From the President’s Keyboard

Good Teachers Make a Difference

I had the good fortune to be mentored by excellent music educators, beginning with trumpet instruction in the fifth grade. First, there was Ed Hayes, my band director in the Wright City (Missouri) RII School District, who developed my musicianship and taught me the value of the arts. Then, as I was preparing to be a music educator, John Buckner, advisor of our Collegiate MENC (CMENC) chapter at Washburn University (Kansas), taught me how to teach comprehensively.

I learned much from Charles Benner, chair of my doctoral committee at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and a past president of MENC, but perhaps most important, I learned about the value and mission of MENC. It was Benner’s example that led me to seek involvement in MENC, first at the local level as a CMENC chapter advisor at the Glenn Korff School of Music at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where I currently teach; then at the state level (eventually becoming president of the Nebraska Music Educators Association after serving on their board); and, finally, as president of MENC’s North Central Division and on the National Executive Board. I maintain a strong enthusiasm for NAfME and its mission to this day. Being an advocate for the profession while serving as NAfME president is a leadership opportunity that I will pursue with passion and enthusiasm.

Philosophical Roots

Philosophically, I’m an advocate of comprehensive musicianship and aesthetic education. Comprehensive musicianship has evolved considerably in the five decades since its beginning at the 1965 Northwestern University Seminar. ¹ To communicate proficiently, good musicians at any level should not only have excellent musical skills, but they should also understand the art of making music cognitively and feel the exaltation of their music-making affectively. The revised National Core Arts Standards in Music call on those of us who prepare music educators for the schools to educate our music education students to promote this comprehensiveness by teaching preK–12 students to encounter music authentically through creating, responding, performing, and connecting. ² Furthermore, I believe that a framework of developing students’ musical skills, knowledge, and attitudes serves us splendidly in developing curricula at all levels.

Just as the concept of comprehensive musicianship has evolved over the years, so the idea of music education as aesthetic education (MEAE), as articulated by Bennett Reimer, has undergone considerable change. ³ In my mind, the problem of using MEAE as a rationale for music education in the schools has never been about the efficacy of the concept. The real question is, How can we articulate this rationale so that someone not well versed in aesthetics will understand the argument? Why is music important?

One of the advantages of being a member of the National Executive Board is that we receive copies of each state MEA magazine. Recently, I saw a quote by Nicole Greene, a high school music educator in New York, that expresses vividly what it means to teach for aesthetic understanding. She tells her students that she teaches music “not because I expect you to major in music, not because I expect you to play or sing all your life, not so you can relax, not so you can have fun, but so you will be human, so you will recognize beauty, so you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world, so you will have something to cling to, so you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good—in short, more life.” ⁴ I heartily endorse this goal.

Finally, I believe in the importance of cooperation among all the fine and performing arts disciplines, but I also believe that “music serves best when its integrity as an art form is maintained.” ⁵

The Concept of NAfME

A concept is a mental picture, an abstract idea obtained through perceiving via the senses. The sights, sounds, smells, and feel of NAfME are in my being. I was at the MENC national conference in San Antonio in 1982 when Charles Leonhard, smoking his cigar in front of the “No Smoking” sign in a crowded room, called for the formation of what would become the Society for Music Teacher Education. I remember Paul Lehman telling us at the New Orleans conference in 1992 that if we could write a set of National Standards, music and the arts would eventually be labeled as core subjects. I recall the feeling of panic when, on the day of the first junior high music contest that our Washburn CMENC chapter was sponsoring, a young harpist, who was not registered for the event, came and asked Washburn CMENC President Nierman in what room she was performing. We had no one to judge harp performance! (Fortunately, our chapter advisor, John Buckner, who is a fine pianist, volunteered to judge the young harpist when he saw the look of panic on my face.)

My picture of NAfME is not one of a top-down, bureaucratic institution with various levels of authority—the National Executive Board, divisions, state MEAs, regional/district affiliates, and discipline-specific subgroups. Rather, my concept of NAfME is that it is a professional organization of individual music educators connected by a common cause—the desire to bring the joy of music into the lives of people. To do this, we organize ourselves at various levels. These organizations are like families, and as families we take on various projects—all-state festivals, professional development conferences, and music advocacy rallies—all to bring music into the lives of people. I am part of our profession’s national support structure (just as others of you are leaders and part of NAfME’s support structure at the state, division, or district level) that helps individual NAfME members to contribute to the cause in a way that results in a meaningful professional life.

Vision for the Future

What, then, should be the vision of our association to promote the cause for the immediate future? My ideas cluster around goals such as increasing membership, defining roles for subgroups of our organization, designing a new strategic plan, and implementing the new Core Arts Standards for music. However, I want to hear from you about your vision for NAfME in the weeks ahead. My e-mail is gnierman@unl.edu. Then, we’ll decide on our goals and pursue a shared vision. I look forward to connecting with you throughout the next two years as we work together to strengthen the music education profession.