The Power of Choice
Being a parent is challenging. You want to do the best for your child and sometimes the way to do that is simply not clear cut. One parent who contacted us concerning classes for her child seemed to be challenged by the fact that she could not define what his musical choice would be for classes. The child seemed to be interested in everything and nothing at the same time. She described her child as “Eclectic”.
One definition of word eclectic from the Google machine is:
“deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.”
I think this underlines the challenge of being a loving parent who wants to do the best for their child. How do you prevent them from making bad or foolish choices when you, do not clearly understand their choices? Is this because they do not seem to function in a clear category of behavior or thinking? Is there such a thing as a wise choice? Is it responsible for us as parents to not give firm guidelines for activities? Is there not a danger that they can just wander through life with no direction, not accomplishing anything? Isn’t there a danger that our children will become “wutless”? (Jamaican for not having value, not being able to contribute to yourself, your family or your community, worthless)
Empowered Content Producers
It is a real challenge in this age of the internet where we are aware that education is no longer what it used to be. The days of “Be seen and not heard” are long gone. Children today are empowered to choose and express their choices.
For those who are born surrounded by the internet and apps on phones and tablets, being a content producer is the most natural thing in the world. Previous generations had to seek permission to create but every moment today is spent engaging with technology that is gamified and stoking productivity and creativity with every click.
So we have content producers who are empowered to choose, express what they choose and to share what they produce on a multitude of platforms and media.
Play your scales please…
Now comes the music lesson. An individual, who sits at an instrument that often can do one thing. Produce a singular set of sounds. A piano sounds like a piano, a drum sounds like a drum, a guitar sounds like a guitar.
What is even more challenging other than the fact that the instrument is not driven by an algorithm, the teacher then proceeds to guide the student to become an athlete of sorts. The music student is asked to spend weeks, months and even years to develop muscular ability as a precondition to creating music. This is like offering someone a delicious cake and then asking them to study at Le Cordon Bleu for three years before they can taste it.
I exaggerate, but for some of our young minds, it could feel just as extreme. The study of scales and theory can seem fairly meaningless. What is the point?
To understand this challenge is to understand the eclectic nature that we spoke of in the beginning, the power and diversity of choice that young persons have today. When I was 10 years old I had very few options for information or exploring the world. It was pretty much the Encyclopedia Brittanica, what my parents said, what my teachers said and the newspaper. We were told that comics did not count as they were “just comics”. Today, not only do “comics” matter, but they have also become a billion-dollar industry that drives and influences the culture.
I think I have made my point, times have changed and being eclectic is now more the order of the day than ever. So how do music lessons fit in all of this? To be truthful, they don’t. At least not the traditional music lesson.
Look at the Conductor…
The traditional music lesson was geared to prepare persons to perform through the reading of written music on the stage. The musician would spend three to five years learning the basic vocabulary so that they would have the knowledge and skill to perform music written by someone else and directed by someone else. They would learn to master as many techniques as possible and be ready to do one thing, interpret. They would give their interpretation of someone else’s music.
It is a great tradition and I love it myself. There is nothing like stepping into the shoes of great composers like Mozart or Duke Ellington and finding your own voice, especially after dedicating many years to mastering the skills to be able to do it. However, as said before this is not so natural for this present generation. They are not ones to simply “do as they are told” and “be seen and not heard”. They are the ones who choose, and express the fact that they are choosing. They produce content and share, and they share as an expression of who they are as individuals.
Does this mean that we do away with the traditional music lesson? By no means! It just means that we have a bit more selling to do, it has to be presented as an option, as a choice.
Five Musical Personas
The Performer
The traditional music lesson works well with the persona that we could call the “Performer”. The performer enjoys making a show of skills they have acquired to an audience. The first audience they present to is themselves.
They enjoy sitting alone with their instruments and solving the problems of muscular dexterity and mastery of the instrument. They are often quite content to celebrate those victories by themselves. Once they have solved them they are then they are often engaged enough to want to share their victories through actual performance. The traditional music lesson is appealing as it becomes a place to solve those problems with their instructor. This instructor need not be empathetic, just knowledgeable to solve the problems that they would have been attempting to solve on their own anyway.
The Composer
The other persona to whom the traditional music lessons may have some appeal is the “Composer”. She is a thinker, someone who mulls over problems for a long time. “What is the solution?”. They are able to endure the pursuit of skill and technique because of their intense need to set things in order. To set things right, to have everything properly composed. They also like knowing the right way to do things. They care about everything being in the right place. Though Not as intensely technical as the performer, all the same, they have a healthy respect for the ability to solve problems. They lean to solving musical and emotional versus the merely technical.
I will now describe three more personas, the “Arranger”, the “Director” and the “Critic”. All of them will not thrive under the weight of the traditional music lesson. The all appreciate music, they might even say that they “love” music but unlike the performer and the composer have varying degrees of connection with the problem-solving aspect of musical practice.
The Arranger
The arranger is fascinated with sounds. They are more fascinated with “playing” with sounds than dedicating themselves to mastering the dexterity of their muscles to play an instrument. They can seem quite distracted, moving from one instrument to the next. They are all about the sonic experience. They listen to and appreciate combinations of sounds.
The Director
The Director is aware of the discipline required to master an instrument and appreciates the power of sound. However, his focus is on making music through people. Once he has human beings to work with he is convinced that he can make music of some sort. In contrast, the arranger is more concerned with the actual sounds, and may even ditch the whole idea of people all together and decide to make music on their own using a computer. The Director will make do with any instrument that is available, he just needs the right individuals with the right attitude.
Both the Director and the Arranger require a music education approach that is project-based. They don’t enjoy being told what to do. They want to create something. It could be an original song or the creation of their own introduction to a piece that already exists. It could be a bit of improvisation or to be responsible for rehearsing or arranging for a concert. Adding these elements to the traditional music lesson can make all the difference. It can make their ability to practice and develop the skills all the more manageable. In some situations depending on the student, the traditional music lesson approach can be ditched altogether and a project-based approach pursued instead.
The Critic
Finally, you have a student who loves music but has very little interest in mastery or creating anything. This is the “Critic”. Though they truly love music they have very little interest in participating. They just want to know enough to be able to state what music they do or do not like. They will often do lessons because it is insisted on and as soon as they have the choice they will normally stop doing lessons. Sometimes later in life, they may choose to return to it when they have more time but their interest will still not be mastery or creation but appreciation.
So, for us as parents, the question will be, which persona is our child most like? Like all things with humanity, we express our lives on a continuum. There are great musicians who are able to express all personas with some authority and we refer to them as geniuses or masters (maestro). The average person will have a touch of all and one persona will dominate. This does not mean that they are limited to that persona but it may be an indication of which persona we have to ensure to satisfy the most to secure a sense of personal fulfillment for the student.
We look forward to meeting your children and finding ways for them to find and express the best versions of themselves.