There it was on the HR Teacher Survey.  Location – Music.  Subject – Instrumental Music Leader.  They’re not the first ones to be confused by what I do, shoot, sometimes I’m confused.  However, I’ve been in the district for nearly 20 years and I’ve never once taught instrumental music.  I did, however start off as an instrumental music major on clarinet.  It’s a long, windy story which is contrary to most music educators I know.

My husband for instance, knew in 7th grade he wanted to be a band director.  He entered college as a trumpet player and left as a trumpet player with a degree in 4 years.  Unheard of in today’s world, but I think he wanted to be a band director as fast as he could.  Notice I didn’t say music educator but he wasn’t there yet.  But he was a hum dinger of a band director.

No, I started as a clarinet major until my applied teacher told me in a lesson one day I should take up typewriting – which I happen to be pretty good at, but that’s another story.  So, not wanting to leave the music program, I literally walked down the hall, knocked on the door of the vocal music chair and let them know I wanted to switch to vocal music.  I was asked to sing a bit and next thing I knew, I was a vocal major.

I always loved singing.  I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t singing.  My dad had all kinds of albums that I would borrow and sing with.  They were songs that had great melodies and harmonies and the more I sang, the better my ear.  I remember being selected to sing solos in elementary school and making a select choir in 6^th grade.  My dad had other ideas however.  In 5^th grade I started on clarinet, my dad telling me that he expected me to be the first clarinet in the Chicago symphony or the next Benny Goodman.  While I didn’t mind listening to dad’s jazz albums, I was still drawn to singing.  But we had invested in the clarinet, so I stayed.  We visited high school football games together to see the band and dad would say, one day you can be in a group like that.  I thought, ok and stuck with clarinet. 

All through middle and high school I stayed in band, developing wonderful friendships along the way and learning many “soft skills” that I use every day of my life.  Things like work ethic and collaboration.  But I still loved to sing.  I remember asking my band director if it would be ok if I joined choir and did band as well.  He told me that if I did choir I couldn’t be in band.  I remember that vividly.  And because I loved my director, I stayed in band. 

Thinking back on it, I wanted to make him proud and keep my dad’s hopes alive.  So I pursued clarinet in college.  And I think I was pretty good – not great, but with some potential.  Then came the infamous lesson.  Having not been in the choir culture, instantly becoming a vocal major was hard because I didn’t have the same foundation as I had had in band.  After a couple of semesters floundering I finally decided maybe college wasn’t for me.  With the voice of my mom in my ear telling me I was a failure, I married that band director, floated in and out of jobs to help support us and had a couple of kids.  Statistically I was finished.  Very few people go back to college once they drop out.

Several years later, I happened to hear Western Kentucky University’s choir singing somewhere.  I’m not sure where we were or why we were there, but as I listened I thought, that’s what I want to do.  I started taking some gen eds at the local community college until I finally had to decide if I was going back to college or not.  Thank goodness that focused band director supported me in my dreams because he started looking for jobs near WKU.  Unfortunately, there were no jobs to be had in that area, so he looked for things around other universities, landing us in Northern Kentucky where I enrolled to finish my degree.  13 years after I began my first degree, I graduated from NKU with a degree in vocal music.

So imagine my surprise when I saw my name on the list today as instrumental music leader.  Many choral colleagues have assumed I’m an instrumentalist and many instrumentalists assume I’m choral.  And that’s ok.  I like to think of myself as a musician and a music educator, who happens to have a vocal degree and has proudly taught K-5 general music for most of my career.  Perhaps not as fancy as a choir or band director, but hopefully producing educated, excited students who will go forward to sing and/or play in the groups of their choice.