For over 30 years, I have had the tremendous privilege of playing trumpet for audiences around the world.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that making New Year’s resolutions is a recent phenomenon — perhaps started by some 1970s ad campaign. But no.

Seemingly overnight in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept through our world, leaving us isolated at home and plagued with fear and uncertainty about the future.

A toddler kicking and screaming in the middle of the produce section of the grocery store is not cute. But we understand that children are still developing.

“I’m just so overwhelmed.” Bet you’ve heard — or said — that lately. Life sometimes feels like bailing water from a leaky rowboat.

To paraphrase English poet John Donne, no man or woman is an island. He wrote that we are all “a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

I approach teaching like a coach would their sports team. As music educators, we must always remind ourselves that music is an activity — it is an ACTIVE pastime for students. 

Flexibility. Focus. Creativity. And so many things to keep moving. Let’s face it: Music educators are consummate jugglers.

Michael Stone has experienced interpersonal conflicts from both sides of the podium. 

“The world of musicians is small,” says Larry Williams, a French horn performer and teacher. 

"Being a 21st century artist is different than when I went to school,” says Larry Williams, a French horn performer and teacher. 

Two of the most beneficial tools to help students learn music more quickly and with a higher level of quality are slow practice and gradual increases of music difficulty.

Inclusion is at the heart of United Sound, a peer mentoring program that provides musical performance experiences for students with special needs (called New Musicians). 

Being a first-year music teacher is challenging. A big hurdle is applying the knowledge you gained during your formal education while building practical knowledge, which is usually learned on-the-fly once you enter the workforce.

The beginning of the school year is a good time for music educators to create a better routine for good mental health for themselves and their students.

When it comes to teaching and/or performing in the field of music, almost everyone has or will have to deal with “burnout,” which is a mental collapse due to stress.