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The Labor of Love

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of presenting and participating in the Michigan Music Conference. Going to Grand Rapids and connecting with others at MMC is always a welcomed reprieve amidst midterms, grading, and shifting gears from Solo & Ensemble back into Festival season. In spite of the packed schedules and sometimes rushed conversations between friends on their way to various sessions, I'm always amazed at how rejuvenated I am to get back into teaching afterwards. This year's conference did not disappoint- loads of great concerts and sessions to provide food for thought as we look ahead to the second half of the school year. I also had the honor to participate in this year's Conductor's Symposium, which was a wonderfully humbling learning experience. (And having the chance to conduct the Western Michigan University Wind Symphony felt a bit like driving a Porsche!)
One of the trends I've noticed in a lot of Professional Development lately, MMC included, is the call and the need to be positive. Many different speakers spoke in depth about the needs to develop positive cultures in our ensembles, creating healthy spaces, and supporting the ever evolving needs of our students.  Now, I am a HUGE advocate for positive classroom cultures and communities. It's one of the many reasons I have been working with my kids on leadership development and student-led projects among other activities. However, I couldn't help but notice that I was walking away from some of these well-intended sessions feeling empty handed. Of course we want to breed positivism in our classrooms... but there is was something missing.

It's so easy to assume that when we love something, that working for it comes naturally. If we love (music, teaching, fill-in-the-blank...), then we will be motivated to work at it and make it better. But the fact of the matter is that the work part, whether or not we love it, is still just that: work. We may be more motivated to see it through, but that doesn't necessarily make the work ahead of us any easier.

Forgetting to honor the work part of our labors of love is both a great injustice to our effort, and depicts a dangerously incomplete picture of what it really means to love. In honoring our work, we honor the process. If we do not honor process, all that's remains are results. Any artist can tell you that a great performance, a great picture, a great sculpture, isn't where the art really happens. The artistry happens in the creation, in the shaping and definition of our craft. Athletes will tell you they aren't made on the field, they are made in the weight room, forged through great efforts of conditioning, nutrition. The real art, real athleticism, real greatness happens in the "Upbeat":
How many times have educators tried to emphasize "you are not your test score"? Well if that's really the case, then we also must make more of an effort to honor the hard work, the studying, the preparation, the conditioning, the practice, the labor parts of love. In this world of immediacy- where you can get an answer to a question in less time that it actually took you to type the question into the Google search field, or can get instant gratification from a game or social media- we must both embrace and demonstrate to our students the value of hard work and the things that do not come instantly, but rather are cultivated over time. That failures are not end results, but stepping stones that help us to mold our greatest successes yet to come.

If there's anything music has taught me, it's that we don't get better by wishing it, looking at it, hoping for it. You get better by DOING it. Love after all is a verb, not a noun. So then, like music, if we want more positivity, more light, more love in our lives, then we must also acknowledge the work ahead and give it everything we've got.









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