Froelich Chapter 1
There is any number of reasons why music teachers prioritize being a musician over being a music teacher. The first that comes to my mind is to dissuade the notion of ‘those who can, do; those who don’t, teach.’ Music teachers are not failed musicians, and the idea that we are is offensive. It is unexpected that English teachers are writers, nor that Science teachers are chemists/physicists/biologists. Musicians are different. In order to be an effective teacher of music, they must be proficient in performing music as well as proficient in knowledge of musical facts. There are many aspects of music that goes beyond knowledge. Performing is something that must be done, it cannot be theoretically taught. In addition, there is more than one type of music teacher. There is the type that is a performer who teaches as a way to have a steady income and a good dental plan, and there is the type that teaches because of their love of music, and the desire to share that love with others. I am the second type. In this world with this economy, having a job at all is a blessing. It has always been engrained in us that in order to be successful worthwhile person, we have to go to school, get straight A’s so we can get scholarships and go to college and get straight A’s and graduate Manga cum Laude and then get a job that pays a high salary, get married and own a house and have 2.5 children. If there is any deviation from the path, we have failed. Artists of all types generally have problems with this, due to the nature of their work. Artists live in chaos, whether their medium is a canvas or an instrument. My mother’s first husband once told her, a young woman studying for her Masters degree in Aesthetics, that artists were leeches on society. He is not the only one who has this opinion. To avoid this, some artists decide to teach, to become ‘productive’ members of society. All the while, they feel no passion for teaching, only for the subject itself. Conversely, there are teachers who teach for the love of sharing their art with others, but may not be as well versed as one who devoted their lives to perfecting their art. I feel that the best teacher must combine their devotion to the subject and the devotion to sharing the gift of knowledge.
