The importance of making things interesting

I don't know about you, but I like things that are a little out of the ordinary.  Mind you, that doesn't mean I want everything to be weird or cantankerous or obscure (take that, hipsters!).  Instead, I just like things that work a little differently than is sometimes the norm.

For example: I have a penchant for barbecue.  Not just some meat in a restaurant slathered in sauce, but real, slow-cooked, smoky, well-seasoned meat that has been tended to over a bed of hot coals for many hours.  This is different than the norm these days in that people don't often like to spend hours in preparing a single food item.  But it is worth it in the end.  It's also nice to come in the house smelling like woodsmoke and meat, knowing that I have been playing with fire for the most delicious result imaginable.  Also, each time I make barbecue it's a little different.  No matter how hard I try, I can never perfectly replicate the previous result.

Smells like.... Victory!

Another example: My own personal style is... somewhat rustic, I suppose.  I like to wear things that are both comfortable and functional, but that look acceptable for their purpose.  This has resulted in showing up to Halloween parties dressed as a lumberjack or some other outdoors enthusiast and having people ask why I wasn't wearing a costume.  But I digress.

I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay.

Part of the attraction of these things, to me, is that they are interesting in some way.  They are interesting partly because they are different.  Not what you would expect.  Not what you see every day.

"But how," you may be asking, "does this relate to teaching?"

The answer is quite simple.  Things that are out of the ordinary - striking, different, novel, however you want to say it - attract more attention in the learning process.  Our brains are wired to accept new input, categorize it, file it away for later retrieval, and expend minimal effort in recognizing it in the future.  Have you ever walked past a painting on the wall so many times you forgot it was there - only to realize some time later that it had been replaced with something else?  This is just part of how the human mind works.  We don't want to spend a lot of energy or effort on noticing the same things over and over again.  This helps us cope with the incredible amount of stimuli that exist as part of our every day lives.  We would be quite overwhelmed if we took notice of every single speck of everything that we encounter regularly.  There's just too much.

"But how," you may be asking, "does this relate to music education?"

Again, quite simple.  One of the most difficult things to teach students is to make things interesting and novel even when they are practicing the most mundane, uninteresting, boring aspects of music.  It's why I have as many different acronyms for teaching lines and spaces of the staff as I possibly can remember.  It's why I like to ask students to tell me what they think after something goes horribly wrong - or wonderfully right.  It's why sometimes a band director will switch around seating and do something ridiculous - like putting the trumpets in the front row. (Another great Tone Deaf Comics moment!)

When things are different, we pay attention to them differently.  Our brains are always (ok, usually) more responsive to new things than they are to things that are well-worn and habitual.  Music teachers (and teachers in general) take advantage of this frequently, if for no better reason than to keep their students from griping about being bored (side note - I couldn't tell you the last time I had the luxury of being bored.  Seems like there is always something that must be done.  Must be one more curse of growing up.).

I would like to share with you the revelation I had about a week ago (actually, I had it several years ago but forgot until just last week).  When you practice on your own, do you use a metronome?  If you teach music, do you use a metronome in class or in lessons?  Personally, I can't imagine life without a metronome.  It's as fundamental to music as sound itself.  The division of time into perfectly regularly spaced pulses is not something that comes easily to many of us.  We need something to keep us on target, and something to get irritated with when we are playing in perfect time and that infernal machine is OBVIOUSLY SPEEDING UP. (John Bogenschutz sums it up perfectly in his Tone Deaf Comics found here.)

So what do you do to teach kids that a metronome is so important?  "But Mr. Earley," I can hear my students saying, "it's just an annoying noise that won't stop and gets boring (there's that word again!!!)."

Hmmm... They may have a point there.  The sound of a metronome does become rather monotonous after a while, and if you're not focused on keeping 100% with the metronome pulse it can become white noise and ignored rather quickly.

A view of the metronome being ignored.
Also, how it feels when your foot falls asleep.

