There’s a misunderstanding out there among non musicians that if you are a music educator, you can teach anything “music”.  What they fail to understand is that in our infinite wisdom, we have divided ourselves into hundreds of different combinations of music educator, some based on the instrument or instruments we play, whether or not voice is our major instrument, what kind of ensembles we focused on, grade level,etc.  Forget what it says on our college diploma, while it may say K-12 instrumental, the truth is I may be a band person, but have no clue as to how to teach string instruments.

There are so many choices when it comes to being a music educator.  As an instrumentalist, I can play any brass, percussion, string or woodwind instrument.  Within each family I can choose any number of instruments from trumpets to drums to flutes to violins, each with its own technique, repertoire, genres, and, dare I say it – personality.  I can focus on concert or symphonic band, wind ensemble, orchestra, choir, (men’s women’s or mixed) jazz band, jazz choir, marching band, show choir – the list goes on an on.  I can teach elementary, middle school and/or high school or college.

There seems to be some animosity between band and choir people, a type of power struggle for some reason that I’ve never understood.  There always seems to be a fight over students, a competition for recognition in their schools and sometimes an attitude from the instrumental people that says “well, anyone can sing”, or “singers can’t read music”, which honestly, can be correct.  The string people just do their thing quietly and the general music people just love everyone because nobody pays any attention to us anyway.  After all, we only teach elementary.  Which brings me to a hierarchy or caste system within grade levels.  For some reason, people feel that if you’re teaching elementary that you weren’t good enough to teach middle or high school.  The upper levels get all the recognition at contests and concerts and general music teachers keep plugging away at the fundamentals that help the upper grades attain that recognition.  ‘Nuff said.  And of course if you teach college, despite the fact that you may not have taught in a K-12 classroom in 20 years, you still think you know more than those colleagues because you have a PhD after your name.  I think we’ve discussed what I think about this before.

Today I was having lunch with a friend and as we were discussing a mutual acquaintance, she said, oh, he’s such a band director.  We both laughed, knowing exactly what we meant, but again, to the lay person, this may be a bit confusing.  There are way too many details to go through to explain this thoroughly, but let me try.  For instance, my husband’s chosen career for the past 37 years has been a director of bands.  To do this, he had to have a major instrument, in his case, the trumpet, which is a whole other story.  Band directors tend to be do-it-themselves, straight ahead, tell it like it is kinds of people.  They don’t have patience to wait on things like administration and red tape, especially if they can do it themselves.  My husband has been known to mow and stripe his own field for marching band.  You can usually tell who they are at conferences because they choose to wear suits and ties, unless they’re at the college level, in which case it is a turtleneck and jacket, perhaps with leather on the elbows.  Notice that I haven’t mentioned women because this tends to be a “good old boys club” and women are still working to break down the door to that club or at least begin their own.

String people are their own different breed and I think they like it that way.  They dress comfortably, down to the shoes, are not too worried about what others think about them and are extremely organized and seem prepared for anything.  Like strings breaking in the middle of an elementary concert. The ones I know have a good sense of humor, but even they disagree about things like when a student should begin playing with a bow or whether students should sit or stand when they play.

Then their are choral directors.  These are people who have majored in voice/choral music, and while their diploma may say K-12 music, PLEASE don’t put them in front of a band where they have to read more than 4-6 staves of music.  It gets confusing.  While I am generalizing, of course, the hardcore choral people are dressed to the nines with scarves around their necks to protect their voices. They tend to hang out with all of their choral friends and sing wherever they go, because, after all, they carry their instrument with them.  I have a degree in vocal/choral music education and am a soprano,  and for those of you who get it, a soprano married to a trumpet player would normally be a battle of egos, but my husband says what saved me is that I was in band for a long time.  Pretty egotistical of him….

And then there are the general music teachers who can have a background in just about anything because, well  ANYONE with a degree can teach elementary general music, right?  We are the ones who live for comfort because we’re having to get up and down all the time, dance, sing and play instruments with usually six different grade levels of students.  You can spot us at conferences wearing t-shirts with cute graphics, clothing with musical notes on them,  sneakers or Birkenstocks, usually carrying our recorders around our necks or ukulele in our arms.  We understand words like boomwhacker and vibraslap and can say them without laughing.  Most like to get up and play like the children they teach whenever a large group gathers.

So where am I going with this?  Unfortunately, because we, as a profession, have divided ourselves into so many specialities, we fail to recognize that we’re all in this for the same reason – to make sure that every student has access to a quality music education.  And that’s the joy of music – there are so many choices that each student should be able to find something they love if we as educators will get over ourselves and share the students between us.  So while I may laugh at and stereotype band directors and others, for the sake of the kids, I hope we can learn to laugh at ourselves and work together, even if we’re a trumpet player and a soprano.