Music: A School and Home Experience

When considering a prototypical experience I had as a child with my discipline, several experiences come to mind, but there is one in particular that stands above the rest.  The interesting thing about this experience is that is is more of a series of experiences because it happened on more than one occasion.  This experience is that of watching the classic Disney movie Fantasia.

I am not sure why watching Fantasia had such a lasting effect on my life.  My parents never watched it with me.  In fact, they both avoided watching it at all costs.  The sequences of dancing alligators and hippos or the creation and destruction of the dinosaurs set to Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring had no appeal to anyone in my family except myself.  I would watch it often and be excited for each new sequence.  The music told a story.  It was more than just the sound.  The sound represented a an event or an experience.

This experience has perhaps influenced my approach to music more than any other single event.  Whenever I am learning new music, a story is created in my mind.  Music is never just music, it has to have meaning.  Because of this visualization, music became applicable to me in English classes when I was writing papers.  Music became applicable when considering events in history.  As my knowledge of music has continued to grow and expand, it has even begun to influence my views of mathematical and scientific concepts because of learning of the developments of electronic and twelve-tone music.

Another important series of events that influenced my pursuance of music is spending time with my father.  Often times when I am with my father music is a important aspect of the time spent together.  Something important that he always taught me was that all music is beautiful and that you need to give every type of music a chance.

As a bassist, this influenced me significantly.  Whereas many of my colleagues are stuck in one genre of music, I move from genre to genre with great enjoyment and find it an exciting experience to be learning as much about every type of music that I can.  All genres of music can be taught.  It does not need to be limited to the classical world.  The more that a person knows about all genres the more qualified they become in the more "academic" settings of music.

These two series of experiences have already greatly influenced the way that I approach my own music education, now it is just a matter of teaching it to my future students.  Music can be connected to all fields of academia.  It may require special effort to find what interests every student and finding a special project for each, but music is about identity.  For those who find special interest in math, I could have students do a twelve-tone project with using a matrix.  For students who find special interest in English I can give a piece to a student to write a short story related to the piece.  For students interested in history I can go the route of assigning a project related to a specific composer.  Different people identify with different parts of the academic, social, and/or political world.  There is music that represents each of these various ideas, practices, and cultures.

As I plan rehearsal schedules and the repertoire that will be performed, it will be important to consider a wide variety of styles of music.  There are musical elements to be learned from classical, jazz, rock, country, pop, and rap music.  By having this wide selection of music presented, students may feel that their voice is heard and they have more of a presence in the classroom.