One approach I have tried with a general music class is to play some sort of percussion instrument.  Conga, Bongos, Djembe, drum set, you name it, I've tried it.  This usually leads to kids complaining that they want to try it.  Or worse, ignoring it just like the metronome.  The most reliable of these has always been the drum set, but there are two fundamental problems with it. First, I am not a terribly gifted drum set player.  Second, it only works if I am behind it, and this keeps me from being able to move around the room.  What good is a means of keeping tempo if I can't actively adjust/fix things?

If I can't get out of here, I might as well get comfortable...

Hmmm... So what I need is something that works more or less like the drum set, can keep a perfectly steady tempo, is interesting to listen to, and lets me move around as needed....

Bingo. (Cue novel approach fanfare!)

What I have found is that by using audio software and a loop library, I can metronome the heck out of anything, yet still make it fresh and interesting for the students.  Heck, it makes it more enjoyable for me, too!  I use Acoustica Mixcraft (because I am not an Apple fanboy), which is essentially the Windows equivalent of GarageBand (what I would use if I were an Apple fanboy).  This is a fairly straightfoward digital audio workstation (DAW) that includes, among other things, a fairly impressive loop library.  By searching for a drum groove, I found one that I liked - it's straightforward, only slightly syncopated, clear enough to follow, and outlines two measures.  I took that and expanded it to three minutes in length.  Then I added a chime sound (which sounds suspiciously like something from Super Mario Brothers) to indicate when each minute passes.  For kicks, I added a short chime riff to the end to indicate that time was up (I may go back and make this the "game over" sound from Mario - we'll see...).  I can now use this to not only keep my groups on track with tempo, but also to manage my own time in the classroom.

What I love about this approach is that it is interesting and novel enough on its own that as soon as I start the track, I can see the kids wiggling and moving to the beat in their seats.  No instruction needed, just pure interest.

The next step was to expand the track so I could have one that was 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes in length.  This way I don't have to just play a recording on endless loop - I can pick whichever length fits the activity and time remaining.  Furthermore, it is versatile enough to use for an extremely wide variety of activities.  I have used it with second grade playing mallet and rhythm instruments, first grade and kindergarten playing Boomwhackers , even the older students in band and strings when doing exercises and scales.  What's more is that if we get to where this particular track gets stale or loses its novelty, I can go back to Mixcraft and make a new one that sounds completely different with minimal effort.

Now, I understand that not everyone is in love with loops and creating audio tools the way that I am.  If you'd like, you can visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store and pick up the audio tracks I created, either individually or as a bundle of all four lengths.  The length is the only difference between them. They are done as mp3 files, so you don't need to worry about having a particular piece of software to make them work.  If you use them, please feel free to leave a comment here and/or a comment on TpT.

I plan to keep making things like these rhythm tracks to keep everything as novel and interesting as I can.  I also would love to hear from you - what do you do to keep things interesting in the classroom?  Do you have a particular approach/trick/product that you use?  Do you have a particular group/student that needs more novelty than you can keep up with?  I welcome your comments below!

Snoooooow!

This will be a fairly short post. I think.

I live in Southern Maryland. Like much of the Northeast, we have been hit with quite a bit of snow for our area. Our superintendent of schools has applied for a waiver from the state for 5 of the snow days we used past the 5 that were already built into the calendar. We are now up to a grand total of 12 snow days this year in an area that usually only uses 1 or 2, and those are frequently for hurricane-related weather rather than actual snow.

Usually I will be pleased to see the snow, appreciative of its beauty,of the stillness that comes with the soft flakes blanketing everything. I don't lie to disturb the snow with footprints or shovel make until I absolutely have to.

This year, I am officially on the I hate snow bandwagon.

All I want is to be able to teach and have fun with my students, play good music, and be out of school before the 4th of July. With each falling flake that looks less and less likely.

ARGH!!!!!!!

