Improvisation

I love music and I love teaching. What is it about these two processes that clicks for me? First off, let me clarify: I am not a music teacher. I teach college accounting. Upon reflection, I suppose I like playing the notes and not playing the notes. I like to go with the plan and go off of the plan. In teaching, the lesson plan guides the way. Call it a lesson plan or whatever kind of plan, I plan and think through the course and the semster and the chapter and the topic and put toether a plan. Most of the time, I work from my plan, sometimes adding a little here, sometimes taking a little there. Sometimes, I work completely off of my plan. I improvise in the classroom. Those are some my best classroom experiences with students. Improvisational teaching for me would not be possible without the plan. It would not be veering off track if we weren't on track most of the time. It is being completely in the moment and following where the conversation is going, where the questions are going, where the moment is taking us. It is always a little bit scary. In music, there is playing the notes written on the page, and then there is improvisation. I like them both and use them both in my teaching. I tend to stick to the plan, but when I do improvise in the classroom, it is a wonderful thing.

From reality to somewhere else

When considering what makes great music great, I think it all boils down to this: great music takes a person from reality to somewhere else. I have been analyzing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as a likely finalist for my Music module project. What an incredible piece of music. If you really engage and listen, Rhapsody takes you away to another place and perhaps even another time. For me, it conjures up thoughts of expansiveness and energy. It makes me think of large projects and initiatives, as if I could take on the world and accomplish anything. It also makes me think of New York City, or any large city for that matter. I see and feel the hustle and bustle and energy in the music. You are really some place special in the thick of it and in the moment. It also makes me think of a great romantic love. This is a love with no bounds that means everything and transforms everything in a person's life. Rhapsody takes me out of the present moment and takes my mind to all sorts of wonderful, limitless places. And, I don't mean to suggest in any way that only classical music is capable of doing this. I think when considering what makes something compelling, it is that sense of "it". For some reason, thinking about what makes music compelling reminds me of what makes a design space compelling. It's that feeling of being somewhere cool, somewhere really on, somewhere beyond special. Music can do this. One of our assigned songs for the week was Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man". Just as with Gershwin, if I really engage and get lost in the music, I end up somewhere else. I end up at a club, dancing and spinning and being someone else. I feel cool, I feel in, I feel sublime. That transformative feeling is a rush. There is a somewhat recent commercial that typifies exactly what I'm trying to say about what makes music great, or what makes music compelling, or what makes music take you to another place. I think it is an i-pod commercial. It shows a young guy jamming out to his music. We can see the ear bugs dangling and swaying as the guy is moving and dancing and all over the place. He is truly free and totally engaged in his music. It's a youngish man, perhaps in his 20's, stylishly dressed in a rough kind of hip way. The ad shows him moving from place to place to place until he ends up at work behind a desk and then morphs back into his real self, which is a middle aged business man behind a desk. Music transformed the man into the free spirited boy, loving his music and loving life. I will do my best to try to find a link to that commercial, because that is it! Great music takes us from where we really are to somewhere else!

Now, it is interesting to lay this exact idea over the concept of education. Let's change "great music" to "great teaching". And so we have, great teaching takes us from reality to somewhere else. Yes, indeed! When I reflect back over the years and consider the best of the best teaching moments in my own life, it definitely has a ring of this element to it. I remember taking piano lessons with a certain piano teacher when I was in high school. At some point, he deemed that I was ready to begin playing Mozart sonatas, which was a big deal. I had to complete years of preparatory work before he would allow me to attempt Mozart sonatas. I still remember that day clear as a bell. His office was consumed by two enormous Steinway grand pianos placed side by side. He played, and I played. He played more and talked and danced Mozart. He described the times that Mozart lived in and what music meant to their culture. He emphasized the prevalence of dance in the music. So much music in Mozart's time has a physical element. It was not to be listened to solemnly in a concert hall. It was music for dance, movement, acting and performance. We were no longer in Indiana in a professor's crowded office. We were in Venice and Salzburg; and we were dancing and singing and playing. We were transformed to Mozart's time. To this day, I still enjoy playing Mozart, and I still remember that usually subdued piano teacher dancing and carrying on during my piano lesson. Great teaching does take us from reality to somewhere else.

...still looking for that music commercial...

Two Worlds

That Eisner article jarred me a bit on the inside. It made me very aware of my two worlds. I have gotten very good at ignoring this fact. I mostly live in one of the worlds and rationalize the other's existence.

I am a CPA, an accountant, a bean counter. Yes, it's true. However, I have never quite fit into the accounting world. My CPA days were difficult ones. I did not fit in, or so it seemed to me. I felt like a round peg in a square (very square) environment. I didn't want to work 60-70 hours a week and not have time for anything else. Anything else is everything that I really like. I was very capable and strong in accounting but it wasn't my joy. Teaching is a way to blur and blend accounting into something else. Many days at JCC, I feel more like a counselor or advisor and less a teacher. And in my teaching, I am just as interested in technology and current event as I am in debits and credits. The best part of my day is always working with students.

I am also a creative person, a lover of the arts and a natural musician. This course has been a delight to my intellect and senses and heart. Music finds me. This year is case in point. I had not played the piano much for the past few years, and then word got out in my son's school district that I could play. I've been rehearsing and performing regularly ever since. Within the next month, I will accompany 9 kids at middle school solo and ensemble, 3 kids at state high school finals and play another concert with the middle school jazz band. I wasn't looking for any of this, it found me. And I love it. I love playing, I love encouraging the kids and working with them, and I love being a part of the music. Other that that, virtually all art forms attract me in one way or another. This class has made me a little ADD in that regard. Now I want to redecorate my house, start taking better pictures all the time and go see all of the best films.

Bottom line: I am hungry for artistic things, and my regular world is not feeding me.

Back to Eisner: Is there a way to celebrate both worlds and bring them together?