Can you imagine it? I cannot.

Music is so common place, so natural, so integrated into our everyday lives, it seems outrageous to imagine living without it. Like threads woven through the fabric of life, music brings colour and texture to an unending diversity of human undertakings. Consider its impact on family, community, and friends. Education, entertainment, and recreation. Politics, religion, sports, food. Nation, ethnicity, culture. Relaxation, celebration, grief. There can be no denying that music is more than a dedicated profession, an occasional leisure activity or a concentrated pursuit. Music is a primary characteristic of how we live as individuals and in communities. 

Through the music in our lives, we get to know ourselves and the world around us. Just think about how often music acts as confirmation of who we are. How every person performs and hears music with their own ears, qualified by the individual variants of experience, temperament, timing, energy, and mindset. Every person experiences music in their own way, regardless of age, education, or socioeconomic position. We make our own individual meaning of music, choosing what, when, how, and why we include music throughout life. Musical playlists can intensify our sense of self without asking for permission, even the most brief snippet of melody can trigger all that’s needed to feel grounded. On occasion, music acts as a welcome distraction, a resonant release from thinking and doing. At other times, music has the capacity to magnify what’s going on inside, to amplify moments of hardship and grief, of joy and celebration. Music provides a strengthening of resolve, a reason to push beyond boundaries of fragility and vulnerability. There’s protection in music.

Music is also a primary characteristic of how we live in communities. On a social level, music brings people together within and beyond borders, transmitting culture and tradition from the past, defining and transforming society for the future. We use music as the glue for social interaction, as the momentum for dancing, singing, celebrating, and moving with others. Music comes to life in the streets, churches, bars, gyms, living rooms, and arenas of the world. In this way, music is deeply personal and social in its impact, meaning, and variables according to the needs it serves. Music has numerous attributes. Its capabilities are constantly changing. Anchor. Emotion. Annoyance. Distraction. Nation. Entertainment. Soul food. Friend. Energy. Beacon. Impetus. Ritual. Ceremony. Tradition. Community. 

Why is this relevant for today’s music teachers and students? Ultimately because students’ own heartfelt musical impulses propel, elevate, fuel, and sustain their musical journeys with an intensity that teachers’ enthusiasm, parental monitoring, and motivation techniques can never achieve. Real connections to music are what makes it work for students. And without connections to what music accomplishes in students’ daily lives, students’ musical journey may be short-lived. They may become disenchanted because music lessons seem to have little in common with what music actually means to them. Of course, music teachers want to make sure students acquire the skills and knowledge for musical success. That goes without saying. At the same time, how students engage with music today, or next month, or next year will always be in relation to what music accomplishes in their lives.

What happens when music teachers involve students in explorations reflective of the music in their lives? They provide fuel for students to fulfill their own musical dreams, their own musical futures. Teachers help students settle into the experience of music making as a natural and personal undertaking. Not merely a childhood activity, educational pursuit, or disciplined training ground. Neither a regimented preparation for professional musical career nor the future sophisticated listener. Rather, teachers equip students with the combination of attitude, practical skillset, and personal satisfaction they need to fuel the lifelong exploration of their own idiosyncratic musical dreams. They involve students in music making in ways that serve students’ musical needs throughout their entire lives. They help students actively engage with music in their lives more often, more significantly, and more purposefully than would have otherwise been the case without formal music lessons.

What seems remarkable in this context is that, while students’ lifelong musical explorations benefit from teachers’ musical knowledge and skills, nothing is more influential than students’ musical connection. It’s the music in our lives - personal, social, internal, external, invitational, distracting, vital - that makes it work. How, when you think about it, could it be otherwise?