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Abstract

Musician-teacher identity is a “work-in-progress” spanning a career lifetime, yet little research appears to explore how this culminative development occurs, particularly from an individualized musician-teacher viewpoint. Using a qualitative epistemology, the author examines autoethnographic vignettes of life experience to highlight how changes of aging, work environments, and personal circumstances guide such a musician-teacher’s journey. A “rivers of experience” approach, combined with several frames of reference, uncovers epiphanic moments showing how local and international contexts shape musician-teacher identity. Given the enormous changes in education over the past 40 years, and the changing, challenging world of Covid-19, this article is a timely and needed catalyst for others to reflect on their own experiences as they look to their futures.

Keywords

Autoethnography career cycle epiphany life-long musician-teacher

Introduction

In retirement, the question of what is the good for me takes on a new and potentially refreshing significance. The retired person usually has a long past on which to reflect in search of an embodied narrative that ties their particular life together . . . in retirement the completion or end of life usually comes into clearest focus (Bochner, 2020, p. 82)

I face retirement now, and Bochner’s comments resonate with my 40 years of musician-teacher service. As I reflect with attended circumspection, I also invite you, the reader, to reflect on your own unique professional identity changes, engaging in an interplay of emotion and memory. In local and international contexts, my identity metamorphosed over time, emphasizing the fluid nature of musician-teacher identity. Initially, I investigate the terms “lifelong” and “career cycle,” the notion of musician-teacher, and a possible method for examining my career life.

“Life-long” and career cycle

“Lifelong” usually refers to life from birth to death (Cambridge, n.d.). In this present context, life-long refers to a timeline from childhood to retirement, tracing progress through a “career cycle” that reflects “the professional and personal development of the teachers over the course of their working life” (Bayer et al., 2009, p. 2). This cycle provides predictable pathways for us to examine our musician-teacher career trajectories (Brand, 1983; White, 2008). There appear to be five to eight stages of the career cycle which can provide a career framework comparable to my own (Baker, 2005; Bayer et al., 2009; Brand, 1983; Fessler, 1985; Fessler & Christensen, 1992; Huberman, 1993; Lynn, 2001; Rolls & Plauborg, 2009; Steffy & Wolfe, 2001; Štemberger, 2020; White, 2008). Extant literature also examines life-long teacher career trajectory (Baker, 2005; Boyle, 2021; Brand, 1983; Lynn, 2001).

Substantial literature details curated moments of pre or early career musician-teacher identity (Brashier, 2018; Brunetti & Marston, 2018; Chua & Welch, 2021; Conway & Eros, 2016; Draves, 2012; Eros, 2011; Haning, 2020; Lorenzino & Dos Santos Cunha, 2014; Lynn, 2002; Pellegrino, 2019; Reed, 2018; Woodford, 2002) or difficulties mid-career (Howes & Goodman-Delahunty, 2015; Reichl, 2019; Rolls & Plauborg, 2009). Autoethnography has examined musician-teacher identity too, though again limited to curated moments such as pre-service growth, or in-career reflection (de Bruin, 2016; Kladder, 2020; Nethsinghe, 2015; Sutherland, 2015; Zdzinski & Horne, 2014) or international teaching experience (Dunbar-Hall, 2009; Sahling & De Carvalho, 2021; Yuyan, 2009), or documentation of research into studio teaching (Gouzouasis & Ryu, 2014). There is limited literature, however, dealing with lifelong musician-teacher identity per se (Eyre, 2007).

Literature pertaining to individual personalized episodes detailing career musician-teacher life’s journeys appears to be lacking. Given the many ways current musician-teachers engage in their profession, further research would uncover commonalities in what for many has become a portfolio career (Boyle, 2021).

