Professional musician turned educator
Transitioning to education requires a shift.
Be excited. Imma give you some secrets.
- Tap into your whimsy. You could spend hours working on a guitar lick. You could spend hours perfecting this particular trill on the piano. You could spend hours working on this run on the clarinet.
Why?
Because that thing…that thing you’re doing…that’s what makes you feel.
It makes you feel whimsical. Or like you’re solving a puzzle. Or maybe you don’t know why—it simply makes you feel good.
You’re feeling [insert your feeling(s)].
That feeling? Share it with your students. Play that lick or that trill or that run.
Some won’t get it. Some will. Some won’t get it today…but will later. Some will get it today and then run with it. - Remember your stories. Remember that time that patron threw up on you while you were performing? Remember when you threw up while you were performing? Remember that time when that other ridiculous bananas thing happened?
That’s part of performing—the good and the bad. Most teachers share only the good. It’s…nice…but not very interesting.
This might seem counterintuitive, but your terrible stories are the ones that help folks feel (there’s that word again) like they aren’t alone. Yes, the time when you forgot the passage, or the time when you went to the wrong venue, or the time when you realized you had not been paid, or the time when you realized you were never going to be paid—yup. Those are the stories that make students want to practice and study.
Not to avoid your disaster, mind you, but because you are a human person and your student is a human person and now both of you are resonating with shared humanity of foibles and faults. You’re not a perfect person even though you play the harp like a dream. It gives your student permission to make mistakes because they know they will survive them. Look at you, after all! - Play your instrument. One of the greatest things I can do during a lesson is to play duets with the student. They get to see your technique, and they get to feel what it’s like to play with someone instead of for someone. I remember how that felt when I was in band; to play duets with my teacher….wow.
It’s surprising how much detail goes into teaching, isn’t it? It’s not just delivering the content. (And how you deliver content is an entire degree program, so there’s that). It’s not just knowing your instrument and how to speak the student’s literal language.
It also involves sharing your heart a little bit (in a strong boundary-structured, ethically sound, age appropriate manner) (and figuring out where those lines are is an entire degree program).
Teaching involves sales a little as well. You want your student to love it through the hard part of learning it, and that takes a little bit of showmanship.
And to do it consistently, class after class….yes, this is why teachers should be paid an enormous amount.
But that’s a post for another time
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