How do you teach excellence?
I give a lot of presentations to university-level music majors. And over the years I’ve noticed several questions are often on their minds. They want to know - Is it possible for students to achieve advanced performance levels without being pushed? Can students achieve excellence without pressure? Can high standards actually be taught through kindness and empathy?
I recognize how many university-level students grapple with unresolved aspects of their own musical journey that may have included fear-based or authoritarian music lessons. Their own journey hasn’t necessarily known empathy or fostered personal wellbeing. And yet, here they are, university students passionately pursuing their musical dreams. So how can music teachers continue with excellence on our plates?
Excellence and Music Lessons - I want to start by saying that excellence is an important part of music lessons. And it may be true that pushy teaching can produce excellent results. The problem is that pushy teaching may also foster student anxiety, self-doubt, perfectionism, unrealistic expectations, and even ill-will towards making music itself. And those are not outcomes I want to be associated with music lessons.
I’m interested in teaching that empowers students to take on challenges for themselves. Teaching that helps students develop courage, independence, and curiosity. It’s not just about pushing students into high standards. It’s about welcoming students as reflective thinkers who can envision and work toward high standards because it’s meaningful for them. This kind of teaching supports students and invites them to strive for excellence in ways that align with who they are and what they hope making music will mean in their lives.
Excellence with Integrity - Excellence that’s built on fear may produce substantial achievements and yet leave an even greater amount of damage. In contrast, excellence that’s built on ownership, challenge, trust, and good will can also accomplish substantial achievements while supporting students at the same time. That’s the kind of excellence in teaching I’m interested in. Not excellence at any cost. Excellence with integrity.
Excellence isn’t something teachers own. Students also have their own deeply intuitive understandings and experiences of excellence drawn from their own lives. They know what excellent foods taste like. They know when a game is played with excellence. They recognize excellence in storytelling, in design, in sport, in friendships and relationships built on trust and care. As my student Patrick revealed in a recent discussion, excellence is a mindset, a way of looking at or thinking about what you’re doing. And the mindset of excellence is something both teachers and students can generate.
In this way, it’s not simply about teachers becoming nicer or kinder. It’s about rethinking where excellence comes from and who participates in shaping it. I have the impression excellence is often treated as something teachers possess and students may not fully understand. But what if teachers treat excellence as a collaborative pursuit? What if we teach so that students are not merely recipients of standards but active participants in imagining, understanding, and striving toward them?
When teachers involve students in recognizing excellence, naming it, reflecting on it, and pursuing it for themselves, standards become something more than teacher expectations. They become personally meaningful aspirations. That’s a very different path to high achievement. Not excellence driven primarily by external pressure - but excellence pursued through collaborative interaction, thoughtful challenges, and respectful relationships built on our shared commitment. Once again, I’ll bring in my student Patrick who pointed out how excellence is great when you feel happy about it. When excellence results in shame or disrespect, we most likely need to rethink things.
University Students - Somehow, this feels like a very important shift in music teaching. Moving from controlling excellence to nurturing students as they grow in their experience and pursuit of excellence. And this brings me back to those university students and their concerns. As the upcoming generation of music teachers, there’s an opportunity here for university students to change the tone of music lessons, to move beyond the idea that excellence must be teacher-driven, and toward a view of excellence that is shared, understood, and pursued. That’s something I’d love to see them take on.
Excellence requires effort - to be sure. The beauty is that when music teachers invite students to think, reflect, and take ownership, students don’t just reach for excellence because they’ve been told to. They strive for excellence because they believe it belongs to them.
What beliefs about excellence do you carry into your teaching?
Did your own training rely more on pressure or on understanding? What do you want to pass on?
What does excellence with integrity look like in your studio?
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