The Unseen Tasks of a Music Teacher

A music teacher's responsibilities are vast and varied throughout the academic year. These include planning lessons, analysing results, organising extra-curricular programs, running concerts, rehearsing with students, attending parents' evenings, and participating in open evenings. The list often seems endless. While many of these tasks are shared with other departments, some are unique to music teachers, such as organising musical productions that require extensive evening and weekend rehearsals.

Despite the challenges, many of these tasks are incredibly rewarding. Some of my fondest memories from my 10 years of teaching music—and even from my earlier years as an instrumentalist—are of working on school musical productions and witnessing students excel on stage.

One particularly memorable example involves a Year 11 student in our latest musical production. She had been quietly working as a stagehand in previous productions, preferring backstage tasks over performing. This time, she approached me and the drama teacher to be considered for the role of lighting engineer. Sitting behind the lighting desk, she opened the manual and diligently began learning which faders controlled which lights, where all the washes were, how to program a chase, and took notes for each scene. Over previous productions, she had been observing us and absorbing everything. None of this was part of the curriculum, but she demonstrated the value of openly completing these jobs and working with students. She then revealed that she had started working with local theatre companies and a sound engineering company to pursue these interests professionally.

To ensure these events run smoothly, there are numerous behind-the-scenes jobs that aren't typically listed in a job description. Some departments are fortunate enough to have a technician or someone with technical expertise to assist with equipment maintenance, setting up amplifiers and drum kits, rigging lights, and configuring PA systems. However, not all departments have access to such staff, and many are run by a single person who must be a jack-of-all-trades.

In my teaching career, I've encountered this situation in two different schools. One of the often unspoken challenges of being a one-person department is maintaining equipment to support a comprehensive program of events, a broad musical curriculum, and a variety of extracurricular opportunities.

Recently, I've had to draw on my own experiences, such as recalling my GCSE Electronics work from 2002, to repair various instruments. It's been fascinating to understand how our instruments work and to encourage students to take better care of them. Teaching them the value of maintenance helps ensure our instruments remain in good working order for much longer.

Tasks range from simple ones, like re-stringing guitars and ukuleles, applying valve oil to trumpets, cleaning and replacing reeds on clarinets and saxophones, and properly coiling cables, to more complex jobs like rewiring guitars and microphones, replacing XLR and jack-to-jack cable ends, re-hairing violin bows, and fabricating replacement parts for pianos.

I've treated each task as a mini-CPD session, learning what's required, finding the necessary tools, and putting new skills into practice. Sharing these tasks with students, especially older ones, promotes sustainability and demonstrates that well-maintained instruments can last a lifetime.

I liken these unspoken tasks to the role of my principal instrument, the bass guitar. When the bass player is on form and all the notes are there, the audience feels the effect even if they don't notice the player directly. However, when the bass is missing, there's a noticeable gap, though some might not immediately identify what's missing.