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Music Education Research

Vol. 6, No. 3, November 2004

A dissonant duet: discussions of music


making and music teaching
Rhoda Bernard*
Boston Conservatory, USA

The literature in the field of music teacher education describes a tension between the music
making and the music teaching in the professional lives of music educators. Yet how do music
educators themselves think about their work? This study is an investigation of how six elementary
general music teachers who are also performers speak about their music making and their music
teaching. Data was collected in 4 hours of largely unstructured interviews with each respondent.
Data analysis strategies included identifying emergent themes, constructing profiles, juxtaposing
interview excerpts and categorizing characterizations of the tension between making music and
teaching music. The main findings were that the participants characterized their music making
and music teaching in three ways: as two distinct roles that they take on in their professional lives,
as a single approach that they take to two activities, and as an experience of making music that
they hope to recreate for their students. This study aims to inform the current rethinking of music
teacher education programs on the part of institutions of higher education by contributing to a
richer and more nuanced understanding of the lives and work of music teachers.

Introduction
Peter Blumenthal1 is a jazz pianist and an elementary general music teacher. He
plays jazz standards and original compositions in regional performance venues. He
also teaches classroom music to students in kindergarten through grade eight2 at a
large urban school. Hanging on the wall just above where Peter stands when he is
teaching are three signs that he made out of tan cardboard. Each sign contains only
one word, printed neatly in thick black magic marker, and the signs are arranged so
that two of them are next to each other and the third one hangs, centered, below
them:
Teacher

Musician

Mr. Blumenthal

*Boston
Conservatory,
8
The
rbernard@bostonconservatory.edu

Fenway,

Boston,

MA

ISSN 1461-3808 (print)/ISSN 1469-9893 (online)/04/030281-18


2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1461380042000281730

02215,

USA.

Email:

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When I asked Peter about these signs, he told me: I want them [my students] to
know that I dont just teach. So I want them to know that I actually am a musician,
I actually do create music, I perform music.
When a music teacher is also a performing musician, does he view those two
professional activities as two distinct roles? The signs in Peters classroom and the
way he speaks about them suggest that he understands that others might make a
distinction between his music making and his music teaching, but he does not
appear to view his professional activities as two distinct roles. This study is an
investigation of how six elementary general music teachers who are also performing
musicians speak about their music making and their music teaching when they talk
about themselves and their work. I aim to better understand how the participants
make meaning for themselves as, what I call, musician-teachers. I use the term
musician-teacher to refer to performing musicians who work as licensed music
teachers3 in school settings. Depending on the district and/or the school, a musicianteacher may have a full-time or a part-time teaching position providing classroom
music instruction and, in some cases, conducting ensembles and coaching chamber
music groups. My conception of the musician-teacher is one form of the phenomenon of the artist-teacher, a contentious topic in the literature in the field of arts
education.
The artist-teacher
The artist-teacher, or the professional artist who works as an arts teacher in a school
setting, has generated a great deal of controversy in the literature. Some researchers
argue that the roles of artist and teacher are at odds with one another (Anderson,
1981; Day, 1986; Lloyd, 1989; Ball, 1990), while others observe the contrast
between the artistic personality and the traits that make for effective teaching
(Bolanos, 1986; Richards et al., 1992). Some maintain that the artist-teacher places
too much emphasis on her artist role, to the detriment of her teaching. Her classes
focus too heavily on the production of art, ignoring or minimizing the study of art
history, art criticism and other ways to learn about art, and the educator aspects of
her work become secondary to the artist aspects of her work (Day, 1986; Lloyd,
1989). Agreeing that the artist role takes precedence in the work of the artistteacher, James Undercofler (1985) suggests that school administrators support
artist-teachers by remembering that they are artists first (1985, p. 26). Robert West
takes the opposite approach by arguing that artist-teachers must be teachers first in
order to be successful in school settings: Teachers of the arts need to be artists, but
if they are not first teachers, then all is lost (1985, p. 30).
It seems to me that the controversy swirling about the artist-teacher stems from
an underlying assumption that artist-teachers must, by necessity, choose between
the artist role and the teacher role, becoming predominantly an artist or predominantly a teacher, in order to succeed at their work, but is choosing between the artist
role and the teacher role as necessary as the above scholars make it appear? When
artist-teachers themselves write and speak about their work, they do not cast

