Crafting a Music Career Part 4: Teaching High School

This series is divided into five parts:

Part 1 – Preface: My Strange Path Through the Music World
Part 2 – Building My Freelance Career
Part 3 – How Sinking My Freelance Career Helped Me
Part 4 – Teaching High School (what you’re reading)
Part 5 – Building My Portfolio Career

JUMP TO A SECTION OF THIS POST:

1. Jumping into the Music Education World
2. Job No. 1 – Orchestra/Band Assistant Director
3. Discovering My Dream Job
4. Job No. 2 – Orchestra Assistant Director and Electronic Music Teacher
5. Job No. 3 – Director of Orchestras
6. My Wife’s Shocking News
7. Big Life Decisions

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Jumping into the Music Education World

So I decided to go into music education. What a wild ride!

I was entering this new profession at an older age (33) than most, and with a fair amount of attitude/expectation. I decided that If I was going to do this education path, I was going to crush it. I wanted to get the “Chicago Symphony” of education jobs.

Fortunately, I was in an area (suburban Chicago) with outstanding orchestra programs. Lots of great jobs. The only problem was that these jobs were all filled with qualified educators!

With a bit of horror, I realized that my qualifications as a performer didn’t amount to a hill of beans for people in the education world. That’s not exactly true, but it was close.

Jobs opened up and I sent off my materials.

No response whatsoever.

I realized that, even though I’d done a lot professionally in performance and at the university level (not to mention the online presence I’d built), my resume was that of a new teacher with no experience. Those qualifications didn’t matter to administrators.

I was despondent. All that time and money invested, only to discover that I was a novice teacher in this new world.

So what happened?

Looking back on it, it seems like a logical progression for someone like me, though it felt like a series of random occurrences while it was happening.

Isn’t that how life works, though?

To me, it’s all about giving it your all and keeping those antennae up for the next right opportunity.

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Job No. 1 – Orchestra/Band Assistant Director

One of my friends from college was the director of a strong suburban high school orchestra program. I had been teaching bass there for a decade. It was like home base for me in terms of private teaching. I’d had many successful bass students graduate from the school. I even did my student teaching at this school!

It just so happened that a part-time job (with benefits) opened up in the music department. It was a great way to get my feet wet in the “high-end” (apologies for the terminology–I’m not sure of a better term) world of music education.

In this job, I helped out with the orchestra program, co-directing the middle orchestra, plus doing band and orchestra sectionals.

These music teachers were good. I realized that I had stumbled upon an incredible opportunity. I was working alongside the best in the business. What could I learn from this experience? How could I maximize this opportunity?

I began to show up at 7 am every day even though I wasn’t on the clock until 10 am. I would practice violin for an hour each day, getting my chops better for my sectionals.

I worked on my conducting all the time.

I read books, watched videos, and observed my fellow music teachers. I sat in on every conducting clinic I could find.

Score study became a part of my daily life. I worked on my transpositions. Could I see and identify harmonic progressions? Principal and secondary themes? Could I fix balance and blend? Identify problems?

I had never spent time conducting a large group.

• Could I motivate them?
• Keep them engaged?
• Rehearse them effectively?

I began recording rehearsals and taking notes while listening back. Was I communicating effectively? Was I clear? Was I addressing what really needed addressing?

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Discovering My Dream Job

I began attending the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic.  This event is like the Super Bowl for school ensembles.  Hearing the best groups in the country perform was incredibly inspiring.

Would I ever conduct at this event? That would be a dream come true.

The school at which I worked had performed with both their band and orchestra at Midwest. This was a really big deal.

I vividly recall seeing the other high school orchestra in our district perform. I was blown away.  Here’s a bit of their performance at Midwest:

This seemed like the ultimate orchestra job. Never in a million years did I think that I’d end up being the orchestra director at that very school only a few years later!

My skills were improving in all areas as a music educator and as an orchestra director. I also had a couple years of experience in a strong program on my resume.

Here’s the progression so far:

• I had a lot of professional music experience but no public education experience.
• This was not appealing to employers.
• A program who knew me and understood what my experience would bring to their program hired me (this way my big break for my education career).
• Now I had experience in a strong program. This is when my professional experience started to differentiate me.

How I was doing financially:

• High school job: $43,000 (not bad for a part-time gig!)
• Private students: $10,000
• DePaul University: $8000
• Gigs: $15,000
• TOTAL: $76,000

I kept up a lot of my freelance work plus most of my private bass studio while I taught at this first job. That made for some super-long days, and I was still working seven days a week most of the time.

Keeping up the blog and podcast proved to be impossible for me. The demands on my time were enormous with the high school job, and my head just wasn’t in that game anymore. I was focused on building skills in this new world and seeing how far I could go.

Average work hours: 60-80 per week

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Job No. 2 – Orchestra Assistant Director and Electronic Music Teacher

Another suburban Chicago program expressed interest in me for an upcoming opening. This was a competitive full-time opening. The combination of teaching at the previous school plus my professional music resume put me over the top for that job.

There would have been zero chance of me getting this job without both the strong educational job I’d had plus my professional music experience.

Evolving as a Conductor

This job gave me a chance to come into my own as a conductor, and it placed more responsibility on me administratively. The hours were longer but the pay was higher. As a result, I scaled back my freelancing and stopped teaching privately except for my DePaul students.

