Weren't You My Music Teacher?

It happened again the other day. I was tuning violins in an empty school auditorium in preparing for a large 4th grade string class, and a young woman came in and asked me my name. "Are you Miss Betty?" was how she asked, and I said "No, I'm Mrs. McLean." Her face fell, as she said she thought I looked like her old music teacher and then when I told her I used to be Miss Crocker (get it? Betty Crocker!), her face lit up with recognition. "Yes, that's it!" she exclaimed. "You were my music teacher!" I asked her name, and, indeed I remembered her. She had been a viola student of mine in 4th and 5th grade and then went on to middle and high school where she played in the orchestras, as well as in the local youth symphony. She still has her viola, she told me, and "really ought to get it out and play it one of these days". She is now the parent of a kindergartener. The elementary group that started with her that year, way back when, was a small, really enthusiatic group. I only taught at that school for two years, and lost track of those fun kids. But it made me happy to know that she had played all the way through school.

This is not the first time this has happened, and every time it does, I have to stop and wonder where all those years went. How did these kids change so much, while I stayed the same (What!!!? I've changed too???)? The time I have been working as a public school music teacher has gone by in a blink of an eye, but constitutes a significant chunk of the life of a young twenty-something. It has not yet happened that I am teaching the child of a former student, but that day is coming.

Some of the young adults who stop me to recall our shared past are parents of elementary students now themselves, or they are working in our schools or elsewhere in town here. Some have gone on to college, others have not, but no matter what the level of their higher education, these kids all graduated from high school at least. They are members of our greater community, and, it seems, stable, healthy and productive. Maybe this is the best reason for keeping active music classes in all school levels. Kids stay in school if it's fun and there is some part of the school day that feels like it is just for them. They are part of a community within their school that has shared interests and goals and which, over the course of the four years of high school, at least, builds a shared history of events and memories. Music allows kids of different ages, classes, and peer groups to interact. Girls and boys participate together. Together they do what no one of them can do alone. Each has a part, and each part is necessary for the finished product. Individual effort pays off, as well as cooperation. There is nothing else in school, except for team sports, that can do this.

And just as with sports, in order to have satisfying high school music experiences, it is best if the students begin learning their instruments early on, say, in elementary school. Most fourth graders don't really know this, and they sign up for music class because it looks like something fun, and/or they can get out of class for a half hour a couple times a week. More and more, I am trying to paint this picture for them, of what they can expect if they stay with it. My mantra: Just keep 'em playing, no matter what. Then, some day down the road, I will be sitting in a restaurant or getting my hair done, or walking across a school campus and a young person will say: "Hey weren't you my music teacher?"

The Talent Myth

Talent- a special innate or developed aptitude for an expressed or implied activity usually of a creative or artistic nature


I believe Talent is a myth. This is my own personal belief, and I have had spirited discussions with friends, family and colleagues about it. It came up again the other day with a co-worker, this notion that people who pursue and succeed at music are somehow different from regular people. It comes up that the defining difference is "natural" or "god-given" talent, and I reject this notion. Maybe it is the liberal and democratic part of my being that does so. I want everyone to feel able to participate in the joy of making music, and not sit on the sidelines because of some perceived lack of "talent". When it comes to music, I believe that everyone and anyone can learn, and the only real limit to that learning is what I call affinity.

Early exposure to music of all kinds, and an expectation from parents that a child WILL play music can give a person an advantage out of the chute. I see this every day, where kids who come to start a band instrument succeed quickly because they have had piano lessons and/or the parents have exposed them to lots of music, especially live performances. Such students take success on the new instrument as a given; that they will have to work at it to succeed is also understood from day one.

But I have also seen students who have no early exposure to live music, or very little, have had no previous training, and whose parents have zero expectation of their child becoming a musician move to the head of the class. But is it talent that explains musical success where the groundwork is missing? I don't think so. I think it is that a student discovers he really LIKES making music. He likes fooling around with the flute  or cello at home, making attempts to get sound, dragging the bow across the strings, trying the buttons, figuring out how to play Jingle Bells or the first few notes of Happy Birthday or the USC fight song.

And no one at home tries to stop him. Nothing makes me sadder as a music teacher than when a child tells me she cannot play at home because a parent won't let her. The family lives in an apartment, or has a small baby who needs to sleep, or the parent can't stand the squeaks and squawks that are inevitable at first. Or there might be a toddler in the home who might damage the instrument, so it is put away in a safe place, which is, unfortunately, not accessible to the fourth-grader either. These impediments WILL keep a student from succeeding.

But if the child has access and loves it, he or she will succeed. There ARE students who try it for a while and discover it isn't their cup of tea, this blowing and scraping away on some piece of arcane equipment. Some don't even feel compelled to try; music doesn't have any pull for them. They become visual artists or actors or dancers or soccer stars or history experts or spelling buffs or scientists, because that is what they LOVE to do.

What makes one person like one thing and not another? I don't know the answer to that. Maybe we need to redefine "talent" as something closer to "desire".

Maybe the job of the music teacher is to make sure the student is having fun. Due to some scheduling issues last year, I have almost all beginners in my elementary classes this year. There are a bunch of them. What's fun for a group of 30 beginning violinists, or a beginning band? I think, and am basing this year's pedagogy on this, that what's fun is success. I have been keeping this idea in mind, focusing on basics and getting it right. Sitting up with good posture, forming good embouchure, playing in tune, using a "beautiful bow hand", starting and stopping together are all things easy to overlook in the throes of trying to get some music happening, but when made the focus of the lesson, can be achieved by everyone and create an atmosphere of teamwork and accomplishment. What is interesting to me is that I hear from kids and the parents of those kids that they are having fun!

I have to admit, I didn't really think about this as I was going into the new year. I was thinking more about crowd control, breaking things down so I could manage so many beginners at once. The added benefit of creating successful moments for my students is something that I didn't foresee, but am enjoying nonetheless.

Now I hope I can keep the fun going, because that's where their future lies. Talent-shmalent. If they are having fun, they are going to keep playing. And if they keep playing, then doors open into worlds of fun they can't even imagine yet.