An email I got the other day

This post won’t be as educational as some of the others, but hopefully it’s helpful and encouraging. As many people may know I’m a music teacher. I teach Kindergarten through 8th grade music as well as private lessons and I direct a middle school orchestra. I’ve been doing all that online as of last March. I also teach 2nd grade Science, Social Studies, and Cursive.

For further background I play melodica in my music classes all the time. I was inspired by Jon Batiste to get one.

Anyways I got this email from the mother of one of my students the other day (I’ve changed his name for privacy):

“Jacob was so excited to show you his melodica abilities today. He really looks up to you because he loves music so much. He wanted one for Christmas because you had one. He’s been playing non stop, and has somehow figured out what notes are which by ear from this electronic music book he has. He also got a harmonica!

Thanks for being a great teacher!”

I often get thank you notes, but very few make me as emotional as this one made me.

Something I recommend everyone do, regardless of what they want to do, is make something that I once learned as a “musical umbrella.”

Write down what you want to do and why you want to do it. Include quotes that inspire you if you want to, but try to really think about what you want to do and write that down. Mine is mainly about inspiring people to do whatever it is that they want to do, whether or not it’s music doesn’t matter. My goal with making music and making content is to hopefully, one day, inspire someone to make better music or art today than they did yesterday.

I know that’s cliche. But the people that have inspired me have meant a lot. As someone that studied music and has been a musician for many years that list is long, but the people that have encouraged me to continue to make music mean a lot to me. Even if it’s something simple like “hey good job on your solo today” or “congrats on releasing an album.”

I can still remember random times in my life when people said things that, at the time, meant a lot. Sometimes that’s a fellow high school student telling you “nice solo today” after a concert in Jazz Band. Sometimes that’s hearing a family member say “when are you releasing that music?” Sometimes it’s hearing that your high school guitar teacher told your parents something similar to, “you know he has a lot of skills. I’m worried that his skills won’t help him much while he’s at Berklee, but he’s a really smart kid.” Or honestly it could be something as small as a friend saying something similar to, “you’re album was really good. Congrats on releasing it.”

I don’t bring these things up to be self-aggrandizing. I hope they’re some type of encouragement. If you’re reading this and for whatever reason you need encouragement today send me an email, or send me a direct message on Twitter or Instagram, and I’ll send you a message that (hopefully) is some type of encouragement.

Making music is hard. Not just because making money doing it is difficult, but because many people don’t understand the desire to do it as a profession. It’s thought of as a hobby for everyone, but professionals. The irony there is that every single person that is a professional musician at one point was not a professional musician.

But back to the email.

This met all the requirements for my “musical umbrella”. I wanted to inspire someone to make music or to create music. It met the requirements.

So as a closing reminder: be aware of the influence you could have and please, please, try to make that a good one.

ISJ