One of the central features of Lucy Green’s research and writing is that people learn to become technically proficient and develop musical artistry without going to school or by taking lessons.  There are millions of “used to be” band members, choir members, orchestra members. Even with the best pedagogy and curricula available, we don’t seem to be able to influence the musical futures of our students.

If music is for a lifetime, when does that lifetime begin?

I struggle with this question because I am in the business of schooling children in how to succeed in the “big three.” No, not our nation’s automakers but the musical big three: band, choir, orchestra. And yet, I realize that for most of the children I work with, they will never choose to sing or play or move to music once they leave my studio. It is this reality that pushes and prods my thinking and my pedagogy. It is my belief that actively doing music is not something to be pushed aside along with yearbooks, kindergarten drawings, academic awards, that the like. Music is something worth doing as a recreational activity, similar to a pick-up game of soccer or flag football or a stroll in the park or a walk on the beach. And yet, we’re not there but we could be. I’m confident.

Because I won’t be in my students’ lives for more than a few short years, developing in each child a sense of “I can do this myself” is becoming a more prominent element of my classroom interactions. Gone are the days of explicitly directing students’ actions. Instead, I have opted for a less “in your face” approach that provides just enough scaffolding to get them started so that they struggle. The beauty of struggle is that it tends to be tied to thinking and persistence, both of which are in short supply in our culture’s modus operandi.

It seems strange that I would want children of all ages to struggle, to agonize, over how to successfully play or sing or create a familiar song but the benefits of their own realization that they indeed “did it themselves” is more powerful than anything I could have done. Maybe, just maybe, these little successes will influence the choices children will make about how to use their leisure time when they are 15 or 25 or 35.

If music is for a lifetime, should it begin today?