I also started to get more gigs as a guest conductor. I really enjoyed the conducting gigs and said yes to pretty much opportunity. As a result, more and more conducting gigs came in.

Teaching Electronic Music

I also got the chance to grow and develop a course in electronic dance music. This became a totally unexpected passion of mine, and I spent at least three hours a day making beats, creating virtual instruments, and exploring sonic textures.

Here’s a link to a great article from the school paper about the electronic music program that we were developing.

I spent two years in this job. The electronic music experience was great, and I built up a large program. I was getting good experience in the orchestra job, but I was the assistant director and it was clear that his would be my role long-term.

I wasn’t looking for a new job, but it was announced that the orchestra position at the other high school in my old district (the one that played Midwest) would be open.

This would be my dream job. I got my materials in on day one. It was another highly competitive audition experience, but I got the job.

I was on cloud nine. I began planning a trip to Spain for the following year. We hired an orchestra assistant for my new job. I spent all my free time picking out repertoire for the following year, watching old videos of performances from this school, and spending time at the school getting to know the students.

How I was doing financially:

• High school job: $77,000 plus stipends = $83,000
• DePaul University: $8000
• Gigs: $8000
• TOTAL: $99,000

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Job No. 3 – Director of Orchestras

This job really was a dream come true. Maybe it’s a cheesy comparison, but for me getting this job was like getting into the Chicago Symphony. I put all my energy and enthusiasm this exciting new role.

That I’d be filling big shoes was an understatement! The retiring director was one of those names that everyone instantly recognizes in the music education world. In fact, after mentioning that I’d be replacing this director, the common response was “big shoes to fill!”

Rules for New Directors

I recall a colleague describing the four ways in which you could walk into a new gig. You were filling the shoes of someone who was:

1. Strong and well-liked.
2. Strong and not well-liked.
3. Not strong and well-liked (the worst one to follow).
4. Not strong and not well-liked.

The strategy for following differs drastically. Fortunately, I was coming into a program with a strong and well-liked director.

Here was my general strategy:

• Observe how the program currently worked.
• Change little or nothing year one.
• Each new year, make one change if needed.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

My strategy at least.

I loved loved loved this job! Sure, the hours were long, and there are certain inevitable frustrations that you’ll encounter in any job. Those were small potatoes, though. You couldn’t ask for a better bunch of colleagues and students.

I saw my life stretch out in front of my eyes.

Unlike the grey freelance existence that I’d seen for myself before, this one seemed bright and full of possibility.

We played cool concerts. I bonded with the kids. We took trips. Worked in clinics. Got ready to go to Spain. All the busy machinations of a strong high school music program were in place.

Here’s a favorite memory from one of our spring pops concerts.  Note my acting appearance in the preview film!

One of the students put all of these visuals together and another student built out all the lighting cues.  Just another example of how awesome these people were.

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My Wife’s Shocking News

My wife found out that she’d be doing four or five years in San Francisco as a radiology resident. This was at the University of California San Francisco, the top radiology program in the country. Pretty cool.

And it was in San Francisco! Also pretty cool. After 39 years spent enduring endless winters, San Francisco seemed like a cool change of pace.

But what about the dream job that I had? These jobs were incredibly difficult to get in any part of the country, and I quickly discovered just how different California was for education than Illinois. Jobs like I had were rare to nonexistent, and I couldn’t find even one job even remotely related to orchestra in the entire Bay Area!

With my high school job, various stipends, DePaul, Elgin Symphony, guest conducting, and other assorted gigs, I was pulling in $120-130K easily.

So in addition to the whole satisfying career thing, there was the financial aspect.

Finally, there was the outrageous cost of living in San Francisco, which at that time was the most expensive place to live in the country.

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Big Life Decisions

I found myself back at that “what do I do with my life?” point:

• Do I move out to San Francisco and try to get an education job? But what education job? There aren’t any that I can find!
• Do I try to go back into freelancing? Nooooo!
• Do I try to go into something else out there? But what? And start over? Really?
• Do I stay in Chicago and do long-distance?

In the end, I decided to stay in Chicago and do long-distance. I know that we could afford to do that with our two salaries, whereas I had real fears about what the Bay Area would bring for me. Also, I couldn’t conceive of giving up my dream job.

At the same time, my new orchestra had been selected to perform at the Midwest Clinic. This was a dream come true in my (albeit short) educational career. I really wanted to play at that event.

So I stayed.

I moved into a bachelor pad back in Evanston.

I prepared my group for the Midwest Clinic.  They rocked it, by the way.  Here’s a recording of them at the event:

I kept myself busy with the myriad extra gigs I had.

I missed my wife dearly.

I got depressed and sat on the couch watching Netflix every night.

I began obsessively running.

I began to think over my options.

What the heck was I going to do?

Next time: Starting from Scratch – How I’m Building my Portfolio Career

Part 1 – Preface: My Strange Path Through the Music World
Part 2 – Building My Freelance Career
Part 3 – How Sinking My Freelance Career Helped Me
Part 4 – Teaching High School (what you’re reading)
Part 5 – Building My Portfolio Career

I hope you enjoyed reading this!  More articles like this can be found on my articles page.