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themselves in terms of being primarily an artist or primarily a teacher. In fact, they


report that their art making and their teaching are closely related (Szekely, 1978,
1997; Anderson, 1981; Thompson, 1986; Bittle, 1987; Ball, 1990; McIntosh,
2000). As artist-teacher Laurie Ball explains, For me, it is not possible to separate
the artist within from the art teacher without (1990, p. 54). When artist-teachers in England were interviewed in a study about the careers of art teachers (Bennet,
1985), they spoke about their careers in broad termsnot just their teaching
careers, but their art making, as welland described the satisfaction and rewards
that they gained from continuing to grow as artists by making art as well as teaching.
The concept of the artist-teacher has been notably absent from the music
education literature until very recently. Most scholarly writings about music educators have ignored the rich and varied musical lives that many music teachers have
outside of school, casting these individuals as teachers and only teachers, even
though, in order to become licensed as a music teacher, one must demonstrate a
high level of musical achievement.
Music teachers or musician-teachers?
Music educators in our schools are expected to be skilled music makers as well as
music teachers (Klotman, 1972, 1973; Leonhard & House, 1972; Hoffer, 1993;
Abeles et al., 1995; Mark, 1996). As part of their training in college or graduate
school, they are held to high standards as musicians, and their professors expect
them to have attained mastery of their music making by the time they reach the
classroom as music educators (NASM, 1974; Roberts, 1991). Once they secure
teaching positions in schools, many, if not most music educators continue making
their own music, living vivid musical lives outside the classroom (Scott-Kassner &
Kassner, 2001; Strauss, 2001). In their recent publication, Arts education in public
elementary and secondary schools (2002), the National Center for Education Statistics
reports that 83% of the 453 public elementary music specialists from around the
USA who responded to their survey perform as a soloist or with an ensemble (p. 85).
However, until quite recently, these musical lives had not been acknowledged by
prominent scholars in music education. Before the later years of the 1990s, researchers suggested that, once music educators secure teaching positions in schools,
they must necessarily make a choice between making music and teaching music.
Noted music education scholar Charles Hoffer placed making music and teaching
music in opposition to one another when he noted that music educators must seek
satisfaction from the progress of their students, rather than from their own music
making (1993). In drawing a contrast between college music students and music
educators, Robert Klotman argued that personal performance is the source of
satisfaction for the college music student, while the music educators job is to create
opportunities for students musical expression (1972, p. 5). According to these
scholars, it is as if once a musician-teacher begins teaching classroom music in a
school, her music making outside of school ceases, or at least ceases to matter.

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Writings about elementary school general music education support this point of
view. Elementary school general music4 education is the form of classroom music
education available to nearly all students in schools throughout the USA (Haldeman, 1988; Lehman, 1988; Reimer, 1988; Hoffer, 1993). According to scholars in
this field, the purpose of elementary school general music is to introduce musical
concepts and to help students develop vocal and instrumental skills (Kneiter, 1989;
Hoffer, 1993; Abeles et al., 1995; Labuta & Smith, 1997). The elementary school
music teacher is expected to be a good enough musician to model proper musicianship for her students, as well as to hear, diagnose and correct problems in her
students musical performances (Kneiter, 1972; Hoffer, 1993; Abeles et al., 1995;
Strauss, 2001). Any other aspects of the elementary school general music teachers
musical life are virtually ignored by the literature, as they are not considered relevant
to the goals of a music teacher.
As the 1990s came to a close and the 21st century began, some scholars in the
field of music teacher education came to appreciate, and even celebrate, both the
music making and the music teaching of music educators. In his article, Artist or
teacher? Jonathan Stephens portrays the artistry and the teaching of music teachers
as two sides of a coin: In teacher education there is a need to balance personal,
musical or subject-based development (the skills of the Artist) with professional
orientation, which is concerned with the development of others (the tools of the
Teacher). Essentially these two aspects are like two sides of a coin, or two partners
in a marriage relationshipsseparate, yet complementary and united (1995, p. 10).
In the following passage, which opens one of the most recently published textbooks
in music education, four music education professors address their readers about
music making and music teaching in the lives of music educators:
Perhaps you are sitting in this class trying to decide whether you should be a music
teacher or a performer. This question need not worry you at this time, because it is
possible to be both a teacher and a performer. In fact, the authors of this text are good
examples of balancing teaching careers with that of being successful performers. The
authors firmly believe that you cannot be a good music teacher unless you are a good
performer. You see, it is not a question of being a teacher or a performer, because great
teaching is a performing art and a great performer is always teaching. (Erwin et al.,
2003, p. 1)

