As part of the Master’s degree I’m currently working on, I was assigned the task of writing down my “Teaching Philosophy”. I procrastinated quite a bit, not because I didn’t know what to write, but because I had too many thoughts, too much I wanted to say, and no coherent way to thread it all together. In the end, I found my focus by realizing that rather than a teaching philosophy, I have a learning philosophy. In my role as a teacher, I’m more-or-less expendable. I can encourage students along the path, I can suggest entry points into new areas of knowledge, I can outline sequences to develop new skills, I can share what I know. But in the end, I can’t teach anything that my students don’t have a desire to learn.
I know this is true of my adult students, but I think it’s true even of younger students. If they aren’t at least willing, or more ideally, motivated, to learn, we won’t get very far. Their motivation may be intrinsic love of music; a desire for greater mastery or self expression; a wish to stand out or impress others; or some permutation of these and a hundred other motivations. My job as a teacher is often to sleuth out these motivations and connect them to music and skills that can help inspire my students. My own passion for music comes from many sources including the puzzle-like problem solving involved in some pieces, the transcendence and connectedness I can experience through music, and the centered flow I find in the best moments of music making.
I don’t think any of these experiences are out of reach of anyone who want to make music. We get trapped comparing ourselves against the extraordinary performances we can hear every day on CD, radio, and over the internet. There’s much to be said for enjoying the extraordinary music made by others. But, I believe there are deeply embedded parts of our physical, mental, and emotional make-up that can only be fully experienced through making music ourselves. Regardless of skill level, we all have the innate ability to make music. This belief grounds my own development as much as it underlies and guides my teaching:
LEARNING MANIFESTO
Music is a pathway to enhancing concentration, practicing problem solving skills, increasing coordination, developing collaborative skills, and expressing complex emotion. Playing together, singing together, playing for one another, singing to another, and dancing (which implies a music, even if unheard) all connect us to our deeper selves and to one another. I believe the following principles are fundamental to musical growth:
- Music has meaning – music follows rules of syntax, grammar, and semantics that let us ‘understand’ it even if the meaning isn’t expressible in verbal form. Like poetry, the meaning can be enigmatic, open-ended, and even self-contradictory yet remain true.
- Practice helps you experience the music more deeply – practice isn’t about eliminating wrong notes, it’s about learning to experience the music from as many different angles as possible so that ‘errors’ merely become avenues to deeper understanding. Listening, singing in the shower, tapping rhythm on the kitchen table, technique exercises, analysis, and even rest are important components of practice in this larger sense.
- Music is athletic – even though the muscles involved are often small and the motions miniscule, music requires the same kinds of conditioning and coordination that every other athletic activity requires. Because of this embodied nature of music (especially singing), we need to give our bodies and minds the time to develop musical skills and coordination.
- Musical ‘literacy’ is about communicating with each other – our unconscious understanding of the rules of style lets us enjoy particular types of music, in the same way they can make new and unfamiliar styles challenging. Enculturation, and informal aural literacy let us enjoy music; systematic knowledge and formal learning allow us to talk about music, enhancing our ability to make and share music together.
- Attention fosters improvement better than inattention – inattentive practice and repetition leads to inconsistent execution, while mindful practice yields much better results. When practicing, attention and concentration can often be exhausted before physical capacity.
- All notes are editorial – music doesn’t live in printed dots or even recordings, it’s an experience shared by a performer and a listener. Every note can be accurate and yet a performance can be lifeless; music made with passion and conviction can overcome many limits of technique and technology.
- You can only get better by trying – letting fear or self-consciousness keep you from music-making is a self fulfilling spiral. Instead, learning to enjoy the skills you do have opens up infinite doors to developing new musical skills and avenues of enjoyment.
- Music connects us – music activates emotional and non-verbal centers in our brains. We experience unique forms of coordination in group music making. Music can synchronize thought and feeling between performer and audience in ways that deepen our experience of the world.
Ultimately, my “Teaching Philosophy” isn’t really about teaching music, it’s not even really about learning music, it’s about making music. About taking joy in music and sharing it with one another. Kids get this instinctively, they’re happy to sing along, they don’t judge themselves too much; they’re more likely to use their whole body in the process. Not until we grow older, as teenagers striving to fit in or stand out among peers, or as adults too strongly tied up in our own sense of self and propriety, do we start judging our music or comparing it against others, rather than experiencing the music itself.
Instead, why not just get out there and find music that moves you – in body and spirit. We all start out as listeners, from lullabies to symphonies, but don’t let self-consciousness and lack of experience stop you there. Try making music: singing in the shower; singing along with a kid; joining a community band, orchestra, or choir; taking music lessons – if you happen to pick up a guitar, let me know. Once you stop worrying about how good you are, I think you’ll discover how much fun you can have. And strangely, while you’re having all that fun, you’ll probably get better along the way, which only increases the fun!