They didn't train me for this... OR "Stand back, I'm a professional! "

A few days ago, I had a meeting at school. Nothing major, just a quick meeting as a reference for a friend. At the end of the meeting I was walking the gentleman I met with back to the office, which involves going out of my mobile mansion, down a ramp and into the school building. Total outside time is something like 10 seconds. In that 10 seconds, I noticed two things. First, there were a lot of screaming children in the playground. Not out of the ordinary. Second, and much more incongruous, there was a dog running around. Just an average sized beagle, not some hulking mastiff or anything like that, just a moderate sized dog. Curious - dogs are not generally on school grounds until after school when a neighbor woman likes to bring her dogs to run around and leave little "presents" for the kids to step in. I went in to the building, informed the custodial staff that there was a dog outside, then did the same with the office.
As it turns out, my principal is deathly afraid of dogs, and was not about to go confront her fear. The secretaries decided the best course of action was animal control, a decision that took about 2 minutes longer to reach than it probably should have. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that in the brief look I got at the dog, it did not appear to be sick or injured, just lost. Perhaps I could coax it over and get a look at its tags. So outside I went.
After a couple minutes of walking around the playground in pursuit of this poor dog, the kids finally are ushered inside and I was left out there alone in relative peace with the dog. He finally dared to come close enough for a few sniffs, I checked his collar and found no tags. Go figure, who would want their dog to be returned to them? Unfortunately, he got away from me before I could get a good grip on his collar, so I was unable to hang on to him for animal control. He trotted off across the road and disappeared between some houses. Animal control finally got there something like an hour later, I talked to the animal warden (apparently that's their preferred title? News to me.) briefly and received an admonishment to not get bitten among other things.
Now, I am a pet sitter on the side. I have worked on a farm, I have had several dogs and cats as pets, and I like to think that I have a decent helping of common sense. If anything had appeared out of the ordinary about the dog I would have stayed away. But it was very friendly, not the least bit aggressive, and clearly not rabid or anything like that. I like to think that I used my professional pet sitter skills to know if the dog was okay.

The point of this rambling diatribe (that has taken way too long to write) is that there are lots of things you find yourself doing as a teacher that nobody ever mentioned in college.  For instance - we learned about dealing with hostile parents, administrators, colleagues; we learned many educational and developmental philosophies and theories; we learned about instruments and music and dealing with bathroom breaks in Kindergarten (hint - don't say anything that sounds like bathroom.  It's like yawning.  It's contagious.); we even learned about how important it is to have the custodial and secretarial folks on your side.

Nowhere did I have the opportunity to sign up for "Dogcatching 101." 

Granted, I love dogs.  I love animals in general.  I actually really enjoyed dealing with this dog.  I have even had to capture him now 5 separate times since this article was first undertaken (his name is Buddy and he loves to play with the kids at recess).

What I am really getting at is that these are the moments that I think can really make or break the job of teaching.  Job descriptions call this "Other Duties As Assigned."  The intentional vagueness can leave open an absurdly broad realm of possibilities. Sometimes they're as fun as romping with Buddy the dog.  Other times it means moving furniture, dealing with paperwork, unexpected meetings, conferences, etc.  Some days are nothing but Other Duties As Assigned.  Some days you see neither hide nor hair of anything out of the ordinary (let's face it, those days don't happen very often).

As much as I don't enjoy having to stop what I'm doing or spend what little unscheduled time I have to chase a dog that is surrounded by a screaming group of children, I can't imagine a job where I knew what every moment was going to hold before it happened.  One of the greatest things about teaching is that each day is new.  Even when you have all of your lessons planned down to a tee, little things will happen that are completely unexpected.  Some good, some bad, but none of them can really be anticipated (beyond the simple fact of their existence).

I don't know about you, but I'll take Buddy the dog over a cubicle and TPS reports any day.

Boomwhackers!

You may know (or you may not) that I love Boomwhackers. Better yet, students of all ages love Boomwhackers.  If you have not yet had the joy of seeing or playing them, I will describe briefly.  Each Boomwhacker is a colored plastic tube cut to a specific length.  This allows them to be pitched, and each tube is marked with the pitch it plays, as well as the solfege syllable associated with it (assuming you are using fixed do).  They come in various sets, though the most common set is the standard one-octave diatonic set in C Major.

