PASSION

Knowing and Reading

     Have you ever entered a school music room and observed a rehearsal of a band or orchestra? The first thing you notice in the room is a sea of black music stands that are carefully sprinkled throughout the room like a checker board. When students enter the room for the rehearsal, they all know that all stands are not equal. They rush to retrieve their favorite stand to share with their partner for the day's rehearsal. Once retrieved, the stand becomes the single most important thing in the rehearsal. Each student is aware that only with the music stand in clear site will they be successful.

     The conductor steps up to the podium. The students quickly change their demeanor from confusion to focus. The conductor lifts his arms for the downbeat, and every student stares down the music on the stand as if their very life depended on it. From a musical viewpoint their life does depend on their ability to read the language of music that is printed on each sheet of music being held triumphantly by the music stand. The conductors arms come down and the students begin their rehearsal.

     In an academic classroom the music stand is the desk and the sheets of music are the textbooks and workbooks. As with the music rehearsal, the classroom work is dependent on the printed word, the daily assignments, the projects, and the weekly tests. For the most part the students are trying to please the teacher, achieve the highest grade possible, and graduate to the next class. For most teachers and students the reading, the writing, and the computing is the beginning, middle and end of the learning process with the main theme being that wonderful grade at the end of the rainbow that brings showering gifts of applause, pats-on-the-back, hugs,and gifts of all kinds from all family members back home.

     How often have we experienced this scenario in our school memories? Generation after generation go through the same sequence of events from pre-school through their highest college degree earned. However, is just reading the material on the music stand for a 30-minute concert the source or the goal of learning? Is the desired achievement grade the major focus of each class during each grading period?

     When a student begins a musical instrument, there has been prior discussion at home regarding the importance of practicing every day, being self-disciplined, and choosing the correct instrument for success. All this is important and all is true, but the major source of success for each beginning students is the joy of playing their instrument of choice, Their instrument must be like their best friend. Each student must first want to spend time with their instrument beyond any requirement or consequence if you do not practice daily.

     When each student enters the music room for their first lesson with their new instrument, they are presented with a music stand. They place their music book on the stand and proceed to read the music. This is a good thing, but it is not the main thing for music learning. A student is reading, the student is reading. If the student is interested in knowing, the student has to go beyond just reading note after note in the prescribed music book that is sitting on the music stand.

     If you observe a beginning group of student musicians learning to perform their book one material, you hear interesting versions of your all time favorite tunes including: "Hot Cross Buns," Twinkle, Twinkle," and "Lightly Row" just to name a few chart stompers. However, when the conductor asks the class to turn their music stands around where students cannot see the written print, the students first show a sign of panic. Things feel very uncomfortable. What is the conductor going to do now? "I hope we do not have to play by memory," whispers one flutist to an oboist.

     "Now, let's see how well we know the music," the conductor states with a twinkle in his eye. Who remembers the first note? There is an immediate uncomfortable shuffle in the room. Finally, one courageous clarinetist in the class raises her hand with the correct answer as does a flutist, an oboist, and a saxophonist. "How many notes are there in the tune, "Hot Cross Buns." There are lots of hands going up with the answer of 'just three notes." "Excellent," says the conductor. "Is this an easy tune to play or a difficult tune to play," the conductors bellows. All students unanimously agree that this is an easy to play.

     At this point the tension is out of the room. The conductor invites the students to pick up their instrument with good sitting posture and to fingering the notes while singing the tune. He calls this "air flute" or "air clarinet, or "air saxophone." The conductor gives the downbeat and every student is singing "Hot Cross Buns" while finger their respective instruments. The angelic voices are a terrific sound.

     "How long have you each been listening to music and sounding your voices?" the conductor states. There is silence. Then one students says, "all of our lives." "That's correct," the conductor replies. "How long have you been playing your beginning instruments?" One students quickly says, "this is our first day."

     The conductor makes the point that each student in the class has been listening and sounding music with their voices their entire lifetime, but that as beginning instrumentalists they have played only one day. The conductor asks the class, "Is the key to success in music reading the notes or listening to the sound of the notes?" After some discussion the class begins to understand. Reading is reading, but knowing requires listening.

     The conductor asks the class how many of them know the multiplication tables, their telephone number, their street address, and the name of their best friend. "This is how you must know music to be successful," the conductor said with a confident tone of voice. It is possible to read languages all your life, but to know the language means to learn it from your heart and not just with your eyes.

     Likewise taking tests about American history is important, but students acting out a play that focuses on the political conflicts of the day is a higher level activity. Reading Shakespeare is a noble event in life each time you read one of his plays, but a student participating in a play as a major or minor character is to know Shakespeare. In the learning process we want students to know not to just memorize for a test and then forget the material.

     Students understand passion. It is an emotion that comes with quality and success. Teachers and performers in the arts or in sports are excellent because they are so passionate about what they are doing. From this passion comes mental and physical success, coordination, and consistency of their individual performance. Every child should meet in their classroom experience respected professional adults in all fields of learning. Unfortunately, these opportunities are not often available. Students have many heroes; however, there are many heroes living that many students do not know.

     I was once responsible for bringing together in concert a local middle school string trio with the best professional string trio in the local area. Both groups were playing classical music for a 30-minute program for seventh and eighth graders. The principal was outstanding in every respect, but he was nervous that I had a program of all classical string music for his middle school students.

     We had each group perform two tunes separately which received respectful applause. This was followed by the best violinist from the professional trio team with the best violinist from the student trio (an eighth grader). They played the famous “Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor” by Bach. The first movement was electrifying, and when the duo reached the final note, the entire student body in the auditorium spontaneously stood up and applauded for over thirty seconds.

     The point is "students know quality." Students know passion. No one has to teach quality and passion on a daily basis. Show me the teacher of the year in a school and one has discovered the most passionate teacher. That teacher knows that learning must go beyond reading page after page, and testing chapter after chapter, and taking standardized test after standardized test. Are we interested in grades, degrees, and academic honors, or are we interested in what each student is going to do with their success and the information they have acquired? What makes the difference?

     A first step is knowing the information versus reading the information. Another step is searching to find one's passion in the subject being covered for the day. The attitude that a student is searching for the passion in every teacher and in every topic is a motivating thought from a teachers viewpoint. I have often thought that the teacher comes into the classroom as a passionate person about the subject they are teaching. It is the student's responsibility to be prepared to share in that teacher's passion and desire to know the material being present rather than just read the material towards a short range goal:  the test and the grade.

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