Musician-teacher

“Musician-teacher” references “two shifting positions and contexts in music educators’ professional identities—musician and teacher—that exists in relation to one another in various ways” (Bernard, 2005, p. 10). These shifting positions are often seen as polarizing tensions (Dust, 2006; Eyre, 2007; Lamont, 2017; Pellegrino, 2009), though differing views remain as to the degree of tension, its long-term effects, and its resolution (Ballantyne et al., 2012; Bernard, 2004; Dust, 2006). Yet I see “musician-teacher” as less binary opposition than multi-faceted intertwining of identity facets (Chua & Welch, 2021) that reflect professional, biographical, and personal life experiences—“we teach who we are” (Palmer, 1997, p. 15).

The term “musician-teacher” can encompass a very broad range of situations, training, and affiliations. Studio music teachers (such as composers or performers) may or may not have teaching qualifications or formal music education training. School teachers may earn income by performing, while performers teach students to supplement their income. Musician-teachers may be entrepreneurs for concerts. With such a diverse range of potential careers, I state mine below to provide focus for the ensuing discussion.

Personal context as validation for this article

I have worked as an instrumental studio teacher, freelance professional orchestral musician, a full-time classroom music teacher, taught at tertiary level, managed music-related departments, and worked in Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Holland, and China. For the Association of Music in International Schools (AMIS) I have been a Board member, conductor, chaperone, and attendee. The differing educational, social, cultural, and musical contexts Boyle (2021) might call a “portfolio” career reflect slowly evolving changes in identity, and autoethnography is a valuable tool to examine this career.

Research approach

I use the qualitative research method of autoethnography to engage personal narrative that elicits “the life experiences and performances of a person” (Denzin, 2014, p. 1). In looking inward to personal experience and outward to cultural experience (Ellis et al., 2011), I connect self to culture (Ellis & Adams, 2014), using hindsight to view the past from the present (Bruner, 1991; Ellis et al., 2011). As both author and subject, I use vignettes to drive research through critical self-reflection, documenting changes in values, perceptions, and assimilations that influence my growth as a musician-educator. The stories reflect meaningful experiences—“epiphanies”—that linger and remain (Denzin, 2014) that in turn can impact classroom practice (Bogiannidis et al., 2017; Burnard, 2012; Hogan, 2004; Measor, 1985; Rogers et al., 2018; Yacek & Gary, 2020). Such epiphanies are a form of selective recollection of events and the personal, confessional vulnerability of emotion that entwines each story (Van Maanen, 2011). Their use negates the concept of verifiable truth (Chang, 2008; Méndez, 2014; Wall, 2006) to explore the individualized meaning of lived experience, with its fluidity, negotiability, and its ability to “empower, transform, and to emphasize” (Bochner, 2018, p. 363).

The driving question was: How does a life-long career modulate the identity of a musician-teacher? I collected data through autobiographical narratives and their interpretations. I analyzed my written data using the tenets of thematic analysis to develop and refine themes of change, conflict, and resolution in my career life (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Maguire & Delahunt, 2017).

I also used artifacts to trigger memory. Memories are capricious things—they appear as they will. Yet memories can be prompted by cards, conversations, photos, concert programs, or musical instruments (Bogiannidis et al., 2017), opening “rivulets” to the past, that with reflexive thought become “rivers of musical experience” (Baker, 2005; Burnard, 2012; Chua, 2018). Several items were valuable here: my old recorder; my first solo performance music; a musical score; my concert dress; two Wayang Kulit. These objects presented icons of my musician-teacher journey that led to epiphanic “bends in the river.” I also used Chua’s (2018) seven frames of reference to expose interrelationships and multiplicities of my existence over a constructed, “temporary” life (Harter et al., 1997). Chua’s facets included ethical self, self-efficacy, self-concept and possible-self, emotional self, musical self, teaching self, and we-self. These seven facets were seen as interconnected and integrated, which in turn developed my self-perception in diverse environments (Lamont, 2017). As I created those “rivers of musical experience” I began to explore rhizomatic “threads” as a metaphor of multiplicities connected to other multiplicities (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). I then selected epiphanies reflecting “performing” and “teaching” for this article. Used chronologically, these selections showed the changing nature of my personal experience, the varying emphasis moving from performing to teaching, then finding a balance between them.

