Adjusting to a Teaching Career

When I decided to leave the Seattle Symphony to pursue a teaching career at Indiana University, I was clueless about the amount of energy I would need to be a good teacher. I thought it would be much easier than the rigorous playing schedule I had become accustomed to. I WAS WRONG! I had never been so fatigued as in the first few months of teaching at IU. Playing trombone in an orchestra isn’t mentally fatiguing. We have to pay attention about 25% of the time. There are lots of rests. There are lots of movements where we don’t play at all. During that down time, we get to listen to the greatest music ever written and think about all sorts of stuff. As a teacher, I have little “down time.” I have knowledge that the students want to acquire. I have something that they want, and the biggest trick is to figure out how to deliver it so that they will understand and accept it. Every student is different. Every hour I need to solve a puzzle. The puzzle is, “How can I unlock the door of the student’s mind so that they will benefit from the information I am trying to give?” What works with one student doesn’t necessarily work with the next. Some students want me to be as honest as possible, bordering on brutality. Those students really want to improve and are counting on me to help. Others only want to hear positive comments, bordering on fantasy. A balance must be achieved to let the student know what needs attention and what has already improved. I would rather just be directly honest all the time. Students are paying quite a lot of money for my expertise.

Consider these analogies:

A person takes their car to the shop for a strange noise coming from the rear axle. The mechanic (who charges $100/hour) takes a look, listens and says, “Your paint job is terrific. Your tires are brand new. Your upholstery is the cleanest I have ever seen. The stereo rocks! The trunk is nice and large.” In other words, the person has spent a great deal of money to hear only positive comments when they really went to the shop to get their car fixed.

Another:

A person who is overweight, doesn’t exercise, smokes, drinks too much, goes to the doctor for a checkup. Instead of the doctor telling the patient what they need to do to be healthier, he focuses only on the positive. “You have stylish eyeglasses. The cologne you wear is terrific. I like your hairstyle.” Seems ludicrous, right?

Well, THAT is precisely what some students want to hear. They do not want to any pointers that aren’t phrased in a positive, warm-fuzzy manner. Part of my exhaustion has come from trying to sugar coat things. As I get older and more experienced, I care less about making students “feel good” and more about making them improve, which is precisely what they pay me to do.

It reminds me of a great email that I received from a former student:

Ten “Facts of Life” that every music student should know:

1. Life is not fair - get used to it!

2. The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

3. You probably will not make $60,000 a year right out of music school. You probably won’t be a world-class soloist, major orchestra member or in a touring chamber ensemble. The odds are against you.

4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you encounter a conductor.

5. Doing weddings, school shows and background music gigs is not beneath your dignity. Your teachers had a different word for gigging—they called it EXPERIENCE.

6. If you mess up, it is not your instrument’s fault, so don’t blow under your keys or start oiling your valves or adjust your tuning slide immediately after a clam. Don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

7. Before you showed up, the older musicians in the orchestra weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from tedious pops concerts, ignorant conductors and listening to you talk about how cool you think you are. So, before you try to save the orchestra from performing the wrong edition of Mozart with the wrong style, make sure you count your rests.

8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers (and any grade below a “B”) but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they will give you as many chances as you need to perform that excerpt. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

9. Life is not divided into semesters. You may get summers off but you won’t get paid and very few employers are interested in helping you to be a star. Do that on your own time.

10. Music school is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the pizza house and go earn a living.

It may be a bit harsh, but true, none-the-less.