Involved in the Music-Making

Are you on the fence about turning over more musical decisions to your students?

Here’s how I think about it.

I am more knowledgeable and experienced than all of my students. That means I can arrive at the best musical decision much faster than my students. I can make 3 decisions in a minute when it might take 5 minutes to work through those three decisions as an ensemble with student input.

That is an argument for me making decisions, but it’s often overruled by the following:

  1. My students will get faster at making decisions the more they make them. If I never give them the chance, they won’t get faster or develop better musical instincts.
  2. An ensemble is about expressing the voice of those in the ensemble. My voice is secondary to the voices of my students.
  3. Every musical decision a student makes helps to affirm that they have a musical voice worthy of developing and continuing to use. I want all my students to be lifelong music-makers, so I want to affirm them as often as possible.
  4. I can be a better teacher by facilitating growth, understanding, and leadership from my students than I can by telling them what to do.

Most of all, I wish I had been in an ensemble as a youth that was led by a conductor who empowered young musicians to grow and make decisions. So I’m giving that to my students.