Page 18 - 2018-BMR-April

Artist Teachers

Richard Floyd, 2018 TBA Featured Clinician

“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great doesn’t count. There is also a degree
artist and that there are as few great artist teachers as there of comfort (or lack of same) knowing
are any other great artists. Teaching might be the greatest that measurable progress is being
made. Stuff is getting done. It feels
of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”
good and it is easy to quantify.
—JOHN STEINBECK
Secondly there is that “eight hundred
So what is it you do everyday? What any music educator conference or pound gorilla in the room” that falls
goes on in your “band director’s world”? professional development program you under the heading of auditions, chair
Certainly a significant portion of your will see countless clinics on rehearsal placements and contests. In truth,
day is spent expanding your students’ techniques, instrument pedagogy, time virtually every activity in which we are
skill sets. It’s all about fingerings, management, the care and feeding of engaged is accompanied by a scoring
embouchures, rhythm precision, band parents, cutting edge technology, system or a rubric for evaluation or
critical listening, tonal beauty and so the latest system for rhythmic mastery, assessment. Look at our calendars.
on. It’s the requisites we address daily and beginner recruitment. Certainly Like it or not, we spend an inordinate
in an effort to facilitate the technical these are all important topics for amount of time teaching to the test.
mastery of a piece of music: the nuts exploration. However in the entire Tragically, those tests rarely—if ever—
and bolts stuff. When you are not conference program, there will be measure to what extent the students
doing that, you are posting grades, far fewer sessions that focus on the are truly emotionally engaged in
meeting with parents, ordering buses, subjective artistry of our profession music making or developing a passion
pleasing administrators and creating or the intangible properties of music for music that will accompany them
lesson plans. You know, completing that give it true meaning and value. throughout their life journey.
those limitless tasks that no one told As one looks through the conference Personally I find myself thinking
you about in college. Ah…the life of a program it would be easy to conclude more and more about the reality that
band director! that our priorities are possibly skewed we are all subject to and victims of
Wait a minute...what’s missing? somewhat towards the craft of what we our culture. There are a multitude
In that entire list of responsibilities, do as opposed to the art of what we do. of definitions for the word “culture”
duties and tasks, any reference to Let me submit to you two reasons including the customary beliefs of
the art of making music is missing. why all of the above might be true. a group of people, a shared set of
There is no mention of the core First, there is the clear reality that the attitudes, values, goals and practices
principle that remains the foundation craft is objectively measurable. The or a set of values, conventions or social
and underpinning of all things music notes are right or they are wrong. The practices associated with a particular
education. If we do not inspire rhythm is right or to some degree field or activity. If I reflect on my
students to make, love, appreciate it is flawed. The chord is in tune or life’s journey and turn back the clock
and embrace heart-felt music (not it is defective. The same applies to to the late 1950s when I was a high
notes and rhythms) for a lifetime logistical and administrative tasks. We school band member in Richardson,
then we have fallen short in our have completed them or we have not. Texas, I realize that so much of what
quest to fulfill the ultimate mission All that is required is a checklist or a we do has not changed or evolved
for why we have music in our rubric and a methodical, disciplined that much. In the 1950s we went to
schools in the first place. approach to measuring progress. We marching contest, concert and sight-
Let’s look at it another way. If thus become comfortable with the reading contest, solo and ensemble
you look at the list of offerings for notion that if you can’t measure it, it contest and rounded out the year

Bandmasters Review • April 2018 16 Texas Bandmasters Association