At the end of a long day of teaching, I was blessed with a session with my level eight student. She played such beautiful music, and despite my long and tiring day, it is my utmost fortune to be gifted with this incomparable duty that is my job. These minute moments of glory are the pieces of a masterpiece that every artist should cherish.
I was never good enough to be a professional performer. My talents and my lack of virtuosity did not drive me to be in the competitive space of performance, and I’m okay with that. Instead, I found my peace and safe haven in teaching. In teaching, I find the space to create, share, and explore. I am learning not just of education, but of human beings: just how complex, emotional, responsive, and intelligent we are as students young and old.
My favorite part of teaching is sitting on the bench beside my student. I love immersing myself, parallel to the student, where we become one. I love sitting alongside them, investing them in the music and helping them understand the intricacies of this art. I love seeing their faces light up when I teach them something new, and help to comfort them if they feel discouraged. We could be working on a rhythm and there is always an instant of synchronization. We are in sync through the content of what we are working on, but mostly because we are there to pursue the beauty of music. Though they may not know it yet, music will touch their life forever. That idea of them not knowing—that is what is the most pure. Not every student needs to continue with piano studies forever. Their career, relationships, and life do not depend on their commitment to music studies. But so long as they have the privilege of continuing to learn the piano, then the heavier the impact that music will have on them. It will touch them through the way they use their minds, the way they love their friends, and the way they hear a song being played in a grocery store. It will touch them when they learn music theory in high school, the moment they see a piano sitting in the corner of a family friend’s living room, and when they feel most confident presenting in front of a crowd.
The power of music is not simply through the shaping of melodies and accuracy of rhythms. The power of music is the unbreakable and invisible ribbon that intertwines with every aspect of daily life. It is the way we learn it and the way we absorb it that helps to weave this ribbon.