Vignettes

Adolescence

I’m 16 years old, in Year 10, and I just found my “sweet spot.” Our school’s first job fair occurred recently, and, like all the other students, I sauntered around the visiting booths looking at my potential future—not an exciting prospect at all. My working-class background precluded tertiary education (none of my family or relatives had done so), and, anyway, I didn’t study and didn’t see any point in it. White-collar (middle-class?) jobs abounded in that job fair, and I felt no connection at all. At least now I worked out what I didn’t want to do with my life—any jobs listed in that job fair. But now I am grateful to that fair because I realize just how much I love music. Any money I spend is on rock music records. I talk incessantly with my friends about music. I learn the violin in group violin lessons and have done so for over 5 years, liking the lessons but hating the practice. I partitioned violin playing from the emotional power of listening to rock music, but violin was always somewhere “in the background.”

The epiphany of music as “home” was both a relief and a reassessment—a focus for a life worth living. It was explosive, powerful, and energizing. My initial response was to excitedly go home to play music from my childhood on a treble recorder that I still possess after 53 years. This monument to my love of music, together with Schubert’s “Trout” found in an ABC songbook, was for me the beginning of my love of playing instrumental music. It brought forth such joy. As an adult reviewing my past, the epiphanic realization of a future in music was that first ’bend in the river’, the first fundamental change I both recognized and accepted. Music was always there, but until that job fair prompted me, I had not been aware of it.

I’m now 18 years old, different to the person I was just 2 years ago. I had to change my life around, to study, and work hard to turn this passion into a career. My life is now in “overdrive,” away from staring at the tv or not doing homework, to working as I had never done before (literally). Over the summer vacation I summarized the two main textbooks for two subjects—economics and geography—to free up time for music in Year 12. An Aunty gave me her old violin, so I jettisoned the “Skylark” beginner instrument my parents bought me back in Grade Six. I practice 3 hours each day now, take one-to-one violin lessons, and take theory classes weekly at the Conservatorium (both costs being financially difficult for my family). I hadn’t practiced consistently before, so these changes are tough but fulfilling. I need to grow technically, develop my self-discipline, and work out a more methodical, analytical way to practice. I play classical music weekly now in a community orchestra every Tuesday evening, and the Conservatorium students attending really motivate me to go to college. My “dream” is performing but my skill levels are far too low for a performance course. But a joint music education course with the Conservatorium and local teacher’s college would get me a later entry into a performance course after more practice, and it has a scholarship offer as well.

I’m 21 completing both a general classroom teaching qualification and the performance course. College life is so awesome. I spend almost all my time on music. Finding a piano score to the musical Lightshine (Red, 1972) brought its initial title song flooding into my memory. A friend organized me to buy my first ever black shirt for the pit orchestra, and memories of traveling by bus to play at a local Catholic school resounded with the catchy opening chorus.

My most inspiring moments are watching the advanced students perform and listening to the teachers and fellow students “talk music.” Most of my colleagues are education majors, but the Conservatorium performance stream highlights the “Canon” of great (European) composers and their compositions. I adore that “canon” and immerse myself in its music. I just do not see myself as a general classroom teacher. I much prefer the practice room, or the disciplined sound-and-silence of a rehearsal or performance, or books, or libraries.

Performance decade

I’m 27 years old in 1986. I’m looking at a photograph of me standing in the back garden of my parent’s house in concert clothing with my viola. I traveled to my hometown to perform with an orchestra, and my parents came to the concert. Their quiet pride was so special, warm, and loving—such a strong reinforcement of my own love both for them and for the opportunities they gave for me to grow enough to perform.

Weeks before this special time, I’m sitting on a stage in the Domain in Sydney, performing for 100,000 people in a concert ending with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. As the cannons ring out, I notice the cellists blocking their ears with cotton wool. At least they are prepared because I am emphatically not. I literally bounce off my chair at the first cannon explosions. But here I am, on stage, performing, and living my “dream.” The epiphany—a triumphant “I made it!” I have a 3 month contract to perform with a symphony orchestra in an Australian capital and have temporarily taken leave from a violin teaching job in a small country town in New South Wales. Playing with the above-mentioned orchestra reinforces my musician identity and, that yes, teaching classroom music was simply not for me. I could be a classroom teacher but choose not to do so (to the detriment of my finances). I have time to practice the viola and continue to grow as a musician. I continue taking lessons, practice assiduously, learn repertoire.

