Part 2 - The philosophical music education journey

If you haven't read Part 1 yet, check it out here.

It felt like a slap in the face. I was on the phone with a friend of a friend and he’d just told me it was impossible.?

I’d been playing bass for a few years. Practicing like crazy, jamming in bands with friends and at church. I was basically learning anything I could to become a better bass player. I felt 'whole' when playing music. Hours would pass. I would enter a flow that I’d never experienced before. I remember setting up a loop and just playing over the top of it for hours. Musicians like Victor Wooten, Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius and Marcus Miller became my new idols. The callouses on my fingers were gnarly and my hair grew curly and long, as if almost as an embodiment of the musical creativity that was within me. I felt the identity shift happen and it felt good.

The problem was, I’d had almost zero ‘formal’ music training up until this point. I was a jammer, a ‘church-muso’, an improvisor. I understood chords and some basic theory, but couldn’t really read music. My music education was essentially informal.

“What grade have you got?”, asked the friend of a friend (he’d studied music at a Conservatorium and I wanted to go to a uni to study music and education. Seemed like a good guy to chat to).

“I don’t have any grades”, I replied.

“Oh, then you’ve got no chance…you won’t even get an audition”, he said.

“But, I’ve got a few months. I can start now”

“No way”, he said.

I was so shocked. He didn’t ask me anything about what I can play, what music I like, what I do know about music. It was ‘grades’ or nothing. I was dejected and certain that I wouldn’t study music and education at uni.

I’d always loved the idea of a career in teaching. Two years earlier, I’d done my work experience at a primary school and I’d also become a paid music director at the church at 18, which meant teaching others about how to work together as an ensemble. How to communicate, connect and explore music with an intention. Music at church (for me) was an incredible educative experience, led by mentors who gave their time to pass on their knowledge. I also had mentors in my life who were teachers and with whom I spoke regularly about the philosophical roots of teaching and learning. We challenged the stereotypical ideas of ‘those who can’t do, teach’, instead, favouring the inherent societal value of becoming a teacher. We debated pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, systems and assumptions about education. Teaching was an extension of my love of learning.

I began a primary school teaching degree at uni and started a bass tuition business in my local area. After a year or so, I had 40 students per week on my books and loved it. I also started learning theory…lots of it! In the space of 6 months, I did all of my music theory grades and started playing in a jazz guitar ensemble at the local Conservatorium. I remember being given the sheet music for the bass parts and spending hours reading through them before each rehearsal. There was a young cellist that also played the bass with the ensemble. He was about 12 and sight-read everything! I remember hanging on for dear life as the guitarists shredded their way through the pieces without missing a note. Eventually, I managed to keep up…just. I was reading music!

After finishing my first semester in the primary teaching degree, I knew it was time to look at the music teaching option again. I had the theory grades, I could read(-ish) music and I knew I had the technique for the practical component of the audition.?

Four years later, I graduated university with a Bachelor of Teaching/Bachelor of Arts (Major in Music). In that time I had formal lessons, learnt to play in an orchestra and concert band, sing in a choir and compose in a Western Art Music style. I'd spent time performing in L.A. with rock band St. Leonards and also wrote and recorded an album exploring various techniques on the bass. Whilst I continued to jam, write and perform in the way I had growing up, my music education had taken a turn. Things were much more formal and structured. At times I liked it. It felt refined and important, historically-bound and elite. At other times it felt stuffy and stuck. The sound of a string orchestra was impressive and beautiful, but the culture around it felt, at times, rigid and stale. Compared to the freedom and connection that I felt when jamming, ensemble rehearsals often felt quite militaristic and exhausting. Yet sometimes, the achievement of accurately performing a difficult piece, or simply the beautiful complexity of the music, would inspire feelings of awe.?

At the end of my degree, I undoubtedly felt like a more rounded musician. It was as if I could tap into two ends of a music education spectrum. I could happily improvise and create music in a contemporary setting, but I could now also read and write from a highly structured tradition. Plus, being able to read music got me more gigs in different genres and styles! This was great. However, as an educator it kind of confused me! What is my philosophical and pedagogical approach to teaching music? How do I reconcile the importance of musical creativity, improvisation and jamming, with the value of reading music and the potential of accessing a more diverse musical experience for the learner?

I think back to my Grandfather. He could read AND jam. He would bask in the glorious compositions of the Western Art Music ‘greats’, but would also bop along happily with a jazz chart (or no sheet music at all) in front of him. He would jam for hours in the morning and conduct a choir from sheet music in the afternoon (this is one of my fav pictures of him ->).?

Beautifully, I inherited his CD collection when he passed away. Man, it was eclectic. From Hungarian folk music to Brahms, and from Benny Goodman to The Beatles, his influences were vast.?

Maybe that’s how I should approach things as a music educator? Be open, be adaptive and be responsive. Explore the spectrum and enjoy the diversity. Music can be learnt in so many different ways and maybe no way is ‘right’?

At 23, after teaching for a couple of years in a state school in Australia, my wife and I moved to Argentina to work in an international school. My music education philosophy was about to shift again!