I don't put on big performances. And honestly, that's made my curriculum so much stronger.
You're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher at the elementary music Summit. Each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher, and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that music teacher.com.
Hello, and welcome back to that music podcast. I am super excited today to talk about why I don't do big performances. And I'm going to start off by saying I am fully aware I'm likely going to ruffle some feathers with this episode. And I don't mean to if you are somebody who absolutely loves putting on these big theatrical productions with costumes and you know, a pit orchestra and this that ninja thing. That is awesome, too and completely valid form of music making and music education. What I'm sharing in today's episode is why I personally don't put on big fancy performances with my students, I don't really like doing them, they're not my favorite thing to do, I feel you know, I did a kind of a pretty big performance, my first performance of my first year of teaching. And it just did not bring me any joy. We had to start so early because the repertoire was honestly way too hard. We had, you know, very minimal costumes and things like that. But it still was like we had we had to all the extra time to do that this happened the other thing, and then really worrying about if a student with a speaking part is going to show up. And that's something that I I really just didn't enjoy as as a teacher, it really stressed me out. It wasn't a a joy learning experience for me. So that was my first performance as the teacher. So my next performance, I tried something completely different, and made it very informal, informal, and basically sharing what we're doing in the music classroom. I've talked before a lot about how I use performances as a way to demonstrate the type of learning that's going on in my classroom. But I that's kind of really where I have shifted most of my performances to this at this point. So why don't I put on big performances. Like I said, I really don't find the joy of it. And honestly, there are some other reasons to that aren't all about me. First of all, the population of the students at my elementary school, a lot of them, they're just, it's really hard for them to get to after school performances. So to remedy that we do do in school performances, as well as an out of school performance. But having to figure out you know, which students are likely to show up which students are not likely to show up things like that having to worry about having students buy costumes or worry about, you know, getting a budget allocated to that is just something that I really don't have the bandwidth to dive into. Another thing reason why I don't put on these huge performances is I teach kindergarten through sixth grade at two different schools. So I'm kind of everywhere. If I had to put on these big performances, I just wouldn't have enough time to do all of the the other things that I need to do as a music teacher. So for me, it isn't worth it. Again, if it's worth it for you, that is totally fine. Nobody is going to show up and tell you to change your performances. But if you're sitting there listening and thinking, how can I make my performance season less stressful? And how can I still make sure my students are getting that really important? musical experience and performance experience, I want you to take a step back and think about what the point of a performance is. Sometimes we can think about it is what we want the the parents in the grownups and the stakeholders to see how awesome we can do what a polished product we can turn, we can kind of put together and show everyone. But I want you to kind of flip that on its head. And I want you to think about more how you can show the stakeholders, the high quality education that's already happening in your classroom. So that might be doing something like an informants or kind of talking them through the procedure, you know, Luke stopping and kind of talking them through why you do this, that the other thing.
But it could also just look like for me, you know, I call it I follow a pretty code I influenced education or pedagogy. So it might just be showing them what music class might look like. Because there are so many people that have had so many different experiences with elementary music, that they likely don't understand what's going on in your classroom. And ignorance might be bliss. But the reality is, is if they don't know better it is up to us to tell them and to show them the real type of musical learning that's going on. Now, we don't have to do that during performances that we can do that through all other types of ads, gifts, advocacy and open houses and you know, creating a Facebook page for the music room or whatever. But I think a performance is a
really good way to get the ball rolling, it's a way to let them people know that, hey, I'm not just some guy that sings with kids all day, like we're actually doing some really high quality learning.
And that's really why I decided against these big performances that I have been able to give my students incredibly meaningful performance experiences and music, education, prefer experiences, without having to have full costumes without having a bunch of speaking parts without having dance numbers and lights and scenery and everything in between. And to me, yes, I would love to give them even like a capstone experience of, you know, maybe in fourth grade, or sixth grade or wherever we do this big performance. But the reality is, is I don't have that bandwidth right now, I would love to be able to put something on like that. But in order for that to happen, there are some changes that are would have to happen. And I'm not in a place where I can make those changes. And quite frankly, my district isn't a place where they can make those changes either, which is okay.
But I'm still giving my students the opportunity to perform. And that's kind of my philosophy on performances. Because when we really dive deep, and kind of think boil it all down into talking about why is music education for
I don't think it's for the performances.
Yeah, we we love being able to go to see Taylor Swift concerts and all these other things and music that our performances, but there's so much to music that isn't just the final product. And I think so often just as a society, we can get way too involved. And way too focused on what it's gonna look like at the end, that we don't enjoy the process. And that's honestly the biggest reason why I changed the way I do performances. So I'm not doing anything big, big and fancy. It's so that my classroom up leading up to a concert is not chaotic, we are still able to we have a ridiculous amount of learning going on in my classroom, even the day before performance, because I'm choosing repertoire and things like that, that have the concepts that are already in my curriculum, rather than finding a you know, a performance or a show or something like that. And then using that as a performance. And if having to stop to teach the performance, I'm able to really use my lessons in a high quality way, but also teach them the repertoire for the performance. And that is really what makes my makes it worth it to me. When I first took over and I started doing this, I had one of the second grade teachers come up to me and say, Hey, Bryson, they these students are, they're really nervous. They are really, they feel like they don't know what they're doing. And I'm like, That's really weird, because they have been singing this song, the a lot of the songs since August. And it came down to 20. We know once we got to talking about a little bit more, the previous music teacher would have like combined performances for like a month in advance and like way overdue it just with the amount of preparation for the performance. When the way that I do it is I have one, maybe two combined rehearsals, because we already know that the repertoire and things like that we're really only going through things like the logistics, and maybe for adding something to make it a little bit fancier or something like that. It makes it so much lower stakes, not lower stakes, but lower stress, the stakes are still there, we're still able to have that high performance. But we're not really stressing the kids out. We're not stressing ourselves out. And it's just easier. Again, if you like these big performances, no one is telling you to stop. That is an incredibly valid form of music making and performances. And if you like doing that, with that lights you up, go ahead. We love that for you. We are here for you, we support that. But if you are not into that big performance error, and if you're trying to try something new, I encourage you to take a step back and look at what your performances are actually showing. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of that music podcast. Don't forget we release new episodes every Wednesday, so mark your calendars and tune in for more engaging discussions about elementary music. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a review wherever you're listening because your feedback really helps us improve and grow and figure help us figure out what we want more of in the podcast. If you haven't already, I'd like to invite you to join that music teacher community, where you'll get early access to exclusive bonus episodes each month as well as a ton of other amazing perks, including a masterclass this month on performances and how you can use them to make your life so much easier while still giving your students incredible performance opportunities. For show loads, links and more head on over to that music teacher.com Or check out the episode description. Once again. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next week.