Teaching instrumental music is now a passion. I enjoy teaching the violin a lot, and yet it doesn’t feel so much like teaching as helping and sharing music. To me, teaching the violin is a wonderful way to connect with the actual process of making music. Whether “Twinkle, Twinkle. . .” or something much harder, performing music is the essential component. How to create and shape meaning into sounds. As my “now” self I recognize with gratitude this time of growth.

The thirties—identity confusion

I’m 34 in 1993 and currently confronting a musician-teacher identity crisis, a memory prompted by the program of a concert I performed that year. But first—I married and moved to a capital city so my bride and I could live in the same place. I now teach violin and viola in a school (not general classroom music), so this is a very comfortable “fit.” I also teach the matriculation music subject at year 12 level for music, and this is very embedded in music knowledge and performance—both of interest to me. I am also “freelancing” as a violist, and though I teach in a school my identity is securely fastened to being a performer. The conflict began recently with a comment made by another player—“You shouldn’t be here. You’re a music teacher, not a player.” Becoming a schoolteacher meant some performing colleagues felt I should not be playing, as this was the province of performers who did some teaching, not teachers who did some performing. This painful comment was a direct afront to my self-concept. However, the comment had validity, too. As a full-time teacher, the decline of performing skills due to lack of practice time is a disturbing realization and a difficult transition to face. Time was so limited. I teach full-time, have 10 hours of private students, freelance perform, am completing a Master of Education degree and had a family. As a late starter in playing an instrument, I could not afford to lose the skills I had, so my slowly declining performance skills and callous comments from some colleagues force me to confront a difficult question—“Who am I now?”

The forties—cultural change impacting self-concept

Realizing a dream to teach internationally, I relocated to West Java, Indonesia with my pregnant wife and our 3 year-old son. I am one of two violin/viola teachers at a private school of very wealthy Javanese families, the school offering both Western and Indonesian music. A pair of Wayang Kulit (shadow puppets) bought in Jogjakarta brought forth memories of rehearsing the school orchestra, where my teaching prejudices and lack of cultural understanding created conflict. I believed Western music was to be played with emotion and passion. Teachers and students should talk and share their ideas. But change cultures and the old rules simply don’t apply. The Javanese students found it hard to understand my Australian accent (“he’s so Australian” was one teacher comment), my humor, my instructions. And no matter how hard I tried, the students played the music emotionally flat and subdued. This made absolutely no sense to me. Additionally, students inevitably shied away from giving answers, and like the many differing Asian classrooms I have now taught in, students were reluctant to embarrass themselves by speaking out. After several attempts to understand the students (including one-on-one conversations with students and staff), a student drew me aside after rehearsal and explained that the Javanese are not “born but made” through a childhood of strict enculturation that involved controlling emotion within a small range. An example—a colleague attended his father’s funeral in East Java. When he returned, he simply said “My father is died.” A gentle smile. No expression of sad emotion—a situation encountered by Geertz (2000), as he similarly faced the inner and outer lives of Javanese that I was also experiencing decades later. So, the student explained that I should refrain from incessantly expecting the music to be played with emotion—it clashed with their training and their cultural essence. During this time, the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) sent examiners to Indonesia. Our teachers sat and explained to each examiner not to expect overtly emotional behavior from our Javanese students—it was simply not part of their cultural expression. This was one of many confronting but ultimately enriching lessons learned as I taught in Asia and Europe over the next 20 years, again grateful for the many diverse experiences that informed my music-making and teaching.

Commentary

I maintain that, despite some conflict, the essence of musician-teacher identity is not conflict but negotiation, re-negotiation, adjustment, and evolution that changes and develops over a lifetime (Hallam, 2017). These vignettes focused on the two “rivers” of performing, teaching and their interrelations, their differing aspects of identity.