There are tons of Boomwhacker resources available, some free, some surprisingly expensive.  The neat thing about them though is that you do not need any extra materials.  The tubes can be used with many resources you already have.  Sometimes the best thing to do is to provide no resources and just let the kids explore!

Granted, there is always a need to establish procedures and expectations (Boomwhackers must be held like.... Boomwhackers may not touch your neighbor/other items in the room/small animals... Do not treat them like you are performing martial arts... etc.)  but within reason they are tough enough to stand up to class after class of use.

One of my favorite things to do is to show how one person can play an entire song with a set, and then how we can play the same song as a class with each person responsible for one note.  I usually do this with simple songs like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star or Mary Had a Little Lamb.  Kids can get pretty excited over a discovery that they can all be part of making the music together (though a few get disgruntled - "Why does red get all of the notes? I'm playing pink and I only got to play once!"  I'm fairly certain these kids will never be happy with what I give them, so I just try to make sure no one kid is stuck with one color all the time).

A while back I created a Powerpoint to help introduce my students to the Boomwhackers.  The goal was to establish my own procedures as well as get them comfortable with using the tubes properly, waiting their turn, following the directions for when to play, etc.  You can find that Powerpoint in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

This school year, I decided I would take that idea one step further.  I created a Powerpoint for Mary Had a Little Lamb using the same process - one color per slide, advance through the slides steadily to get the kids to play the tubes in the right order.  This led to a realization of a problem.  Even if I am advancing the slides to a steady beat, there was no cue to get the kids to play on the beat. I had to go through it a lot to get to a point where they knew what came next in order to have some semblance of beat.

This just wouldn't do.

Instead, I created a system of "notation" that uses colored squares and rectangles to indicate which tube plays and for how long.  It allows the kids to look ahead at what's coming, and seems to do a great job of prepping them to move into regular notation.  It also has the side benefit of not being a cutesy picture of some clipart bumblebee and heart and sun in place of real notes.  I am not a fan of those.   I created a song collection using this method of progressively arranged tunes.  You can find that collection here.  It includes the songs Hot Cross Buns, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Clair de Lune, Go Tell Aunt Rhody, Frere Jacques, London Bridge, and Old MacDonald.  Each song takes up one slide, and is readily approachable by even the youngest of elementary students.

My goal is to create a series of song collections, and then offer them all bundled together at a discount.

If you have another way of using Boomwhackers please feel free to leave a comment.  Even better would be if you use my Powerpoints let me know how you used them and how it went!

Product reviews and thoughts

Happy Daylight Savings Time!  Or, as many of my teacher friends think of it - "That day when we lose an hour of sleep and go back to leaving for work in the dark for several more weeks." Daylight Savings has a bit of a nicer ring to it...

One of the things I have learned through my years of teaching so far is that often I have need for particular products that I do not yet have first hand knowledge of.  This means that I am forced to either buy things sight unseen or trust the reviewers on Amazon.  Frequently a product will have hundreds of reviews, but to find the ones that seem like they are done by a person with appropriate qualifications can often be a daunting (or impossible) task.  My hope is that by reviewing music-education-related products on here, I might help guide folks to beneficial products (or steer away from not beneficial ones).  I also have opened an affiliates account with Amazon.com that will provide a small compensation for products purchased through the links I provide.  That said, please know that I will not be receiving compensation directly from manufacturers, so I am free to review any products I see fit, and I will always give you my 100% honest opinion.  Especially if it turns out to be a lemon.  There is nothing that I hate more than reading gushing, glowing reviews on something only to purchase it and find out it is in fact garbage.

So, you might find yourself asking, what exactly are you reviewing?

Well, I intend to cover as broad a spectrum of music ed related items as possible, ranging from curriculum materials to pieces of music to instruments and accessories to classroom equipment and anything else not included in that list (which is completely devoid of commas).

For starters, I am going to pick a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

Trombone slide treatments.

