Teaching Philosophy

I have three macro ideals I hold when teaching: self efficacy, discipline and creativity. The ability to develop these three skills in music is one of the most valuable parts about learning an instrument. All aspects of life involve these three things and being able to in a controlled manner level up these skill makes these my most important goal.

Self efficacy is important because if you don’t believe you can do something, you won’t be able to. Our body goes where our eyes are looking and if we keep our head down we can’t look up and appreciate the opportunity around us and the world will keep moving around us without us ever having explored it. In music self efficacy might be learning a piece that seemed out of reach at one point or writing a song that was once nothing but now is something. 

Discipline is important because it allows us to pay honor to our inspiration that is short lived and carry us through to the other side. We need to give ourselves a many opportunities as possible to do meaningful things regardless if inspiration knocks that day or not. Discipline is us caring about and taking care of ourself to the future. If you don’t practice one day, there is no immediate down side. But if that snowballs into a week or month? Now you are 6 months in looking around and wishing you had been more diligent. Believing you can do something without the discipline to put it in action will lead to cognitive dissonance when that end is not met. Not to say what being creative is like when lacking discipline.

Creativity is the highest ideal of art. It teaches us our values and how to find them within ourselves. It is our super power against problems and the entropic nature that society can lead to. The ability to create not just novel ideas but sincere ones requires a high level of understanding of one’s self. Without creativity we can’t create meaning in our actions and become lost. While being creative is the peak of the mountain, self efficacy and discipline make up the bulk of the mountain beneath it. Being creative and disciplined but not believing yourself is a tragedy. And believing in yourself and being creative but lacking the discipline to see your vision through is a breeding ground for mental illness and self loathing. When we put all 3 together we build up a person who is not just ready to learn a piece of repertoire or to compose a sonata but someone who is ready to take the world and all of its social and philosophical problems head on and truly find there purpose in the world.