Movie Blog Prompt

How can I create a love for music and performing in my program?

This is a tough question to answer. As a musician, I naturally feel that having fun in music is the most important thing. If I can convey that sense of fun to my students and help them to experience fun, then I think they will fall in love with music and performing.

There are many ways that I can cultivate fun in my music classroom. First of all, I must always be prepared. If I know the music, it makes teaching it so much more smoothly. There should be no downtime due to second-guessing how the music should go. The music also needs to be relevant to the students and interesting enough that I don't need to pull teeth to get them involved. Interesting music to them will always be challenging to pick, but it's worth every second spent in figuring it out.

Ideally, when the right mix of fun and relevancy mixes with a challenging repertoire, the motivation to play would hopefully switch from extrinsic to intrinsic. In the movie "Chops," I believe all of the students were running on intrinsic motivation. This was the only explanation for being able to play such challenging music and pursue its perfection with such vigor. It was truly inspiring to see so many kids so invested in playing their parts.

For me, as a musician that started playing in college with no background from middle or high school, it's always amazing seeing high school or middle schoolers play challenging material. Maybe they aren't in love with the music, but to me, when it's played well, it can only be due to instrinsic motivation and being in love with the music.

This can only be achieved when the music is fun and challenging at the same time. That's how I can create a love for music and performing.