My first epiphany occurred during adolescence. Erikson (1982) posits that adolescence is the formative moment for identity creation, with musical identity development in pre-adolescence and adolescence seen as pivotal to forming future expectations and potential involvements in music (Barrett, 2017; Bernard, 2005; Davidson & Burland, 2006; Evans & McPherson, 2017; Gardikiotis & Baltzis, 2012; Hargreaves & Marshall, 2003; Lamont, 2017; Miranda, 2013; Symonds et al., 2017), and indeed, stringed music students usually have several years of intense training prior to formal college music studies (Freer & Bennett, 2012; Guttiérrez & Jaramillo, 2014). This training is pivotal in forming student identity, and the learning context motivates the desire to perform music (Hargreaves et al., 2007; Sloboda & Howe, 1991). My career path’s genesis began during adolescence through learning violin within the Western classical tradition, which in turn generated a “possible self” instigated through an epiphany of insight, triggering a life-long career. Such a career would mean a move from a working-class ethic to one of the middle-class, an understanding I did not yet comprehend.

Teacher training was far less important to me than the Conservatorium experience, the latter “feeding into” the construction of my own intentions, beliefs, and future desires. Music “in and of itself” held sway, as did the idea that performing music was the music itself, with education playing around the edges. The TIME project in England referenced similar aspirations, noting that whilst music students pursuing a career in education tended to which emphasize the personal, social, and communicative aspects of the benefits of music, the non-education students valued intrinsic value of music as I did (Hargreaves et al., 2007). The negative stereotype of the “lesser” classroom music teacher was not as prominent at our institution, though I did see it elsewhere. The performing cultures of Conservatories at that time (Guttiérrez & Jaramillo, 2014), and the hierarchical nature of performance based on a “master” musician passing on knowledge led to the belief that performance majors have more musical “credibility” and that teacher trainees could be viewed as “failed musicians” or a “backup” plan for the not-so-gifted, reinforcing a hierarchy maintaining a lower status for music education students (Boyle, 2021; Freer & Bennett, 2012). As a student of both performance and education, I didn’t see the general music classroom as lesser, simply not for me. So, my preference directed me away from classroom teaching. I thrived on the “Canon” of great (Western) composers and their compositions, and the Conservatorium emphasized this. In my first year at “Concert Practice” class, a guitarist performed a popular movie song. He was castigated publicly by the convenor for performing “pop” music, and to not bring “that” music to class again. Another time the same convenor in a choir rehearsal of a Bach cantata criticized the Beatles, dismissing their music as having no value compared to Bach, and no place at our institution. These memories certainly influenced my understanding of what was acceptable in performance and gave clear indication of direction in learning as well. As an instrumental student, I was deeply influenced by my viola teacher of 3 years—a master violist performer who was inspirational to me, as was his other students. Also influential were symphony orchestra visits to my hometown each year when I was a high school student, and I imagined being able to perform with them. This imagined self indeed did occur at age 26. So, acculturation and role models influenced and strengthened my desire to perform (Hargreaves & Marshall, 2003), and dampened the desire to teach classroom music.

The theme of performance as dominant identity fully established in my 20s. I performed as much as I could, and thoroughly reveled in each experience. There was something “spiritual” about being “in the sound,” hearing ideas unfold over time with textures and colors composers explored. Yet, much of my income came from studio teaching violin and viola (Boyle, 2021; Freer & Bennett, 2012). Yet here, teaching instrumental music was a modification of performing through attending “the music itself,” a way of preserving my performing identity as much as sharing music. The instrumental teaching contexts for so many musician-teachers—from individual tutoring to ensemble teaching—recognize the importance of multiple career pathways (Baker, 2005; Ballantyne et al., 2012; Bennett, 2008; Boyle, 2021; Chua & Welch, 2021; Davidson & Burland, 2006; Draves, 2021; Hargreaves & Marshall, 2003; Natale-Abramo, 2014; Pellegrino, 2009), and for me the pathway was less about being a teacher than a musician sharing music and in being a help to others.