Some of you may know that the trombone is my main instrument.  I have been playing now for 20 years now, and still love the trombone the most.  However, as it is an instrument that is often poorly understood, I have several axes to grind as to the day to day maintenance of the instrument.

First and foremost is slide maintenance.  Most music teachers, and band directors in particular, are not trombonists.  This is understandable, in that most music teachers are nowhere near cool enough or laid back enough to truly understand and master the demands of an instrument that requires more discipline and humility than those that require pressing buttons.  Ok, keys, but still.

The trombone slide is a surprisingly fragile object that requires a good deal of care.  The inner tubes must be straight and perfectly parallel to ensure smooth operation.  The outer tubes must be straight, parallel, and dent-free.  Given that the thickness of the tubing is fairly thin, and that brass is relatively soft, this is often far more difficult than you would think.

Assuming the above conditions are met, the one missing ingredient is slide lubrication.  This has come a long way over the years, with treatments ranging from "You put stuff on it?" to "Lemon Pledge.  But only the kind in the aerosol can, not the pump spray." to "Ponds Cold Cream and water." to far more boutique (and actually instrument-oriented) solutions such as slide cream and valve oil.

Regardless of your product of choice, please know that step one in having a smooth, trouble-free slide is that you start with a clean slide.  Wiping down the inner slide with a clean, lint-free rag will do wonders.  Make sure you are using gentle but firm pressure and wipe the entire length of the tubing.  If you have allowed gunk to build up, a little warm water can be all the cleaning solution needed.  If you have more gunk than warm water will cure, use a damp rag, a TINY amount of Ajax/Comet (something that is powdered but NON-ABRASIVE) and more gentle but firm pressure.  If you see scratches being left by your cleaner, it's the wrong stuff and is damaging your slide.  I only do this when absolutely unable to remove crud any other way.

The second part of cleaning your slide is removing any gunk from the inside of the outer slide.  There are two ways to do this, though both are very similar.

The first is to get a standard trombone cleaning rod like this:




This is just a metal rod that has a flattened eyelet on one end and a ring on the other, sized to fit all the way down one side of the slide tubing. You put a piece of cheesecloth through the eyelet, poked far enough through to keep it from coming out, then wrap the length of the cheesecloth around the length of the rod.  What you end up with looks like a giant mummified Q-tip, with the end slightly larger than the rest.  It must be wrapped such that the leading 5-6 inches makes solid contact with the interior of the tubing all the way around, but not so much you really have to force it.  Make sure you hold the same tubing that you are cleaning, otherwise the force will bend it.  And that is bad.  Swab the tubing until it feels warm (friction is a wonderful thing in this case), then switch to the other tubing and do the same.  Re-wrap the cheesecloth if necessary.  Once the cloth comes out looking fairly clean (the first time you do this you might actually go through several sections of cloth, especially if you have done a lot of playing and not cleaned the slide before), you can put the cleaning rod away.

Now the fun part.

There are three products I recommend for use on slides.  The first is Slide-O-Mix .  This stuff is what got me thinking (way too much) about slide lubrication. It comes in two bottles, one large and one small, and contains a lubricant, a protectant, and a cleaner.  You put a small drop from the small bottle on the bottom of each inner slide, then work the outer slide back and forth over it.  You then put a larger drop or two from the larger bottle on each inner slide and work that back and forth.  You have the option of using a water spray bottle, sometimes that makes things even smoother, other times it may not make a difference.  This stuff will do wonders for most slides.  The only problem I have had with it is a few times I have had the liquid in the large bottle get a little gloppy.  Nothing that seemed to truly prevent the liquid from working, but getting small cheese-like chunks from a bottle of liquid can be unsettling.  Also, having the two bottles plus a sprayer can be kind of a pain.

This brings me to the next option, also from Slide-O-Mix.  It's called Rapid Comfort, and is essentially the contents of the two bottles combined into one.  It works exactly the same way the original does, but in a single step.  I have not run into the cheese problem with this stuff, but I also have not used it as heavily as the original.

