Went out this evening with my sibs and my sister’s boyfriend to Maggie’s, a jazz lounge, art gallery and restaurant about which I must write more later. While listening to three sets by John Noubarian (piano) and Ben Heywood (guitar), we got to talking to a couple of attractive, similarly-named women (Tamara and Tammy) about… well, all sorts of things, as conversations with strangers are wont to progress… but for the purposes of this entry, I’ll focus on a certain topic related to music.
The comment arose that a lot of musicians are teachers. I missed the exact details, because I was sitting at the wrong end of the table, but I believe Tammy’s a teacher and less-active musician, and Tamara’s an active musician who used to teach. (Could be wrong on all counts, though.) The rest of us are somewhat active musically–Chris belongs to a band, my sister’s in a choir and seems to know most of the members of the Winnipeg music scene, my brother plays baritone and piano from time to time, and I play trumpet occasionally and basically enjoy the abilities of others–but none of us teaches in any way. I’m not sure I agree with the statement as presented, but the inverse is true in my experience: I know a lot of teachers who are musicians, but only a few musicians who teach. (Granted, my view may be tainted: more than half of the members of the big band I used to perform with are teachers.)
I’m subscribed to two weblogs that regularly discuss teaching or playing, Teacher: Year One and scottandrew.com, but neither has mentioned the other topic except in passing. (dive into mark deserves mention here too–while not explicitly about teaching, it’s the site from which I’ve learned the most, most often how to push the envelope and use HTML the way it’s meant to be used.) And a number of the musicians and teachers I know don’t have any particular talent in the other field.
So all of this makes me curious: are there more teachers who are musicians, or musicians who are teachers? Subject taught is irrelevant, but order is important–an English teacher who plays violin may consider herself a musician first, and a pianist who teaches music may consider himself a teacher first.
Comments are welcome, as always; you can post directly to this entry or send your thoughts to me via e-mail.
