The problem with music education
I came from a very musical family; many of my family members played woodwinds and brass before me. As I watched my siblings and many cousins pick up their chosen instruments, I waited impatiently for the day that I would be deemed old enough to join band. Because my family had no money to buy me my own instrument until then, I waited 15 years for that opportunity.
In order to start on a musical track in elementary school (generally between the forth and sixth grades), students are often required to first learn basic skills of reading music. Additionally, they usually start off teaching using recorders: an instrument that could be made better with other materials but is rendering a piece of junk as a plastic whistle.
When you are finally ready to start playing, whether it be with a recorder or a band instrument, you are required to buy an instruction book for your designated instrument. As you progress, the book teaches you only one note at a time, with a few songs to practice your newly learned note. So for your first recital, you will be playing songs like “Mr. Whole Note Goes For a Walk.” This is what you paid hundreds of dollars for. Yipee.
For any classical musician, this is completely normal and is seen as the desirable method of learning. It teaches children early the “correct” way to play their instrument and instills knowledge of music theory early on. But the problem with this education track is how linear it is.
When you are self-taught, most of your techniques are learned through self-discovery. Of course, YouTube exists, but it is very possible that you will learn your own ways of playing that are unconventional to what is taught in the classroom. You start by playing songs you enjoy, often those that inspired you to study music in the first place. And you choose what you learn. You choose what you play.
The idea of self-teaching is appalling to the classical musician. For years, they have been taught that while there are different styles of music to play, there are “correct” and “incorrect” techniques of playing that may stunt the growth of the musician for one reason or another. I, personally, have been ridiculed for my lacking skills in sight-reading, no matter how well I can play my instrument. And this has only made me more bitter towards the practice. While some musicians may be able to strive in a classical environment, it is a rigid area of study that has undergone little (if any) change over the years and is not fit for everyone.
By teaching one note at a time in these lesson books, your brain ties the connection between the note, the fingering, and the location on the sheet music. This instills sight reading skills early so they won’t have to cram later.
And I can speak from experience: if you’re planning on taking the classical route, it is ten times more difficult to learn to read after you learn to play. It’s not just locating the notes and remembering the names; you have to associate that note with a certain way of placing your fingers. So even if you know how to read sheet music with a trumpet, it is a jarring experience to try with a clarinet.
Of course, sheet music has different accents over the notes dictating how they should be played. And most pieces have certain emotions to be played. But when you learn a song by ear, not only do you connect the dots and learn patterns with certain keys, but the emotion follows suit.
An instructor for an honor band once told me that a piece that was required to be memorized is always the best because the student worked the hardest to remember the notes. That may fed into it, but I say nay; there is something restrictive about staring at the page for what will be played next. When you are staring at the page, you have to think ahead, but since it is right in front of you, it is easy to get lost. There is pressure to stay on time and recognize everything fast enough as to keep in time with the rest of the band. But when you are playing a song without the music in front of you, you are thinking ahead, but you are playing from the heart instead of from your brain. And for some reason, I can speak from personal experience that my vocal chords are always more comfortable singing once my nose is out of the book.
Many classical musicians are offended by the mention that great musicians such as The Beatles did not know how to read music. You are not John Lennon, nor are you Mozart. But to tell this to a musician, or heaven forbid a child, that is the equivalent of looking them in the eyes and calling them stupid. Some musicians pick up music with extreme ease, but can’t sight read a song for the life of them. The great musicians of the past changed everything we know about music today because they were different. So why is it that we are forcing our children to learn in such linear ways?
Just like the science field, music grows when we challenge standing traditions. Music theory should not be forced out of education; it is a tool that helps a multitude of vocalists and instrumentalists support themselves in their careers. But the player that learns by ear is no more inferior to that of the sight-readers. Without variety, there would be no change, and we would never be at the position we are today — not just in music, either — in any field.