The third option, and the one that I use is called "Super Slide " by Reka. It's manufactured in Germany, so it costs a little more, but is absolutely worth the extra money.  I do not know what the true difference is between this and Rapid Comfort, they are applied pretty much the same (minus the water - I rarely need it).  The biggest difference is in how much it takes and how long it lasts.  I can apply about half as much Super Slide as I would Slide-O-Mix and it lasts probably 4-5 times longer.  This is fabulous, since the bottle itself is smaller.  In the end I would imagine the cost works out to being less for the Super Slide since I have to buy it far less frequently than I did the Slide-O-Mix.  I bought a bottle of Super Slide at the Eastern Trombone Workshop when I was in college that lasted me nearly 3 years.  I have a bottle that I bought not long after I started teaching that I just used the last of a few weeks ago (5 years out of one bottle!).  I cannot begin to describe just how smooth this stuff makes my slide.  One of my favorite things to do as a teacher is to offer to clean the slides of students who have been putting whatever on their slide.  Three minutes of cleaning and a couple drops of liquid later and they almost always panic due to nearly dropping their now-super-slick slide.  I have made converts of all of my private trombone students and gotten them turned onto this stuff.  It's wonderful, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Now, you may have noticed I have not addressed slide creams or oils.  I hate them both, and for different reasons.

Slide oil is really just valve oil with a different label.  It's thin and runny and smells terrible.  Just ask anyone who has used it and they can talk about the smell that gets on your hands and clothes no matter what you do.  On top of that, it is petroleum-based and can actually cause corrosion.  Or, in layman's terms, it will eat your slide (which you may note is the exact OPPOSITE of what you want).  Unfortunately many students like to use it because it is quick and convenient and doesn't build up.  These students are lazy and need to be shown the proper way of doing things.

Slide cream can be fantastic.  However, it is thick and creamy, and builds up extremely quickly.  The amount of slide cream required to treat an entire slide is so infinitesimally small that most students overdo it without meaning to.  Once there is too much on the slide, you have to clean it off and start over.  Too much is actually worse than not enough.  The purpose of the cream is to make a fine layer of oily stuff on the slide which causes water to bead up.  When you finish applying the cream, you have to spray it with water (not optional).  The droplets of water are then acting like ball bearings to minimize the friction of the slide.  This only works under ideal conditions.  Use too much cream and it's like spreading peanut butter with a knife blade (the sharp part, not the wide part).  Just no good.  You might remember I mentioned cold cream.  It's essentially the same stuff as actual slide cream, and might even smell better.  This method has been causing grief to trombonists for decades, as they are often harassed and questioned as to why they are in the makeup aisles.

So as far as actual slide treatments go, please stick to one of the three I mentioned. They are the best I have found, and cause the least amount of grief.  Here they are again:





Side note: I just noticed that Slide-O-Mix is also manufactured in Germany. I still don't know what the difference is between it and Super Slide, but the Super Slide is definitely worth the difference in price.

Also, another handy item to have is a cleaning snake - do this BEFORE using the cheesecloth for best results.  Here are two options:




I hope this has been a useful and informative review.  I don't know that my reviews will always be quite like this, but time will tell.  If you have experience with any of these products, please feel free to leave a comment.  However, if you are one of those people who worships at the altar of Trombotine, I don't want to hear it! :)

Of course he can, he was a music ed major!

So I spent some time the other night listening to a coworker go on about her nephew and how musically gifted he is.  Ordinarily this wouldn't be big news, family members frequently like to brag on how they are related to someone who is extraordinarily talented.  What got me is that this is the third time now I have had to listen to her stories about how wonderful this guy is and how much he can do and how sought after he is.  And this was the night the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place.

"He's incredibly talented. He can play like... all of the instruments."

Okay, interesting, considering the number of instruments that truly encompasses.  For the sake of argument, I will assume you mean he can play all of the standard band instruments.  So can I.

"...Except flute... and that other one... the... oboe?"

