What Makes Music Education Vital

Music Educators are the torchbearers of creativity!

Music education is vital because it engages the human spirit through creativity, belonging, and shared experience. Music classes and ensembles allow students to sing, play, improvise, and create—and in doing so, to connect more deeply with one another and with themselves.

Last June I retired as a full-time public school music teacher, yet I continue to teach part time. The reason I continue to teach is that I believe music education is vital, and I love seeing students engaged in making music. You might say that I am addicted to teaching music because I cannot stop and I cannot get enough of it.

I have had the privilege of teaching all grade levels from K–12, and I also conduct a community band. I have taught bands, string ensembles, and choirs; I have taught general music at all grade levels, and I have taught music theory as well. For me, the common denominator has always been seeing all students engaged in making music at any age and in any setting.

What makes music education vital is student engagement. I love seeing students progress week after week in learning a repertoire of songs/music, gaining confidence in singing and playing, and learning to improvise and create. As students work on a repertoire, they begin to internalize it—what was once unfamiliar becomes part of their musical vocabulary. If a song is important enough to learn, it is important enough to repeat for several weeks so that students develop assurance and mastery. Once they know the song, I invite them to improvise on its tone set or create new musical phrases or lyrics.

Any student can grow in confidence when songs are revisited and repeated, but if we move from one song to the next too quickly, we engage only the quickest learners. To engage all students, we must rely on more than sight reading alone. When we teach primarily through notation, we favor visual learners and risk leaving others behind. True inclusion in music happens when we reach students through every mode of learning—singing, playing, listening, improvising, and creating.

What makes music education vital is sharing a common repertoire of songs and the ability to make music together—by singing, playing an instrument, or listening with understanding. But there is more. To become truly vital in a school, we must also create—alone and together. When we improvise or write a song, we extend our understanding and embrace our shared identity. Like a snowflake, no two musical creations are the same. To create is to touch the unknown and the possible.

As music educators, we pull whole classes together through the diversity of a shared repertoire. We allow students to create new music that expresses the uniqueness of their school community, and we sing, play, and belong together with one voice. We are the leaders of shared musical experience, and we are the torchbearers of creativity.

Music education is vital because of the possibilities. Yes, it is hard to teach; but we are the lucky ones who look for the breakthroughs.

In any setting and at any age level, we have the possibility to unite a school in song, to assist in the expression of ideas in melody, and to encourage the possible through imagination and creativity.