Sometimes I wonder if I've made the right choices in life. Earning a Music Education degree is hard work for very little pay in the long run. It may take me fifteen years to pay off all of the loans I have taken out for college. I probably won't ever own a fancy house, or drive an expensive car. People ask me all the time, "Are you sure you're willing to deal with the stress of teaching and running a band program for such a low salary?" In the course of the last semester I have been through many different situations. Situations that range from trying, to situations that leave me elated. Those experiences have concreted my love for what I am doing.
"Are you sure you're willing to deal with the stress of teaching and running a band program for such a low salary?"
So many times the only benefits people see are the paychecks that you're getting. So many don't understand that feeling. The feeling you get when somebody hands you a piece of music and you play it through with hardly any mistakes the first time you look at it. That feeling you get when you're sitting in the middle of an ensemble and you're surrounded by sound. A sound that you yourself are helping to make. That feeling of being tied together to the people around you. Those people, they all have their own joys and sadness, their own successes and failures, but for this one moment in time, they are one. That feeling when you pick up your horn, or put your hands on the piano, and you know that is where they belong. That feeling the morning after a stressful day when you put the horn to your face and you know it's going to be okay if you can just keep going, if you can just keep playing.
Until you have been in one of those chairs on stage and poured your heart and soul into the music on the stand, you will always see me through the eyes of the audience. The audience that has never had the feeling of the music tearing apart as you play, knowing you can't fix it and the only thing you can do is keep going. The audience that never feels the utter terror that is experienced when at the most crucial moment, you can't remember your name, let alone the string of notes you were supposed to have memorized. The audience that may have heard that missed note, but will never know exactly how ashamed that soloist feels for missing it. The audience that has never felt the utter humiliation to prepare for a piece night and day and then have it ruined by the simple fact that you can't keep your hands from shaking because of the nerves.
Music has given me so many joys and enough sorrows to make me appreciate everything that I do. I have so many teachers that care for me as a person, as well as fellow band members. I am more than just a number, or a theory student, or another trumpet player. The people that I have been blessed to learn from, and with, are truly a family to me.
The things that I have worked for and am working towards are truly worth it to me. I am so blessed to have the experiences that I have had. My goal in life is to be able to give someone else their chance. How can I compare something as trivial as a paycheck to something so incredible as that feeling you get seeing the audience member sit in one of those chairs on the stage for the first time?
