own giant staff and movable note shapes.

Pat’s integrity made a deep impression on me. She believed passionately in crediting the sources of our teaching ideas and she went on to have an illustrious career as cello professor at Trinity College of Music, writing numerous repertoire and teaching books published by Faber — books I still use today, especially her wonderful Learning the Tenor Clef.

Several years later, after I had begun developing my early Stringbabies (then “Cellobabies”) ideas, parents encouraged me to write a book. I knew exactly who I needed to show it to. I sat in Pat’s London kitchen with pages of graphics (created on an Acorn Archimedes!) and hand drawn sketches.

She studied them quietly, then said to me “This WILL work” followed by “but you need a parent’s and teacher’s book too — and I’ll help you write it.”
In our meetings and exchanges over the next year to review my work she would challenge, question, and stretch me.

Finally, when all was done, I approached publishers but most didn’t even look at the copies I sent. The responses were dismissive: too busy, not interested, or convinced there was “no market” for early years string teaching.

I was disheartened, but Pat simply said, “Publish it yourself.” And so my husband and I began our little cottage industry at the dining room table, assembling the first Stringbabies books by hand.
Without Pat Legg, Stringbabies would never have seen the light of day.

I spoke to her recently and mentioned my ADHD diagnosis. She smiled and said, “I’m not surprised. Only an ADHD brain could produce Stringbabies!”

I treasure her wisdom, her humour, and her belief in me.

Ok. Rant alert.

You hear people talking about music not being an academic subject. This makes me rage as my music degree was, for the greatest part, HIGHLY academic and actually not very practical!

It was about reasoning, critical thinking, analysing, evaluating, summarising, comparing, categorising, deconstructing, questioning, arguing, reviewing, assessing and collaborating.

In fact, all the reasons one might go to university.

My youngest pupil is featured in the photo and won’t turn 4 years of age until the end of the summer. She is a very bright little girl, but very typically of her age, she is curious and easily distracted – so I have to work very hard at keeping her focused and engaged!

Teaching little ones requires a lot of energy on behalf of the teacher.

Last week, this little lady turned up with dad in tow and a soft rabbit called ‘Katie’. Before she set foot in the door of my studio she informed me that Katie likes to ‘trick and treat’. That set the tone for our lesson.

After singing the ‘Hello’ song, we immediately went into making up a story about Katie, exploring the rhythm behind ‘Katie likes, Katie likes, Katie likes to trick and treat’. Once we identified the rhythm, she had great fun rooting through the box of magnetic shapes and assembling them on the board before playing them on her cello.

This simple exercise shows how something in the child’s world can be turned into a song which they can compose and using Stringbabies notation understand and manipulate.

We will use this little composition for her Stringbabies level 1 award with Victoria College Exams.

For those of you who may wish to find out a bit more about Stringbabies, please visit our website