One of these professors, Jody L. Kerchner, recently urged her colleagues to model
the various roles that they play in their professional lives for their students:
If students see us conducting, performing band literature with students, and presenting
recitals, we gain credibility as musician educators. These experiences show our students
why we have become music educatorswe are passionate about creating music alone
and with others. Sharing concert experiences, as performers or as audience members,
helps us create connections with our students. Preservice music educators need to
know that both performing and teaching are vital to their professional careers. Novice
teachers need not decide whether to perform or to teach; satisfaction and excellence in
craft come with either, or the combination of both. (2002, p. 4)

These writings suggest that the field of music teacher education has recently begun
to recognize that most school music teachers enjoy professional lives that involve

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music making and music teaching, and that engaging in both of these activities is
more than possibledoing so may even make for a more successful, satisfying and
effective career. At the same time, these writings acknowledge a tension between
these music making and music teaching activitiesa tension that music educators
negotiate daily in their professional lives, whether they are making music on the
concert stage or teaching in the elementary general music classroom.

Investigations of the professional activities and identities of music teachers


The relationship between music making and music teaching in the life of the school
music teacher has received little exploration in the research literature, particularly in
the USA. Most of the researchers who have investigated or are investigating the
professional identities of music teachers hail from other countries (Bladh & Bouij,
1996; White, 1996; Bouij, 1998a,b, 2000; Cox, 1999; Bladh, 2002; C. Bouij,
personal communication, 2002; Purves, 2002). Darren B. White (1996) interviewed
two secondary music teachers in Newfoundland and Labrador with the aim of
gaining insight into the change in their professional role from performer-musician to
teacher-musician. White learned that the two music teachers he interviewed continued performing music outside of school and developed educational programs that
were performance-based, sometimes neglecting to teach other aspects of music so
that they could provide their students with experiences in and opportunities for
musical performance. As he laments that these music teachers over-emphasized
performance in their teaching, White echoes the sentiments of those who argue that
artist-teachers spend a disproportionate amount of time on art making in their
classrooms (Day, 1986; Lloyd, 1989). Researcher Gordon Cox (1999) interviewed
10 secondary school music teachers in England about their work. While Cox
observed that there was a tension between in and out of school music making for
the music teacher (1999, p. 41) because the need for a steady income would
sometimes cause teaching responsibilities to take priority over music making opportunities, he found among the teachers he interviewed that there was general
agreement that an active musical life outside of school was desirable (p. 40). Like
Bennet (1985) found in his study of art teachers, Cox noticed the connections that
the music teachers in his study made between their music making outside of school
and their teaching:
I did not sense in my interviews the separation between the institutional and personal
subject interests that I perceived in reading the research on art teachers. It appeared
that one of the reasons that a musical life was pursued outside of school was that ones
teaching might be more successful. There was little feeling that experienced music
teachers longed to become professional musicians. (1999, p. 41)

Swedish scholars Bouij and Bladh are conducting a longitudinal study of pre-service
music teachers in Sweden, following them from the beginning of their training into
the early years of their professional life. Through questionnaires and interviews, they
hope to develop an understanding of how people are socialized into the role of music

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teacher and the salience of various role identities in the socialization process (C.
Bouij, personal communication, 2002). Purves and his colleagues in England (David
Hargreaves, Graham Welch and Nigel Marshall) are conducting the Teacher Identities in Music Education (TIME) project, a longitudinal study investigating how
the attitudes and identities of intending secondary school music teachers develop
during the transition from music student or musician through postgraduate teacher
education and into their first teaching post (Purves, 2002, p. 1). They are using
questionnaires and case study interviews to better understand secondary music
teachers musical identities and eventually to compare those musical identities to
secondary music students musical identities. The research team hypothesizes that
congruence between teachers and students musical identities makes for effective
music teaching (Purves, 2002).
In the USA, Patricia Cox (1994, 1997) examined the role of influential people in
the professional socialization of music educators as musicians and teachers by
administering a questionnaire to 500 music teachers in Arkansas. She found that her
respondents could recall more people who had encouraged them to be musicians
than music educators. John Clinton (1997) interviewed 45 high school fine arts
teachers in Oklahoma in order to better understand their self-perceptions as artists
and teachers. The music teachers whom Clinton interviewed reported that they
enjoyed having a full-time career as a teacher and a part-time career as a performing
musician, and that they saw their teaching and performing as complementing one
another. Clintons findings echo Bennets (1985) research with art teachers, as well
as the numerous articles written by artist-teachers that were cited earlier in this
article.
While scholars often write about music making and music teaching as contradictory or conflicting activities between which one must make a choice in order to be
successful and effective, when musician-teachers are given the opportunity to speak
about their work, they often argue that these two professional activities are closely
related and that they derive great pleasure and satisfaction from pursuing both of
them at the same time. The six musician-teachers who participated in this study
spoke about their music making and their music teaching in different ways. Some of
them discussed the activities as completely distinct from one another, and others
made connections between making music and teaching music.

