The French Revolution & Amazon Prime
I have been on a streak. Not streaking - get your mind out of the gutter. I have been on a writing streak. If I do say so myself, since coming back in August, I have been really pleased with my weekly content. It is interesting, insightful (I think), and (hopefully) thought-provoking. Eight straight weeks of delivering on the promise.
That streak ends today.
It's Tuesday afternoon. It's 1:30 p.m. I have consumed enough coffee to make Mr. Coffee nervous. I have been staring at this computer screen for the better part of two days, waiting for an epiphany. Dare I say, patiently waiting for an idea to arrive. Something insightful. Something pithy. Something poignant. Heck, at this point I would settle for mildly interesting. But alas…nothing.
It's not for lack of effort. I have started and deleted at least ten different versions of this article.
I thought about writing about the education revolution happening in France. I actually did some research. I opened tabs. I had thoughts. Then I decided I didn't have enoughthoughts and there was not enough of a crossover into music. At least one I could flesh out.
I briefly considered writing about Amazon Prime Days (what would you Prime deliver to your band room if it were on sale and you had the budget?). That's when I knew I was reaching. Apparently I am at the point where I am combining my music education profession with my personal ambition to save 31% on a cordless leaf blower.
If you know me, you know I love me a leaf blower. No, seriously, I use it almost every day.
(Editor's note: Scott sure has a lot to say about having nothing to say.)
I kept waiting for the big idea to arrive, and usually, it does. Eventually there's a story, a conversation, a student, a teacher, an observation from an airplane seat, or some completely unrelated thought that somehow turns into something worth sharing.
But not today. No last-minute epiphanies are coming. No game-saving witty remarks. No finely crafted insights. Just me, a blinking cursor, and the realization that perhaps this is one of those days when nothing particularly remarkable is going to happen.
And maybe that's worth talking about.
Because we have those days in the band room too; days where it feels like we didn't get anything meaningful done. Not every rehearsal is going to be a musical epiphany, the trumpets suddenly play in tune, and the clarinets remember there is, in fact, a key signature. Not every rehearsal ends with goosebumps or with the percussion section finding their music. Not every student has a breakthrough. Not every Tuesday changes a life. Sometimes you spend 45 minutes fixing eight measures and, when the bell rings, you're not entirely certain you actually fixed them. Sometimes you leave rehearsal thinking, Did we accomplish anything today?
I think we put too much pressure on ourselves to manufacture magic every day. We are teachers, so we want breakthroughs. We want evidence that something we said or did fixed something wrong (or at least made it less wrong). We want the kid who couldn't play it yesterday to suddenly play it today. We want the rehearsal where everyone locks in, the room changes, the hair on our arms stands up, and everybody knows something special just happened.
Those days are wonderful. They are also rare. Most of teaching—and, if we're being honest, most of life—happens somewhere between spectacular and disastrous.
I call them needle days.
The needle moved. Maybe not much, and maybe not for every student. But the needle did move.
Maybe today the articulation got a little cleaner. Maybe one student finally understood the rhythm. Maybe you cleaned one drill set. Maybe you finally got through measure 72 without stopping. Maybe the ensemble isn't good yet, but it is slightly less not goodthan it was yesterday. That counts. In fact, I'm beginning to think that counts for a lot.
We tend to celebrate breakthroughs while ignoring the tiny movements that made them possible. But the magical rehearsal is rarely magical because of what happened that day. It is magical because of what happened during the twenty ordinary rehearsals before it.
The counting. The tuning. The repetition. The reminders. The pencil marks. The "one more time from 37." The days when nobody left inspired but everybody left one millimeter better than when they walked in.
And as teachers, we have needle days too. Some (most) days you are inspiring, hilarious, energetic, and completely on top of your game. And there are days when you have been awake since 4:30 a.m., it takes two hours to accomplish twenty minutes of work, incoming emails outnumber outgoing ones, and your to-do list seems to reproduce when you aren't looking.
Like me, you drink an entire pot of coffee and still resemble a tortoise more than a hare. You aren't changing the world today. You're just trying to answer the email, teach the class, get through rehearsal, and maybe remember who you gave your keys to.
That's okay.
I wonder how much kinder we would be to ourselves if we stopped measuring every day against our best day.
Maybe today doesn't need to be transformational.
Maybe today just needs to move the needle. One student. One measure. One conversation. One email. One tiny thing in a slightly better place than it was yesterday. We tell our students that improvement is incremental, that mastery takes time, that mistakes are part of learning—and then somehow expect ourselves to operate at peak performance every waking moment.
So if today was one of THOSE days, I'm with you. Mine was too. I didn't have an epiphany. I didn't solve the problems facing music education. And I didn't have any coffee (see the post script).
But, I was smart enough not to write the definitive treatise on the French education revolution. And, I didn't even buy that leaf blower (as tempting as it was). But I sat down. I stared at the screen and I kept trying. And eventually I wrote this.
Consider the needle moved, even if the streak is over.
Sometimes that has to be enough.
Besides, I'm not worried.
TOMORROW'S GONNA BE A BANGER. I can just feel it!
Because here's the thing about needle days: you don't always realize what they were building until the needle finally moves far enough for you to notice.
Have a great week,
Scott
p.s. On the EXACT days of Amazon Prime Days, my Roomba, electric mop, coffee maker, and Apple HomePod all stopped working. All in one day. Coincidence? I think not.
p.p.s My leaf blower is still going strong!