The Hard Truths

What if you had to face the fact that the one thing you want to be or do more than anything else is beyond your reach, simply because you suck at it?  This is the worst lesson that I have to 'teach' - and a lot of people would argue that I shouldn't teach it at all.  Hollywood/Disney tells us that our dreams are infinite, as is our capacity to triumph through will and determination.  Reality is a different story.

What I'm getting at is that I have students who have been eagerly applying to my elite groups, who simply do not have the musical skills required for membership.  It's not from lack of effort; I'm talking about kids who have tried to meet every requirement that I've put out there. They've taken private lessons.  They've come in after school to practice.  They've eagerly sought out every opportunity to prove themselves.... and yet....

In some cases there are disabilities involved.  One girl in particular is an autistic student who has been enrolled in the vocal program for the entirety of her middle school and high school career thus far.  She is fiercely dedicated, and auditions for every solo that becomes available.  To her credit, she's really good at memorizing things, and she sings with decent pitch.  Sadly, she is severely lacking in range, tone, projection, diction and nuance.  It is also highly questionable as to whether or not she will be able to manage complex, independent moving parts - which is another thing entirely than being able to hold a melody.  She's auditioned for my advanced choir every year for the last three years running.... and while I heard some improvement over time, she simply gets out-performed by the competition.  I think that is likely to happen for the rest of her high school career.

Another student (a drummer) in my band program is eagerly trying to get into our drum line, which is quickly becoming an elite performing group.  I've known this student since he was in 5th grade.  You won't meet a nicer kid, but he's got concentration and coordination issues, he learns things slowly and he's easily distracted.  He's the kind of drummer that can play his parts as long as someone stands next to him and helps him count.  The parents have been very supportive and understanding, but I think after this last round - they are starting to get impatient.

So here's my dilemma:  I fully understand my responsibility to every single one of my students to help them learn and grow as musicians.  To what extent am I responsible for helping them reach the highest level of performance?  This is to say - are we as teachers and coaches held accountable for making sure that every student qualifies for a varsity team, a rigorous AP class, or an elite performing group, so long as they have the desire to do so?  Is it our fault if the student doesn't make it into Harvard, Julliard or West Point?  Should my promise to educate come with a guarantee to produce the desired result?  or do we at some point have to acknowledge that not everyone makes the Olympic team?

Part of what makes an elite group or varsity team appealing to students and families is the fact that not everyone who applies gets in.  There's no small amount of self affirmation that comes from prevailing through an audition process.  To that end, people usually don't want me to remove the selective process - they just want me to select their kid... often times ignoring the criteria I used to accept or reject other students.  I've heard pleas to let students just 'sit in the back' or 'take them on and drop them if they don't work out' (which would lead to endless requests to 'give them another chance')  It's hard... I mean I'm still a relatively new parent myself, and I don't know how I will react if and when my son doesn't make the baseball team.  I'm trying to use these experiences to temper my judgement when I finally get to see rejection from the other side.  I hope I have a more grounded perspective that what I'm seeing from some of the parents I work with now.

Sometimes I feel like the reluctant Simon Cowell.  I have no desire to crush the dreams of young people.  I try to take it with some perspective. I'm not the person telling them that they are hopeless - I'm the person telling them that they haven't earned it yet.  What I'm trying not to do, though, is come off as making a promise that they will.  There are never any guarantees.

On the brighter side - I did recently see evidence that students and families do 'get it'.  At the last vocal concert, one of the graduating seniors gave testament to the audience that the best thing I did for her was to reject her from the advanced choir until she proved herself as a singer (she had major pitch issues when she was younger).  She said it made her work harder.... which she did... and it paid off.  She finally gained membership in her sophomore year, and continued to work to improve her basic skills.  Now she's going off with the intent to be a music performance major in college.  She still has some work to do, but I think she'll be fine.  She understands now that things aren't just given to people because they have a dream - they have to make that dream a reality.

With that, I'll leave you with a quote from "Ratatouille"

"Not everyone can be great, but greatness can come from anywhere." - Gusteau