The musician-teachers in this study


Three men and three women, ranging in age from their late 20s to their late 50s,
participated in this study. They had 525 years of experience performing music in
various forms and in various contexts, including directing theater productions and
singing in choruses, accompanying classical performers on piano, performing lead
roles in opera productions and musical theater productions, playing jazz piano and
playing classical cello. They also had 325 years of classroom teaching experience
with students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

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Interview procedure
I interviewed the musician-teachers individually in two sessions, each lasting about
2 hours. The interview protocol for the first interview session consisted of four
requests:

Tell
Tell
Tell
Tell

me
me
me
me

how you came to be a music educator;


how you came to be a musician;
about your teaching;
about your music.

I also asked follow-up questions based on a participants response to each of these


requests. For example, in response to tell me how you came to be a music
educator, a respondent would detail a series of events or time periods that led to the
persons current position as a music educator. In my follow-up questions, I would
ask the respondent to tell me more about each of the events or time periods that she
had just mentioned. I conducted a second interview based on the information
provided in the first session.
Data analysis procedures
I identified emergent themes within each respondents interviews and across all six
respondents interviews. I then constructed profiles of each participant. I also
juxtaposed their discussions of their music making and their music teaching and
made comparisons between them. Taken together, these forms of analysis revealed
the ways that each respondent characterizes the tension between her music making
and music teaching, and these characterizations provide important clues into the
way that she makes meaning of herself as a musician-teacher.
Findings
The participants in this study characterized the tension between their music making
and their music teaching in three ways: as entirely separate from one another, as two
activities that they approach in very much the same way, and as one activity
(performance) that provides them with a particular experience that they hope to
bring to their students in their teaching.
Two separate roles: Steven and Monica
Singer, choral conductor and musical theater performer Steven and opera singer
Monica understand their professional identities as two separate roles that they take
on in their work. Steven speaks about his music making in terms of the emotional
connections that audiences make to music. Yet when Steven describes his music
teaching, he talks about conveying basic facts, information and procedures. Monica
discusses making music in terms of seeking the aesthetic of a beautiful voice and

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sharing that voice with her audience. When she speaks about her teaching, however,
Monica talks about ensuring that her students understand music theory, and can
read and write music correctly.
Steven. As a performer and conductor, Steven revels in and marvels at the changes
he notices in the mood of an audience as they respond to and connect with the
music that he performs. His discussion of his music making revolves around his
descriptions of attending to audience responses and connections as he sings, conducts choirs or performs in musical theater productions.
In the concerts that he presents with his gospel choir, Steven perceives the
emotional connections that audiences make to his music by attending to changes in
the energy that he feels in the room: I can sense the changes in the audience when
we do, you know, a real upbeat, clap, slap, shout and scream song, and everyone just
kind of gets this huge energy. And then we change and do like a Negro spiritual that,
thats like deep down, gut wrenching, and you can feel the entire mood in the
audience kind of change to that. The music that Steven and his fellow musicians
play has different kinds of energythe real upbeat energy of the first piece he
mentions and the deep down energy of the secondand the mood of the audience
reflects that energy as they connect with the music that they hear.
Steven uses the term gut emotion when he speaks about the reaction of the
audience to one of his musical theater performances: They could feel that kind of
gut emotion happening in music. Feeling the gut emotion in the music that he and
his fellow musicians were playing, the audience members connected with the music.
By contrast, Steven presents his elementary general music teaching as communicating information to his students. He sees his job as a music teacher as one of
conveying facts, even though he may not believe in them or feel a sense of ownership
of them: youre teaching, you know, facts or basic concepts that, you know, even
though they may not be what you believe in or yours, its still, you know, such and
such a person came up with such and such a concept and so this is what it is, you
know.
When I asked him to walk me through a typical class that he would teach, Steven
responded with a description of a class session in which he acquainted his students
with procedures and information. In the sixth grade handbell class that Steven spoke
about, the students learned what handbells are, that they are made of brass, that
students must wear gloves when they handle them, that they should arrange the
handbells in the order of the major scale, and that they should take them out of the
boxes and put them away in the most efficient way possible. The class ended with
the students practicing taking out and putting away the handbells until they can do
both in fewer than 5 minutes. Steven concludes his presentation by showing me how
he would summarize the lesson at the end of class:
And then wed go through at the end of class and go, OK, so what are the rules? How
do we get them [the handbells] out? How do we put them [the handbells] away? What
are the things we need? How do we set them [the handbells] up? What should it look
like? How long should it take? Now at the beginning of every class, as soon as you come

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in, unless I tell you something different, you come in, you take the handbells out, you
step back, Ill walk through, make sure theyre in the right order, and then well, well
go ahead and play.

