Teaching Music: It’s a Tough Job in a World Full of Wanna-Bes and Critics

The five gentlemen pictured above are music teachers. Pity them.

It’s a tough job. For one thing, to be a music teacher you must have talent yourself. Everyone knows a physical education teacher with a lousy physique and an English teacher who says ain’t and probably even a fairly undramatic drama teacher. But would you take lessons from a voice instructor who sounded like a table saw? Music teachers have to be able to do it to teach it.

And grading students’ work is no cinch either. How do you prepare a computer punch-card exam to evaluate someone’s rhythm or lung capacity or ability to harmonize? (True or false: This is an F-flat?) Nope, in a music course, the grading--really--is talent evaluation. The A students should get agents; D students should probably stick to season tickets at the Hollywood Bowl.

Music teachers also face the difficult task of defining objectives in a subjective field. When is a performance good enough? How much practice makes perfect? What is good music and what is bad? Is a flawless aria for a crowd of 50 better music than a make-your-eardrums-throb second encore before 50,000?

Perhaps teaching music is so difficult because everyone is a critic. We know what we like. Much of what we appreciate musically is simply a matter of personal taste, not learned observation. An instructor might ask, “Why don’t more people enjoy jazz fusion?” Might as well ask why the President won’t eat his broccoli.

Pity the music teachers. Their students come to them filled with hope. Starved for attention. Eager for adulation. “Help me to create something wonderful,” they plead, filled as they are with their love of music.

But love is not talent. Talent is not dedication. And dedication is not success.

Success only comes through years of hard work. It develops out of long hours of practice. It blossoms through cooperation and chemistry and sometimes just plain luck.

The result, of course, is worth it. One or a hundred or a thousand people swaying to a tune, drifting with a melody, mimicking a lyric, tapping to a beat. Great music--heck, sometimes even just mediocre music--makes people happy.

The five gentlemen pictured above are music teachers. Envy them.

There will be plenty of happiness around Long Beach City College this weekend during three separate concerts in the auditorium on the liberal arts campus, 4901 E. Carson St.

* On Friday at 7:30 p.m., six musical groups will perform during the annual Contemporary Music Extravaganza. The musical styles are varied: rhythm and blues, jazz fusion, country rock, acoustic rock, blues rock and the college’s jazz ensemble.

George Shaw and Frank Potenza will direct; general admission is $6, $3 for staff members, senior citizens and LBCC students with an Associated Student Body card. Call 420-4517 for more information.

The show will be videotaped and used as part of a program that will be aired later on Jones Intercable.

* On Saturday at 7:30 p.m., the Masterwork Chorale and the Women’s Chamber Ensemble will join three visiting college choruses in a choral music festival. Visiting singers will be from the Palomar College Community Choir, the Mira Costa College North Coast Concert Chorale and the Mira Costa College San Elijo Chorale.

Lyle Stone will direct; admission prices are the same as Friday’s concert. Call 420-4495 for more information.

* On Oct. 13, several LBCC musical groups will join forces in a special concert to raise money for student scholarships, which will be awarded to music students based on financial need.

Performers will include a wind ensemble, the chamber singers, a vocal jazz ensemble and a jazz combo, as well as the symphonic orchestra and symphonic band. Refreshments will be available prior to the 2 p.m. concert.

Shaw, Stone, Tom Dustman, Roger Johnson and Gary Scott are the directors for the concert. Admission is $10. For information, call 420-4313.