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My Childhood Memories-On the Receiving Side of Music Education

© Karen Stafford

When I was invited to participate in the childhood memories event, of course, I traced back some of what I could remember of the receiving end of music education: as a student. The points I remember are the ones that inspired me, as well as prodded me to remember what NOT to do in teaching (the names are omitted to protect the innocent).

I attended a very small school in central Missouri. (As a clue, my class at its biggest was 29, and THAT was one of the biggest classes at the time!). The music teacher was THE music teacher: elementary, band, choral, K-12, as well as master of the sound system, and (in the case of my final teacher there) master photographer. I had two different music teachers from grades 1-3. In fourth grade, the teacher arrived that would not only lead me through my band years, but would also be my inspiration and somewhat of a mentor. But, that comes later.

My first memory of music class was in third grade. My teacher had interesting ways of trying to get us to sing in a higher range and a head voice. (In 10 years, however, I would figure out that most of his methods would be verboten!). They were tons of fun to little 8 and 9 year olds, though! One method was getting us to squeak like mice. High enough in pitch, of course, but oh...the dreaded tense throat-closed off sound-future vocal nodes. That method wasn't nearly as much fun as the spooky one, in which we were to grab our throats and squeeze out "Somebody's choking me!". Tense throat for sure, not to mention the fact that a teacher doing that nowadays would be in trouble for sure for promoting violent thoughts! I have to give the man credit, though. He sure made music fun for all of us, "even" the boys!

Remember tonettes? That was our first real encounter with instruments, because we weren't lucky enough to have Orff or even simple rhythm instruments. (In fact, if I remember correctly, we only had music once a week for 30 minutes: just enough time to do all the singing that most laymen associate with music class nowadays). Oh, those cute little black instruments were so much fun! And what a headache to our parents as we squawked out our first musical attempts. The pride of our lives that fourth grade year was our concert: the tonette symphony. No wonder so many of us clamoured to join up for band the next year (although it made other kids run screaming in the opposite direction!)