Steven appears to take on different roles in his music making and his teaching. As
a performer and conductor, Steven relishes the emotional connections that audiences make to his music. As an elementary general music teacher, Steven imparts
basic information and procedures to his students.
Monica. In her work as an opera singer, Monica aims to create and share a beautiful
sound with her voice. Her discussion of her music making revolves around her
achievement of this goal and the great pride she takes in being able to produce a
beautiful vocal sound. Monica describes the way that people react to how her voice
sounds when she performs: People who hear me now are just like, oh, my God!
Sharing her voice with others in her performances, Monica is filled with great pride
when audience members confirm that she has achieved her aesthetic by producing
a beautiful voice:
And thats my favorite compliment from people is when they say, You have a beautiful
voice. Not when they say its so powerful, or youre so expressive or anything, but
theyre like, just the sheer tone is beautiful to my ears.

By contrast, Monica speaks about her music teaching in terms of introducing her
students to basic concepts in music theory. Music reading and music theory figure
prominently in the Kodaly approach to music education, the model on which
Monica bases her classroom and private teaching. For her, the ultimate goal of
Kodaly is for students to be able to pick up a piece of music and just go, I think
I know what this would sound like in my head. Through the Kodaly method,
Monica teaches her students how to sight sing music using various techniques,
including the do-re-mi syllable system (known as solfege) and hand signals that
correspond to the pitches of the scale. They also learn how to read and write
rhythms by speaking with rhythmic syllables (tas and titis). As Monica describes
her general music teaching at the private school where she taught until recently, her
focus on music reading and music theory comes across loud and clear:
Theyd come in, you know, Id sing greetings to them. Wed do certain rhythm stuff.
Always did rhythm stuff, whether it be an oral thing, you know, clapping and them
echoing back and telling what that rhythm was. Or them, sometimes Id have them
make up their own little rhythms on the drum, and have another student try to write
down the rhythm that one wrote. Or my favorite was, the kids favorite was the
rhythm box, where you write, you know, four or five rhythms in there and gradually
erase one and they have to memorize it, and keep going, and eventually the whole box
is erased. Then you ask someone to go back in and fill it in, and they loved that. I did
that. I did a lot of sight reading, every day, in those classes. And just lots of songs
and games.

Monica sees her music making and her music teaching as separate roles that she
takes on in her work. The aesthetic goal of creating and sharing a beautiful voice that

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is so prominent in her description of her music making does not appear in her
discussion of her music teaching, where the emphasis is on music reading and music
theory.
In the next section, we will consider Carolyn and Anne, who see their music
making and their music teaching as activities that they approach in very much the
same way.
One approach to two activities: Carolyn and Anne
Carolyn, a choral singer and conductor, and Anne, a piano accompanist, appear to
understand what they do when they are making music and when they are teaching
music as very much the same. Carolyn speaks about both of her professional
activities in terms of the close relationships that she cultivates with the people with
whom she works. Anne talks about her music making and her music teaching in
terms of communicating what is going on in the music.
Carolyn. As a performer, Carolyn forges close relationships with her musical collaborators. She refers to the choral department where she went to college as an
extended family:
So I went, I went to [the college I attended], and um, immediately got sort of sucked
up by the choral department. It was just like a, um, well, an extended family. I mean,
people really became part of it, and you, you socialized with the people in, in chorus,
and we traveled to Europe, and um, you know, it was really a family experience, and
a really well-renowned chorus.

