Why Teach Music?

As a music teacher, the answer for me is an easy one. I love music, and I love helping my students understand how music works and how to make music with their instrument. So I teach music. Simple and true, but certainly not compelling enough to convince parents, school boards or other governing bodies to give music study as high a priority as science and math.

For many, the study of music is considered a waste of valuable time that should be spent on so-called serious academic studies. From the time I was very young, even though we still had vibrant music programs, sadly, music was considered by many parents and students to be the easy A, or the goof off subject. Sandbox and Basket Weaving as a family friend used to call my major. His attitude made me feel “less than,” and almost like a slacker because I wasn’t majoring in worthy pursuits such as science or history.

Certainly not everyone thought that way, but as the years have passed, more and more music programs have been cut because they’re considered not serious pursuits, and the shrinking budgets need to support the more traditional courses (and cramming for tests). We thought the cutbacks were bad back in my day — the 1970s — but compared to now, we had amazing programs.

A while back I ran across a fantastic explanation on Facebook why music should be taught. Continue reading →