My class is noisy and busy because we're making music. I tend to teach the same things to all ages, because the materials and the order of difficulty are the same no matter who you work with. What changes is that every student comes with different tools in their toolbox. My job is to figure out what tools the students have and show them how to use those tools to make music for themselves.

I break ideas down into their smallest components. What do you need to do to make this happen? What are you listening for? What are you watching for? What muscles do you use? What does it look like? What things can I take away to make this easier? What's the smallest thing I can add to make it a little more difficult? One of the great things about teaching music is that it has a built-in feedback system: you can hear quite directly what your students have learned. By using various modes of performance — rehearsing, sight-reading, composing, and improvising — I can constantly monitor my students' progress and adjust the pacing and presentation of the material accordingly.

Creation is central to all activities in music class. Listening and discussions are supplements to the main activity which is making sounds. Not only do we re-create existing pieces of music, but we create our own original music. Using both composition and improvisation, students can synthesize their experiences in both pre-meditated and spontaneous music making. Improvisation and composition are essential tools, not just for the 21st century musician, but in many non-musical situations, too.

My goal is not to steer students toward or away from a career in the arts, but to help them learn how music and other arts are important tools for learning about how they relate to the world, other people, and themselves (in ways that academic subjects might not cover), not just in a theoretical sense, but in an experiential one. I try to create an atmosphere where students feel that they can eventually participate in any music making on some level, whether someone invites them to read through string quartets, sing karaoke, improvise on a familiar tune, jam on a new tune, or create something on the spot. It takes a long time and a lot of work to get to that point, but what we do in music class prepares for that and enables the student to do it, even on a small level.