The singers in the choral department came to know each other very well and became
like a family, through the large amount of time they spent rehearsing, performing,
living and socializing together. Carolyn describes their time together as intense: It
was a lot of time spent in intense, um, pursuit of what we all loved. We, you know,
obviously, all had the same um, love of music. We pursued it in different ways, but
it was just very intense. The close relationships that Carolyn developed with other
chorale members continue today, as they stay in touch through letters and visits.
Carolyn has developed and maintained close relationships with other people with
whom she has made music, as well. She notes that she is still friendly with her high
school choral director, and that she is still close with her former colleagues in an
a cappella harmony group, as well as with previous accompanists for her choirs.
Close relationships dominate Carolyns discussion of her music teaching. She
enjoys watching her students grow over the course of elementary school: I like
teaching general music because I see the kids grow. Um, you know, they come to me
as babies and then they, they leave as fifth graders.
Carolyn also creates close relationships in her school community by bringing
people together around musical activities. One such activity is her faculty chorus: I
have a faculty chorus. My adults need music in their lives. And, um, it is, these are
people who come to me with, you know, and they come with, well, I dont sing,

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and I say, yes, you do, and we can all do this together. And they say its um, just
a wonderfully cathartic experience for them to actually go through the process and
do it.
Parents, students, administrators and faculty all come together every Tuesday for
Tuesday Music Time,5 a performance series that Carolyn developed. These 10-minute concerts feature student performers at all levels and attract a loyal and growing
audience. Carolyn describes Tuesday Music Time as an opportunity for kids to
listen, and kids to perform, and to bring the community together. Its really kind of
special. Carolyn speaks about her teaching in terms of the close relationships that
she creates around music makingwith her students, among the faculty and among
the entire school community.
Carolyn conceives of her work as a choral singer and director and her work as an
elementary general music teacher in very much the same way: forging close relationships. Whether she is performing or teaching, Carolyn creates close-knit communities around music.
Anne. Anne speaks about performing as conveying the music, or expressing the
text, the melody, the harmonies, the rhythms and so on. For Anne, conveying the
music in this way is what makes a musical performance successful, or good: When
its good youre really conveying the music, youre not conveying yourself, or at
least, Im not. Im conveying the music.
Preparing music with singers is an important part of Annes work as a vocal coach
and accompanist. For Anne and her collaborators, part of the rehearsal process
involves analyzing aspects of the music and figuring out ways to get those aspects
across in performance: There are things that I hear in the music, and then I have
to figure out a way to ask someone else to do it I may be able to say, would you
listenthe harmonies are doing this there. In her presentation of her music
teaching, Anne highlights three ways she helps her students to understand what is
going on in the music. First, Anne uses guided listening activities to help her
students come to understand what they hear: When the kids walk in, there is music
playing and there is something directed to be done with respect to that. It may
simply be a question on the board that they need to listen for, or two or three
questions. Anne directs her students to listen for particular musical elements.
Second, Anne chooses the repertoire for her class to learn based on the musical
concepts that are demonstrated in the music. As she explains: I would say that a lot
of my lessons involve teaching a song with some sort of a concept or other. Anne
describes a particular set of lessons that she has given about triadic figures in
melodies:
Its a song that Ive used because I make it work with the kids, its a song that comes
from an old music book (printed in 1951), it goes [singing], Long years ago lived a
young boy named Mozart. He played, and he sang, and he wrote sweet melodies
[speaks] and it goes on. I can use that after Ive done a lot of other songs that are
triadic and have them go. [sings the triads from the songs melody very slowly, one
after the other].

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Basing her choices of songs for her students to study on the musical concepts that
are featured in those songs, Anne highlights what is going on in the music that her
students are learning in class.
Third, through their composition assignments, Annes students have the opportunity to determine what will go on in the music that they create, orchestrate and
perform:
Ive started trying to do more long-term kind of compositional things with them, too.
And I dont mean writing notes, you know. But more where theyre orchestrating, you
know, deciding what instruments they want to use, or deciding what kind of a form
they want to create or something.

As composers, Annes students can choose the musical elements that they would like
to use in their pieces and can figure out how their compositions, orchestrations and
performances can express these musical elements.
Anne approaches her work as an accompanist and her work as an elementary
general music teacher in very much the same way: helping other people to understand what is going on in the music.
Making their experiences possible for their students: Brad and Peter
When they speak about themselves and their work, cellist Brad and jazz pianist Peter
forge a different kind of relationship between their music making and their music
teaching. They describe what the experience of making music is like for them, and
then they present their work as music teachers in terms of making it possible for their
students to have the same experiences. Brad speaks about the experience of playing
the cello in terms of the emergence of his voice, and he talks about the ways that he
hopes to help his students find their voices. Peter describes his experiences playing
the piano by talking about the ways he and his collaborators respond musically to
one another and to their audience, and he emphasizes the ways that he helps his
students to respond to him and to each other in the classroom.
Brad. Brad describes the emergence of his voice when he plays the cello. As he puts
it, If I practice the cello enough, eventually what I end up calling, for lack of a better
word, calling a voice emerges. And something that is more than the sum of all the
notes and how I play them happens.
Developing his technique on the instrument and coming to know pieces of music
very well have been two essential ingredients in the emergence of Brads voice on the
cello. Brad describes the freedom that he felt when he achieved technical command
of the cello as being able to make the instrument speak:
And that sense of freedom that I could say anything, you know, just because of, of, you
know, what, what I was doing here [miming holding and moving the bow], I could, I
could make it say anything. Well, you know, if you, if you get this so responsive to what
youre thinking, all you have to do is think it, all you have to do is feel it, and then, you
know, it, it speaks.

