I originally wrote this Teaching Philosophy for my Teaching Portfolio almost 20 years ago as part of my time at UCLA. It still rings true today, and I’ll keep editing it as I continue to grow as an educator.

Music is a force beyond all nature.  It has the power to touch every aspect of a person’s being in a way that nothing else can.  It is a creative, emotional and expressive outlet.  It is empowering and gentle.  It has the power to motivate as well as heal.  A person that genuinely embraces music has the power to do anything.  

Music education is an essential part of every student’s overall education.  It provides a creative and different approach to learning that stimulates all aspects of mental, physical and emotional maturation.  Both public and private schools require a high quality, well-financed music education program for a student’s complete enrichment. Music students learn to be responsible and respectful of instruments (including their voices), different genres of music and of each other.  They also gradually develop a critical and analytical ear for listening.  The music classroom should be an interactive safe-haven for all different types of learners who desire to become better musicians. 

Every student, regardless of race, religion or ability, is able to become a better musician.  Tone deafness does not exist, and everyone has his or her own place in the musical world.  Not everyone has to be a performer.  There are many different roles to fill. ​

I believe that I possess the skills and abilities necessary to be a forever-growing music educator.  I also possess a deep passion for embracing students’ lives with the joy and fulfillment that music brings.  I only hope that I may help my students learn to, at the very least, have an open appreciation for music.

 Why We Teach Music - source unknown

Music is a science. It is exact, specific, highly organized and must be 100% correct.  It embodies many levels of physics from acoustics to architecture.

Music is mathematics. It is rhythmically based on the subdivision of time in space into fractions, which must be done instantaneously, and not worked out on paper, in a highly specific form with regard to exact placement and symmetry.  It is disciplined and logical.

Music is language. It is composed of phrases, thoughts and ideas.  Its goal is to communicate and to reach a part of us where words no longer suffice.  Most of the terms are in a foreign language, mostly Italian, German or French.  The line notation is certainly NOT English, but a highly developed and organized symbolic system.

Music is history. It is the only art form we can hear as people hundreds of years ago heard.  Unlike paint, whose image is always there once created, music is perpetually “repainted” each time it is performed.  The feelings and thoughts of countless generations are forever cast into sound.

Music is physical education. It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, eyes, hands, lips, cheek and facial muscles, in addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic, back, stomach and chest muscles.  There are as many calories burned by a symphony trumpet player in one performance as there are by a quarterback in a professional football game.

Music is all of these things and more, but above all, music is an art. It allows a human being to take science and technique and create EMOTION.  This is the one thing that science cannot duplicate – human feelings and emotions.

This is why we teach music. Not because we expect to produce music majors.  Not because we expect people to play all their lives.  Not so you can relax.  Not so you can trot around a field in a uniform…

But so you will be more human. So you will recognize beauty.  So you will be more sensitive, especially to all the thoughts and feelings put into sound throughout the ages.  So you will be closer to the infinity of your own heart and soul.  So you will have something to cling to.  So you will feel the beauty of being alive.  So you will come to know the value of your own self.