I’ve been remembering some friends that I knew from high school. Mostly people I was in marching band with, and how we didn’t think very much of the ones who wanted to be music teachers. But the reason for this was that we had never really had any good music teachers.

The marching band director also taught the beginners, back in the 5th grade, and honestly, I think he was more suited to the ten-year-olds. He had taught the marching band for years but had only managed to usurp the high school concert band and select band the year that I moved up to the school. The old concert/select director had been a saxophone/clarinetist and was often spoken of as the greatest band director of all time; he was allegedly forced into retirement, for some reason. The marching band director was a tuba player, by trade. As we said then, “’Nuff said.”

At the junior high, the band director was a clarinetist, and a very good one. And he knew his stuff about every other instrument, too, but he really never had the patience for the age group that he dealt with. For the generally well-behaved and attentive students (especially clarinetists), he was marvelous and an excellent instructor during private lessons. But during class, when the drummers and saxophone players reinforced all stereotypes about drummers and saxophone players, he couldn’t quite keep control. All told, not such a great music teacher.

In middle school, the band teacher was another tuba player. You’d think that would be enough said, but I’ll have to add that there was nothing wrong with him, and he picked good music, but he just didn’t make any sort of impression on me.

One of the girls that planned to study music ed. was a singer as well as a trombone player, and I know from my scant experience with her that the choir director was phenomenal. The boy, Colin, was a clarinetist first and a low brass player second, and one of those strange people whose actions always surprise you, even though you should have long since begun to expect the unexpected. So when he declared that he was attending the marching band director’s alma mater to study music, we were all slightly stunned and then said to ourselves, “hmm…I guess maybe that does make sense.” But I do think that he had had a number of private lessons with outside instructors who must have been better musical inspiration than what the rest of us had been subjected to.

So, when I examine any tentative plans I might have to become a music teacher along with my musical instruction history, it becomes clear why it took me such a long time to figure it out. The instruction I received during my college years in university choir, in select ensembles, and in my first piano class showed me, by example, what teaching music can be and how it can positively affect the students. When I came across some slightly sub-par music teachers, I knew them for what they were: examples of what not to do. And when I began to instruct my own musical ensemble, during junior year, I had good examples to work from and bad examples to keep me from being the kind of director I hated.

I am thankful to every one of you.