While recently reading an essay by former NFL punter and self-proclaimed "social justice warrior" Chris Kluwe, I had an epiphany. In his piece, Kluwe invokes the oft-misunderstood Machiavelli quote: “the ends justify the means.” “You see,” Kluwe explains, “in The Prince, Machiavelli was not actually saying ‘Whatever you want to achieve should be achieved in any way possible, no matter how nefarious.’ What he was actually saying was, ‘If the ends you seek will uphold the long term stability of the state, then the means by which you achieve those ends are always appropriate.’”
He then describes his experience coaching youth soccer– it seems most coaches just “teach” their kids to kick the ball as hard as they can and a firm emphasis is placed on winning. Kluwe, in contrast, encourages his players (aged 6 to 7) to “focus on passing, staying spread out, controlling the ball, and communicating with each other.” In other words, fundamentals. His team rarely wins, but he gets excited about these fundamentals and he shares that energy and enthusiasm with his players and their parents.
Teaching elementary band is an obvious parallel here– the music teacher is dealing with beginners who need to work as a team. Every elementary band teacher faces a profound choice. Choice “A” is simply do whatever it takes to get the band to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Hot Cross Buns,” “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” etc. Choice “B” is to focus on air support, technique, breathing, tone quality, intonation, etc.– in other words, fundamentals.
Let me paint the picture for you. When you teach elementary band, you see your students once a week for a half an hour in lesson groups (you can forget about private lessons). Hopefully your lesson groups are only three or four students of the same instrument and similar proficiency, but sometimes they come in groups double that size or more and of mixed instrumentation. If a kid misses a lesson– whether due to illness, testing, etc,– you don’t see that student for two weeks (think if the student went two weeks between math lessons!). And that’s if you are even lucky enough to have a lesson program. And after a mere few months of this you’re expected to produce a concert!
Let’s go back to our dilemma. If you choose path A, your concert will consist of a bunch of children squawking, honking, and squeaking their way through the aforementioned classic tunes. It will sound terrible, but the parents and teachers and principal will say “Yay, they played songs good for them yay!”
Should you choose path B, your concert will be a group of young musicians playing a B-flat concert long tone and maybe–maybe– the first five notes of a B-flat concert scale. To the layperson, it will be the most boring concert ever (even by elementary band standards) but the band will play more or less in tune, with the characteristic sound of each instrument, and they will sound mature. Your incredulous parents and teachers and principal will say “That’s all you taught them how to play in nine months?!” Your supervisor will say “You’re fired.” And the students will probably have quit by then because they are bored to tears of playing a B-flat concert again.
You certainly don’t want to get fired, so back to “Twinkle Twinkle” you go. You get your kids to squawk their way through a couple tunes and ship ‘em off to middle school, where they have to learn the fundamentals all over again. Only now, instead of a blank slate, the students have a whole slew of bad habits which need breaking.
Finding the right balance between focusing on fundamentals and preparing for the big show can be tricky, but it is a critical that we as music educators do so. In the long run, the most successful music programs– just like the most successful soccer teams– are the ones which place an emphasis on fundamentals and never cut corners. There are no shortcuts, and it is our job as music educators to remind parents, administrators, and especially students of this fact. Long-term focus on fundamentals takes patience and dedication on the part of all parties, but it is so rewarding in the end. The ends justify the means.
-gs