Hmm... I can understand the oboe, it gave me headaches and jaw aches and was just generally an unpleasant experience, especially since my main instrument has very little inherent back pressure.  But flute?  Really?  He can play all of the [band] instruments and can't play the flute?  I picked up flute in high school after listening to Chicago albums a lot.  Weird. But okay, what else have you got?

"He started on the slide trombone..."

Oh?  Suddenly we're in a universe where we have to specify the trombone having a slide?

"And the french horn... And that one that's a baby tuba."

Euphonium.  What you're looking for is euphonium.  And stop giving me that weird look, that's really its name.

"He had an audition for that Sea World band, and they made him write some music.  Nothing real long, just something short, but he had to write it."

Oh my, he can write notation?  Must really be something, being able to play all of the instruments and write music....

"Yeah, so he took a favorite children's book and turned it into music and played that for them.  Now he's got that guy who is in charge of all the movie music calling him and wanting to talk to him."

Okay, that one was almost impressive.  Not the arranging bit.  Learning to write music is part of the curriculum in any music school.  But that guy who is in charge of all the movie music?  Really?  There's only one?  I think what you really mean is that someone connected to a recording studio might have been interested in adding this guy to a list of studio musicians to be on call for projects.  You know, like studio musicians do.  And wait by the phone for their next gig.  Which is, in its own way, a fantastic way to make a living if you're a first (or even second) call studio player.  But fresh out of school doesn't usually make for a second call.

So... Is he just out of high school?

"No, college."

Was he... a music major?

"Yeah, a music education major."

Umm... So not to burst any bubbles or anything, but ALL music ed majors are expected to be able to do those things.  All of us.  Granted, that doesn't mean we are all good at it, or that people don't have strengths in one area over another (or several areas over others), but being a music education major comes with a K-12 certification to teach music.  Not band or strings specifically, or general music or chorus.  Music.  All of it.  And the expectation is that you'll be good enough at it to teach others.  And let's face it, there are few worse feelings for a music teacher than to realize that you've taught something wrong that has stalled or prevented their musical development (some time later I'll share a story about a trombone player who held the bell with his left hand - NOT one of my students, thankfully).

What this exchange really made me think of was just how disconnected the expectations are for music teachers (and music majors) versus those for many other career paths.  When I was a freshman in college my roommate and his buddies were sitting around our dorm room griping about their schedules and how hard it was to take 12 credits (4 classes).  My roommate finally chuckled and asked me how many credits/classes I was taking.  16.  16 credits, which equalled 10 classes.  This meant that every semester I had early mornings and late nights.  I never had a day off during the week.  "I can't, I have rehearsal," wasn't just a means of avoiding obligations.  It was the same for most of the rest of the music department.  And theater department, for that matter.  That was just the price of being a musician (or actor/stage technician/etc.).  And it was a price that we all paid willingly. Paid twice, really - not only were we working ridiculous hours, we were paying through the nose to do so (don't get me started again on student loans).

Now that I am a teacher, I feel like my schedule now is more or less comparable to when I was a music major, learning all of the instruments.  Granted, I get paid to do all of this stuff now, but the demands aren't all that different on my time.  The best part is that I get
to make music, and help others make music, all day.

So yes, I can play all of the instruments.  And by all of the instruments I mean I can teach any band/orchestra instrument at least on a beginning level, I can teach advanced levels of most brass instruments, intermediate levels of most woodwinds and percussion, and can hold my own (within limits) on guitar and bass.  I can also pick up instruments I am not familiar with and at least come up with something (I doubled on musical saw for a while in a band I used to play with).

I sometimes wonder if there is any kind of monetary reward beyond a teacher's salary for knowing how to play as many instruments as a music education graduate does.  Usually I think not.

But maybe, just maybe, I will find someone who desperately needs a children's book set to music and performed by a beginning to intermediate level band, complete with guitar and drumset and anything else that strikes their fancy.

In that case, come see me.  Or the majority of the folks I went to school with.

Or the rest of the music education graduates around the country.

We're a pretty awesome bunch once you get to know us.

And collectively we can play literally ALL of the instruments.