The Cats of Music Education Series: Richard Gill (from Spick and Specks!)

Richard Gill is a Cat of Music Education.

Brad and Pete were at the ASME conference recently and somebody said something like “We couldn’t get that [policy change or syllabus update or similar] in [insert state of Australia] because we don’t have a Richard Gill”.

And that’s the point, we won’t have another Richard Gill, he wasn’t even 1 in a generation or one in a hundred years. There has only ever been one music educator like Richard Gill and there won’t be another. He was a serious Cat of Music Education who was larger than life.

This blog post from the ABC is a great place to see Richard, at large in the community, advocating for a great music education for every child.

Five times Richard Gill made us love music all over again

Then, we’d love you to read his autobiography. It’s not just a great overview of his life, it’s a great snapshot of music and music education in Australia in the second half of the 20th Century as Richard lived it.

Book: Give Me Excess of it (Richard Gill Autobiography)

We never had a chance to meet him, and we’re not sure he’d dig our Gig Based Learning approach; we’re not sure we dig everything about Richard’s approach to music education either, but we love and respect him as a Cat of Music Education and encourage you to dig deeper into his approach (there’s more to him than what you may have seen on Spicks and Specks).

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