Abstract
Katherine (“Katy”) Strand
Photo courtesy of the Jacobs School of Music; Alain Barker, photographer.
There are two types of games that we play throughout lives. We play finite games—those that we intend to win and about which we feel unfortunate if we lose, guided by mutually agreed-on rules and participants. In finite games, we keep our moves hidden and work to gain the upper hand at all times. Music teaching and learning may involve students in some valuable finite games such as competition for higher chairs and competitions with other music programs (in Indiana we have instituted a music theory bowl where schools compete on music theory questions: It is a fantastic way to inspire study!). There are also solo and ensemble festivals and blinded competitions in which the judges have criteria and their own musical ears to ascertain winners and losers and for which students work to develop strategies to calm nerves and perform well.
There are also infinite games (e.g., being a musician throughout one’s life) that involve holding an open attitude to new possibilities, seeing ever-evolving horizons to chart, learning from and with other players, developing attitudes of playfulness, and understanding ourselves to be audience members as much as performers. 2 As music teachers, we play infinite games when we ask students to share their favorite music with us and when we become excited about a young performer’s new interpretation without judging it but, instead, ask what was learned from the thinking and music-making. We play an infinite game when we see ourselves as learners as well as teachers and when we seek new music to study, new teaching strategies, and new curricular ideas for our students’ behalf.
Author James Carse’s discussion of finite and infinite games, found in his book Finite and Infinite Games (first published in 1986), also explores the ways we see ourselves and others. In finite game playing, we acknowledge that other players assign us a set of roles and behaviors and then use these expectations to define and regulate us. For example, the “teacher” identity is defined for us (without our permission) by our culture: In the United States, for example, there are definitions and expectations of teachers that still resemble what was demanded of the schoolmarms of the American frontier.
If teachers are playing a finite game, we face these expectations as if our audience (the culture) has already defined us as losers in the game of education. In response, teachers might attempt to “win” at teaching by producing students with high test scores. I have heard many fine music teachers argue (with imaginary commentators) that music teachers do not belong to the category of “those who cannot do, teach.” According to Carse, this is finite game thinking. 3 Just thinking about justifying ourselves and our profession in writing and words is an attempt to prove ourselves to an imagined audience.
“We are both outcomes of our past and transformations of our past.”
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Music teachers may believe that we should take limited roles and behave in certain ways as a result of the expectations of teaching colleagues, administrators, and politicians. Similarly, we may decide that our music students should fill certain roles like actors in a prescribed play and therefore hear only the scripted versions of the roles we have assigned to them. In response, students may behave in scripted ways to fulfill expectations. We have probably all worked with students who respond to actions and attitudes they perceive and expect. For example, I have had students who worked hard to please me as well as students who sought to “break rules” because they decided that my role was to enforce behavior. Television shows such as Glee and movies like Mr. Holland’s Opus and countless others demonstrate the grand narrative of the music teacher, complete with behaviors and attitudes. Teaching a finite game in this way cannot lead to anything but a finite set of results.
Carse wrote that those playing an infinite game can surmount the roles expected of them. For inspiration, music teachers can look to those in our lives whose musical or teaching visions and actions have resonated with us, or those who have jarred us out of complacent expectations. When we attend to the new musical and teaching ideas that have resonated with us and reflect on the ways in which our sense of normalcy has been shaken, Carse believed we can begin to find our own musical genius: If in the culture into which we are born there are always persons who will urge us to theatricalize our lives by supplying us with a repeatable past, there will also be persons in whose presence we learn to prepare ourselves for surprise. It is in the presence of such persons that we first recognize ourselves as the geniuses that we are.
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Carse goes on to describe how one’s genius cannot be stimulated from without. No one can bring or force out our inner genius. However, genius can be an outcome of that resonance with, inspiration or surprise by another person’s genius. 5 This idea of discovering one’s genius in response to contact with another’s genius reminds me of musicians and teachers I have encountered who believed in their own musical and/or teacher genius. My high school choral teacher pulled out a trombone and played a glissando (beautifully) to demonstrate portamento in the middle of a choir class and we were so surprised that we laughed for joy. A high school math teacher regularly presented us with a blackboard filled with a complex proof and would ask someone, “What is the answer? Say ONE.” When the student replied “One” as required, this teacher would turn quickly and ask, “Why?” We sat in his classroom so shocked while the one student stuttered and stumbled over the proof, that we all begin talking ourselves and each other through the equation while this teacher smiled broadly with satisfaction. Many others must have shared their musical and teaching genius with me in ways that surprised me. They inspire me to continue investigating ways that I can express my own genius, as a teacher and a musician, with my students.
There are many ways that we might find and express our musical genius (I cannot help but cringe as I write this because I truly do not consider myself to be a genius—I suppose that is the hurdle that each of us must clear). If a music teacher can see his or her own genius as a musician and teacher, then that person may be able to help students find their own musical genius selves. As Carse wrote, Whenever we act as the genius of ourselves, it will be in the spirit of allowing the past to be the past. It is the genius in us who us capable of ridding us of resentment . . . not as a way of denying the past but as a way of reshaping it through our own imagination. Then we will remember . . . that we have forgotten our freedom to play.
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How do we prepare our students for surprise and inspiration to discover their musical genius? Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games suggests that music teachers have to step out of those repeatable, theatrical definitions of music teacher and music education imposed on us and that we impose on ourselves. In her textbook Pictures of Music Education, 7 music education philosopher Estelle Jorgensen stated that music teaching and learning need not be seen as all part of a single “grand narrative,” like the belief that music teachers exist to prepare future professional musicians and educated audiences. Instead, music teachers can express our own genius in multiple ways and use our genius to inspire multiple avenues for music learning and life. If music teachers accept the roles and behaviors prescribed by those outside our profession, questions guiding instruction might include “What can I get my students to achieve?” and “How do I inspire my students to be more musical?” If one decides to surpass the expected roles and teacher behaviors, additional questions might include “What is my own teaching and musical genius?” and “How can I express my musical genius in such a way that will resonate with my students?” Such questions may lead to instruction that surprises and inspires students to find their own musical-genius selves.
Readers will note that this portion of Carse’s writing may sound a lot like text in a self-help book. The goal is not simply self-congratulation. The work of finding one’s genius requires intention and attention. This work revolves around finding the definitions and characteristics of experience, such as music or teaching, and identifying what is beyond the limits of that experience.
As the geniuses we are, we do not look but see. To look at something is to look at it within its limitations. I look at what is marked off, at what stands apart from other things. . . . To look at is to look for. It is to bring the limitations with us. “Nature has no outline. Imagination has.” If to look is to look at what is contained within its limitations, to see is to see the limitations themselves.
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We need inspiration to find the perceived limits of music teaching and learning. Jorgensen, in her book The Art of Teaching Music, describes reading as a “sort of food.” 9 It provides the music teacher with sustenance as well as inspiration. The articles in this issue of Music Educators Journal may surprise you, or might provide you with insight into the genius of colleagues and friends who have thought about the boundaries and limits of teaching and learning music and have found ways to see beyond the self-imposed boundaries into new horizons.
The writers in this issue of Music Educators Journal share their practical genius through fresh instructional strategies for teaching improvisation, music theory, and music of all cultures, along with practical strategies for motivating parental involvement in learning. There are ideas to help in the preparation of future teachers and for empowering in-service teacher practice. In perusing these articles, you are invited to find thoughts that resonate and that may inspire a spark of genius in you.