Aren’t school music teachers wonderful? They help us explore talents that might otherwise go undiscovered. They introduce us to music that will remain with us for the rest of our lives. They give us a vocabulary and a way to appreciate music that would remain mysterious otherwise. “Pictures at an Exhibition,” “Peter and the Wolf,” and “Carmina Burana” (are memories stirring?) stay with us because we remember them musically and visually. They tell us stories. My Flutophone led to a clarinet and the knowledge of what a musician in an orchestra or band experiences. I am confident many of us share the gratitude I feel for music teachers. For me, I am grateful for my elementary school teacher, Mr. Sundt in junior high, and Mr. Griebenow in high school. How else would I know about musical notation, John Cage, timpani, or Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s version of Mussorgsky’s piano suite? How else would I have learned enough to feel so blessed by music?
