Music Education

Every year as I go back to work, I give myself some time to think about what is most important in my classroom. What is it that I want my students to walk away with in terms of music education? What really matters to me? To them? In curricular terms, we call this a "BIG IDEA". What is the main idea that encompasses every lesson taught, every skill learned, every game played?

When I was in school, it was easy for me to love music class. Music was everywhere in my home - on the radio, on the record player, out of the mouths of my family...I couldn't help but feel rhythms and hear beats and harmonies innately. We also spent hours a week at church, where my brother and I were either in choir, or we were listening to my parents rehearse. I even remember riding in the car when I was really young, singing along to the radio with my family, belting out the harmony. It was the first time my parents really realized how well I could hear other parts - if only they knew!

As easy as harmony and sight-reading came for me, I never really understood the mechanics of music. I suck at math, and music is so mathmatical...it just never clicked for me. In college, I would sit at the feet of friends who easily breezed through music theory in wonder as they explained complex chords and progressions that might as well have been in Chinese. Some people love music because they can pick it apart and dissect it; I loved music because I heard and understood it, and it meant something to my soul.

Now that I'm a music teacher, even in my ninth year, I constantly feel conflicted about the skills I choose to teach my kids. Is it music reading and notation that is most important, or a a sense of value that music can bring to one's everyday life? It is the way that a lullaby or a heart-thumping march can enhance a particular moment, or a mastery of notes on the staff? I know each one is important in its own way, but there's never enough time to explore each and every idea, so it's completely up to me to choose.

I'd like to think that a love of music is what my students will take away. Those who have a special place in their hearts for music will continue on to gain new understanding. And those who don't love music as much as I did, and still do, will at least have an appreciation for what music can add to their everyday work and play.

So I ask of you, music lovers and teachers of the world:

WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU????

The fate of future musicians is in the balance!



HOLLA -