Choosing an Instrument and Fitting In

 

The school year is about to start for my four monsters children. Soon they will be back to learning math, ELA, social studies, science and all the other subjects we know and love. As is tradition for 4^th graders in many districts, my third child has the opportunity to choose an instrument for the coming school year as did her two older siblings.

I remember well how I chose the trumpet as my instrument going into 5^th grade.  After so many years of music class, with pictures of all the types of instruments on the walls, going to see the big kids play during assemblies a couple times a year, it was finally my time to join them.  I can’t really tell you why I picked the trumpet over all the other instruments. Maybe because it was loud and shiny.  Maybe it was because I saw Doc Severinsen leading The Tonight Show Band on nights I was able to stay up late to watch Johnny Carson (wow, I am really that old!) One thing I do remember is that many classmates made comments about how most of the woodwind instruments were for girls.  For some reason the saxophone was thought of as an instrument for both boys and girls.  Percussion and the trumpet were thought of as boys’ instruments. Since I didn’t have the confidence that I could hold the beat necessary for the percussion section, trumpet was my choice. I continued to play until the end of my sophomore year when my schedule made me choose between chorus and band (that story will have to be another post about the system and how adults tend to limit student choice if it doesn’t fit into the box of control also known as scheduling). I use “play” loosely as I didn’t put the effort into my instrumental career as I should have.  I definitely didn’t put the practice in to develop the “chops” as Mr. Bischilanni (I never could spell his name right) told me far too often. 

Now that I have kids of my own, on a similar journey, and better able to reflect, I can see why I didn’t put as much time into not only the instrument but many other endeavors.  My oldest tried to trombone close to two years ago.  He was so excited to try it and be in the band with so many of his friends. That excitement slowly turned to stress as he didn’t think he was any good. No matter what my wife and I did to encourage him, he just wasn’t having it. Of course, the year was cut short by the pandemic so that did not help in the least.  Instead of pushing him to stick with it, we let him make that final decision.  Last year his sister, decided to try the violin.  It was something she had talked about forever, even before she met her circle of friends that also decided to join the orchestra.  While she practiced much more often, I saw the same signs of stress as her brother showed and I felt way back when.  It made me wonder why.  Was it a Hughes curse?  Definitely not, as I have family members who are gifted musicians.

The conclusion I came to was this idea of fitting in and perfection. The choice of which instrument to play came down to what friends each of us had at the time and the idea that certain instruments were for certain people. When we are young, we don’t realize this is happening but when I look back it blows my mind, how so many decisions we make are about fitting in.  At an early elementary age, all we really care about is playing with other kids.  We don’t think about fitting in as little ones. But as we age from the primary grade levels to intermediate and then middle school, the pressure to fit in grows significantly. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but our creativity and imagination also seem to fade during this period of growth.  Are we so worried about fitting in, we focus more on being what we think others want us to be instead of exploring what we really want to?  This focus seems to carry with many of us through the following decades until we reach an age where it’s more about being happy than fitting in. If we are truly going to open up the world to our children and allow them to learn and mature into well-rounded human beings, we need to knock down many of the structures and barriers that currently exist.  We must focus on each individual child to provide them a personalized learning path where they can use their voice and make choices that honor who they are and where they want to go.