Story 4: Withholder of Playlists, Summer 2011

After my sixth year of collegiate teaching, I thought it might finally be time to get a smartphone. Noticing an undergraduate student using one during an on-campus summer event, I asked him to give me a tutorial. As I held the phone for the first time, I instantly saw the icon for the iTunes app and was delighted with my aging self for recognizing anything! When I verbalized this delight and touched the icon, the student ripped the phone out of my hand with a quickness. I was shocked and asked why he did this, and he said that he did not want his professor to know the type of songs he had on his phone. That’s right. An undergraduate studying to be a music teacher did not want his music education professor to know the music that he liked. This turn of events made me want to see it even more. With my curiosity piqued, I tried to remain as professional as possible in my unsuccessful attempt to grab the phone back. I asked nicely to see just one playlist, again without success. I made a strong case for why it was vital that I know the go-to music of my students’ generation, and I asked philosophical questions about our current situation and how it might negatively affect his future students. He gave up nothing.

When the fall semester began, I still had not purchased a smartphone but was the happy owner of a new tablet. I always need help with new technology, so I consulted the experts (also known as the undergraduates hanging around down the hall from my office in between methods classes and ensemble rehearsals). It just so happened that the very same student who refused to show me the music on his phone the previous summer was willing to help me set up my tablet. As he showed me how to transfer data from my laptop to the tablet, he came across my music library. As soon as I realized this, I reached in desperation to grab the device away from him. It was too late. In my heart, all was officially lost. He spotted a Flo Rida song.

A number of interesting things happened in those moments. I realized that even though I had been appalled that this student refused to share his music with me just months earlier, I had the same reflex to hide my music from him. Perhaps he did not want to be vulnerable in this way because up until that point I was not willing to be vulnerable. If my music library had remained hidden from him, I would have reinforced his image of me as an ivory tower, out-of-touch professor whose music had no connection to his music. I would have missed the magical way his facial expressions changed as he scrolled through my downloaded songs. What started out as a look of playful rebellion morphed into looks of confusion, appreciation, disgust, acknowledgment, and intrigue as he made his way through songs by Bon Jovi, Bruno Mars, Destiny’s Child, Eminem, Lee Ann Womack, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.

The look of relief, however, had the most enduring effect on my relationship with this student and perhaps with all students from that moment on. He seemed relieved that he had heard of some of these artists because that made me more relatable and less intimidating. Perhaps he assumed that I would only be listening to Schubert art songs or symphonic works, which were mixed in as well. It seemed that by hiding important parts of my personal, musical self, I was withholding the very things that would allow me to best reach my students. While the student scrolled, he obliterated the distance between us that had created his own trepidations about sharing his musical preferences. Although I was sweating profusely, I was relieved as well. Only in retrospect have I realized that it took more energy and became much more difficult to hide my authentic musical self than to share it. Later that semester within our music school, I performed an Orff-instrument-arranged Eminem rap along with this student and his cohort. I knew every word of my part long before we started rehearsing.

Lesson 4: Get over yourself. Or, in the true spirit of Eminem, lose yourself. Questions to Ponder:
- How has the mutual appreciation and/or shared understanding of songs connected you to other musicians, other teachers, or your students? How might you describe the value of those connections?

- What about your musicianship makes you feel vulnerable and why?
- What aspects of your musicianship feel authentic and why?