The last few days have been fantastic. This weekend UNI hosted the Northern Festival of Bands, an honor band for Iowa high school students of which I was a part of for all four years. Now as a music student here, I had some great opportunities to be a part of the festival from a different perspective.
Yesterday I got to play conductor's assistant for a couple of hours during the morning rehearsals - Thanks Megan! That was a great way for me to be involved. I got to give announcements, set up the bands for sectional rehearsals, and communicate with some of the directors and students, even if it was just for a little while. I then sat and observed the afternoon rehearsal of the 11th-12th grade band. It is always inspiring to me to watch how different directors conduct rehearsals. This particular guest conductor was great and I was really happy to be sitting in there watching him.
Then this morning there was a question/answer session where a few of us music education students here had the incredible opportunity to sit down with about 15 band directors of all ages and experience levels to ask them various questions about the music education system and some of their personal teaching strategies. This went on for a while with great and motivating conversation happening the entire time. I didn't want it to end. What an influential and unforgettable opportunity that Dr. Galyen set up for us - So thankful for that!
Then this morning there was a question/answer session where a few of us music education students here had the incredible opportunity to sit down with about 15 band directors of all ages and experience levels to ask them various questions about the music education system and some of their personal teaching strategies. This went on for a while with great and motivating conversation happening the entire time. I didn't want it to end. What an influential and unforgettable opportunity that Dr. Galyen set up for us - So thankful for that!
Following that event, my high school band director and I sat down and ended up talking for nearly 2 hours. He is an outstanding and passionate music educator and I have so much respect for him. It was really great to have that time to talk with him about some of the other questions I had, among various other things. He is still the biggest mentor in my life and has always been there for me and always will be. He represents everything I hope to be as a future music educator myself.
And now to get to the reasoning for the title of this post... There is nothing that bothers me more than when college students are on the music education track for the wrong reasons. Reasons such as that they are using it as a fallback to their true desire to be a performer, because they think music education majors don't have to work as hard on their primary instruments, or some other absurd reason. I have such a passion for the education aspect of music and I literally can't stand these people that clearly don't have their hearts in it. And trust me, it's pretty clear who does and who doesn't. While many school music programs continue to thrive, there are multiple that are fading away because of this issue. I understand that there are other factors affecting music programs today such as budget cuts, but if their directors cared enough about their program, I'd like to think those other issues can be resolved in one way or another. These directors who are not in the career for the students and for the sake of teaching, but rather are in it for themselves, are robbing students of one of the greatest, most important, and possibly life-changing opportunities of learning music, learning passion. I have already been known to snap at a couple of people on this issue who have straight-up told me that they are only in the music education field so they can have a job when they don't make it performing... bad idea. You will want to wish you had never told me that. I have no fear when it comes to defending my position on this situation.
This subject really gets to me so for the sake of my own sanity, I'll leave it at that... for now.
In other, (maybe) more exciting news: I pledged for ΣAI this past Tuesday! Sigma Alpha Iota is a women's music service fraternity that I am really honored and excited to be a member of. Shout out to my sisters! :)
Quote of the day: "Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it." - Hardy D. Jackson
P.S. I'm going to be better about making regular posts, I promise!