Several major changes occurred in my 30s. The first was an epiphany that happened some months before 1990. I was getting married, and I realized “like a thunderbolt” the need to solidify a secure income in one location, so I joined a large private K-12 school as a full-time employee, teaching violin and viola. Certainly, this change brought financial security, locational stability, and solid employment. I could also keep tutoring music outside the general classroom and freelancing as a violist as well. As Freer and Bennett (2012) state, though, “The irony here is that whilst self-definition as a musician is an integral part of professional identity, the time-intensive pathway toward success as a pedagogue and/or school educator can present an enormous barrier to sustaining the musician’s performance practice” (p. 266). That is, the more a teacher, the less a performer, and the resultant dissonance between my subjective identity and the views of others (Bennett, 2008) meant a fundamental adjustment of my identity from musician to teacher (+musician), and ironically, I became the “failed musician,” the one with the “back-up plan,” existing in the very place I had hoped to avoid. Such a re-think was not the product of an epiphany, but rather a “slow-burn” of gradual realization, and the pain of feeling failure.

My 40s relates to “double culture shock” adjustment (Austin, 2007) to an unfamiliar culture (Indonesia), a very different set of student abilities, cultural expectations, a foreign curriculum, and a large dose of misunderstanding. Unfamiliarity with local customs and “normal” classroom behavior was initially challenging, creating confusion, anxiety, and a feeling of helplessness. Personal/professional change was inevitable and developed into a process of learning about the host culture and “growing” a sense of cultural acceptance leading to the development of strategies to teach more effectively. Such cultural dislocations and reconciliations are part of the international experience (e.g. Ma et al., 2019), and an experience I continued as an ensemble conductor in American international schools in Singapore, The Netherlands and now China. In these latter positions, teaching and performing continue to be intertwined within an evolutionary development through conducting beginner music to standard orchestral repertoire including concertos and symphonies. As a conductor, I find that I am increasingly collaborative, moving from the “master-student” model that I began with. Collaboration becomes a sharing, not a teaching, so conducting our school symphony orchestra or teaching its string orchestra classes is both a satisfying way to be a musician-teacher, and an exultant way to conclude a career.

Final comments

Little research appears to have explored either the autoethnographic concept of “musician-teacher” as a life-long study, or international teachers per se (Bailey & Cooker, 2019). Vignettes describe the growth and development of my musician-teacher identity, including international teaching as a life-changing component of this autoethnography. “Musician-teacher” is a fluid concept, involving changing roles, environments, and identity emphases over a lifetime, and three aspects could be explored in more depth: how instrumental teachers adapt their musicking over decades, adjusting their professional and personal identities to accommodate change in a “portfolio” form of career; cultural impact on teacher international music teacher identity as they enter unfamiliar social/cultural settings; and social movement from the working class to middle class exemplified through the adoption of music and teaching.

The musical-educational world is a different place now to when I began my career, and Covid-19 is powerfully altering the lives of teachers and performers internationally. This article is a timely and needed catalyst for others to reflect on their own experiences as they look to their futures in such a time of such unprecedented change. My hope is that these stories replenish memories and prompt reflection for fellow musician-teachers continuing their career pathway. We navigate multiple cultures as we perform or teach people from diverse cultural, religious or political backgrounds (I think, e.g. of the cultural diversity of today’s Australian education system). As music itself is an impactful cultural phenomenon found across the globe, we as musician-teachers are privileged to share our own unique and personal musical culture in the lives of others. I hope this article gives an empowering opportunity for readers to replenish themselves, a task autoethnographic narratives should do.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Darrell Townshend

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Autoethnographic narrative as a lens on life-long musician-teacher identity

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

“Life-long” and career cycle

Musician-teacher

Personal context as validation for this article

Research approach

Vignettes

Adolescence

Performance decade

The thirties—identity confusion

The forties—cultural change impacting self-concept

Commentary

Final comments

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

References