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Knowing pieces of music really well is another important part of the emergence of
Brads voice on the cello. For Brad, intimate knowledge of a musical work makes
endless expressive possibilities available to him:
If you really know a piece of music well, and you feel like you could just, I mean, you
feel like you could just make it say anything you want and then there you are, and
youre in the moment, and youre, youre just, there you are saying this to those people
out there, you know.

The metaphor of the voice figures prominently in Brads description of what it is like
when he knows a piece of music very well.
As a music teacher, Brad hopes to set the stage for the emergence of his students
voices through music, as he explains: My role as music teacher, then, is to supply
the tools and opportunity, help the child understand the discipline of the work so
that the stage for transcendence can be set. One way that Brad sets the stage for this
transcendence is by encouraging his students to make a personal investment in the
expressive qualities of the music that they perform:
Im always encouraging them to, to add something more than, because the dullest,
most boring, flat performances are the ones when theres no personal investment. So
Im, I guess I use my experience as a cellist to motivate that personal investment. And
my understanding of that personal investment is not so much that it isI feel this now,
it is more that I am committed to making it sound like I do. And there are specific,
objective ways of doing that.

For Brad, making a personal investment in the music involves making a commitment to expressing the music in a particular way. He sees this commitment to
musical expression as one of the essential components of developing ones voice.
Sometimes Brad finds himself trying silly things to encourage his students to
express themselves, to make that personal investment and to find their voices as they
make music. He offers the following example from his teaching to illustrate the role
of this kind of silliness in his music instruction:
I say to them, So what if you sing the right words and the right notes. Big deal. Well
of course you have to sing the right words and the right notes, but you arent making
musicnot yet. You know, Something more has to happen. And so I give them a
cello demonstration, you know, and then I say to them, you have to tell the story. We
sang the Trout, in English (laughs), in the fall, you know, its something thats part of
the curriculum I want them to know, and I think Im going to teach that every year
whether they perform it or not. And I keep telling them, well, tell me the story, you
know, (sings), One day as I was walking, da, da, (speaks) the, the part about the fish,
(sings), An arrow it did see. (speaks) Go fishee! You know, Im yellin stuff like this
while theyre singing.

Brad talks about his music making in terms of the emergence of his voice on the
cello, and he describes his teaching in terms of setting the stage for his students
voices to emerge. In both his cello playing and his teaching, Brads focus is on the
emergence of an expressive, musical voice. The difference is that, in terms of the
former, Brad himself experiences the emergence of his own voice, while, in the case
of the latter, it is Brads students who experience the emergence of their voices.

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R. Bernard

Peter. Peter presents jazz improvisation as a set of interactions in which the musicians respond to one another as well as to the audience: its [improvisation is] a way
to create music in, in a reciprocal way, in a, in a connected way with the audience.
That is, um, we can respond in our musical playing to whats going on, not only with
the group but with the audience, with the whole space.
As he crafts his improvisations, Peter plays alongside other musicians to create a
musical whole. While the structure of the music is predetermined, the improvisations are not, and together, the musicians respond to one another as they explore
this tension between the fixed and the flexible, the known and the unknown. As
Peter describes it: Theres three of us or theres five of us, playing together and
performing together and together negotiating this vehicle, this structure for the way
we want to go.
Whether it is with the other musicians on stage, or with the patrons in the
audience, improvising, for Peter, consists in responding musically. As he brings his
musical resources to the conversation, he hopes to respond sensitively and appropriately to the music and the emotions around him, while playing an appropriate role
in the ensemble and respecting the integrity of the musical structure at the same
time.
In his classroom, Peter endeavors to provide his students with opportunities to
respond musically to one another. They exchange musical ideas in improvisations
where some children take turns contributing improvised phrases while others maintain the structure of the piece by providing accompaniment:
I like to do a lot of what I call conversations. Everyones got an instrument. And then
two at a time, people across the circle have a musical interaction. That can be, um, two
people communicating across the circle in four-beat patterns, eight-beat patterns, and
sometimes more loosely just in phrases, where theyre taking turns. Meanwhile the
whole group is keeping the underlying structure going.

