Culture of Self

My poster is fairly sparse, illustrating the largest influences and things with which I identify myself. On the left, I have pictures of fly fishing and skiing. The fly fishing picture is the largest for the “myself” portion, because it is something which is really only for myself. I prefer to fish alone much of the time. Fly fishing is something in which I usually forget about everything else. When I’m on a stream or river or lake or on the beach at night, the possibility of a fish mistaking my contraption of fur and feathers tied to a hook consumes me. It is an amazing thing to be connected to another living thing through something that vaguely (very vaguely) resembles mortal combat (at least from the fish’s point of view) but in actuality has no more import than just about anything in else I do, since I release the great majority of my fish unharmed. It one of the few things where I can find a constant, something to center myself.

The other big picture is of skiing. And not just skiing, but skiing in the trees in deep powder. If I was rich, this might be my number one activity, but some winters I am only able to afford trips to the Catskills on discount days, where the tree skiing opportunities are rare. But I still ski. It is another thing that I do mostly for myself (although if you’re a girl that can keep up with me on the slopes, I’ll marry you today). Similar to fly fishing, when I am skiing, it is all I think about. It is a way of being completely “in the moment,” in a way that even music doesn’t offer me. The physical rush is something that I have never duplicated anywhere else.

Below the skiing picture, the music starts. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and Blue, by Joni Mitchell, were two of my favorite albums growing up, and they remain so. More than anything else, they taught me just how personal and universal music could be at the same time. As I get towards the middle, albums that are big influences on me right now as both a person and a teacher come into play. As a music teacher, I feel that even if you don’t teach music you listen to, it will come through in your teaching and conducting. No matter how hard you try to be impartial, your students are going to pick up pieces of your musicianship, which is reflective of what you listen to. Right now my two favorite albums, which I don’t go more than a few days without listening to are Jenny Lewis’s Acid Tongue and Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky. In between those two is another album that I have listened to countless times, and still listen to a lot, Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. I also use Kind of Blue for teaching any student that starts improvising. Therefore, it is smack in the middle of me as a person and me as a teacher.

As I move to the right and the “myself as a teacher” portion, I have entered written music. This is because in my private and professional life, I often play by ear or memory. I rarely read music anymore. However, when I am teaching, I am constantly using written music. It is important for students to learn new music and to gain an understanding of music. “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” is a song that I enjoy playing and sometimes use as a teacher. “Theme from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” on the bottom, is a duet for flute and piano, two instruments I didn’t truly learn how to play until I had to start teaching them. Finally, all the way on the right of the poster is a portion of “All the Things You Are,” a jazz standard. It is a song that I have a hatred for, but is so useful as a tool for teaching jazz improvisation that I still use it. I put it in as an acknowledgment that as a teacher we must often do things that make us uncomfortable, angry, or unhappy for the good of our students. Our first priority is to help our students, and if that means we have to do something we don’t like, then so be it.

Conspicuously absent from my poster is any mention of religion. Religion is something that I struggled with for a large part of my life, until I finally gave up on it. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I cannot believe in any of it or find any good in it. I feel religion (not faith, which is something completely different) is actually a problem. However, this is a personal feeling, and in an effort to respect other people’s beliefs and personal convictions, I now refrain from mentioning religion unless I directly asked about it or I am positive I can do so without getting into an argument or offending someone.

It is worth noting that both fly-fishing and skiing are generally thought of as upper class activities. Skiing especially is something I came to love only because my family could afford it growing up. Fly fishing can be, but by no means has to be, an upper class pursuit. It does require that one has access to places to fish though, something that would have been more difficult if I had not grown up within a bike-ride of water for my whole life. It is something I might not have come to had I grown up in a more urban area.

Fly fishing and skiing are both also predominantly men’s sports, especially fly fishing. I was introduced to both by my father, who came to them through his father (in the case of fishing) and male friends (in the case of skiing). Had I not had a male influence in my life who I wanted to emulate, I might have turned to other things.

As can be seen, my identity is very much shaped by my upbringing. Many of the things I love I only had an opportunity to experience because of my class and the particular places I lived. Who I am as a music teacher is shaped to a large degree by what kind of music I like.