As a teacher, Peter aims to be musically responsive to his students. He considers his


teaching most successful when he is able to respond effectively to his students
musical ideas. As he puts it: What Im ideally doing when Im teaching is Im having
a conversation, if you will, a musical interaction with the kids, so that their ideas are
actually giving back energy to me.
One way Peter responds musically to his students is by incorporating their
suggestions into a class music making activity. He describes his approach to his
students musical contributions: I really like to, um, do as much activity in the class,
um, that can utilize kids ideas, so I make them be leaders, I make them, I include
them in decision making, um, I try to set it up so that Im not the center of attention
through the whole thing.
In his discussion of his music making and his music teaching, Peter straddles this
category and the previous category. Peter talks about the ways that he strives to
make it possible for his students to experience responding musically to one other and
to him. Yet at the same time, whether he is playing the piano or teaching elementary
general music, Peter responds musically to the people around him.

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Discussion
The musician-teachers in this study characterize the tension between their music
making and their music teaching in three different ways. Steven and Monica
appear to consider their music making and their teaching to be distinct roles
that they take on in their professional lives. By creating a separation between
making music and teaching music, these two respondents echo the earlier
writings by scholars in the fields of music teacher education and elementary
general music education, who either ignored the musical lives of music educators
or argued that music educators must choose teaching music over making
music.
By contrast, the remaining four participantsAnne, Carolyn, Peter and
Bradforge connections between their music making and their teaching. These
connections take two forms. Carolyn and Anne appear to relate their music
making and their music teaching by approaching both activities in very much
the same way. Brad and Peter link their music making and their music teaching
through their desire to bring their own experiences to life for their students. The
ways that these musician-teachers speak about making music and teaching music
resonate with other reports by artist-teachers and musician-teachers, as well as with
more recent writings in the field of music teacher education. According to this
perspective, music making and music teaching are closely related, and music
teachers can find great satisfaction in professional lives in which they engage in both
activities.
Implications
Many institutions of higher learning are currently revising and rethinking their
music teacher preparation programs. This study aims to inform the work of music
teacher educators by helping them to better understand the professional lives and
identities of musician-teachers. It is my hope that by hearing what researchers like
myself have to say about how musician-teachers speak about their professional
activities, music teacher educators will come to develop a more complex, rich and
nuanced understanding of who our music teachers are so that they can more
effectively prepare todays music education students to become tomorrows musician-teachers. Gaining a better understanding of the professional lives and identities
of music teachers can also help music teacher educators to more ably support their
students as they forge their own professional identities as budding musician-teachers.
Since conducting this study, I have completed an additional investigation into the
professional identities of musician-teachers (Bernard, 2004), combining intensive
interviews with observations of classroom lessons and post-observation interviews.
That research expands considerably on the notion of musician-teacher identity and
presents a dynamic framework for understanding and researching musician-teacher
identity.

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R. Bernard

Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the Spencer Foundation, who supported this study with
a Research Training Grant.
Notes on contributor
Rhoda Bernard is Chair of the Music Education Department at Boston Conservatory, where she leads and teaches in a Masters Degree program in Music
Education. She received her Doctorate in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2004. Her research interests include the professional identities of music teachers, teacher education, teacher reflective
practice and research methods. At Harvard, she served as a member of the
Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review and co-chaired the 2003
Student Research Conference and International Forum.
Notes
1.
2.

3.

4.

5.

All names used for participants in this study are pseudonyms.


In the USA, formal schooling begins with preschool at the age of 3 and/or 4. At age 5,
students enter kindergarten. Each year in school after kindergarten is referred to as a
numbered grade, beginning with first grade when students are 6 years old, continuing until
1718-year-old students graduate from high school at the end of 12th grade. Students in
kindergarten through eighth grade, therefore, range in age from 5 to 13 years old.
In the USA, each states department of education determines the qualifications for licensure
to teach all subjects in the schools, including music. Requirements for licensure include
taking approved coursework, earning approved degrees and passing a series of state
examinations.
The phrase elementary school general music is typically understood by educators in the
USA to refer to classroom music instruction for all students between the ages of 5 and 12,
or in kindergarten through grade six. Some elementary schools, particularly those in urban
areas like the one where Peter teaches, continue through the eighth grade (age 13 or 14).
A pseudonym is used for this concert series.

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