LETTERS TO A YOUNG ARTIST

In August 2008 I reached out to the members of the Association of Teaching Artists’ listserv asking experienced Teaching Artists to write a letter to a young artist.
 

Members of the ATA Listserv,

 

This afternoon a young artist from New York City called me about how to get started as a Teaching Artist. I receive quite a few e-mails and calls every month from artists from a wide geographical range asking this same question. I always refer the New York State artists to the listserv, to other resources on www.teachingartists.com, to regional Arts In Education networks, to professional development offerings  that come through the listserv. Today I knew the artist was asking for more, along the lines of "Can you support yourself working as a

Teaching Artist," "What is essential to know," and "What is necessary to succeed."

 

Since I greatly admire Rainier Maria Rilke's "Letters To A Young Poet" and have read Jonathan Kozol's "Letters To A Young Teacher," I thought "Letters To A Young Artist" might be exactly the resource for artists who are both considering and starting out on a career path as a Teaching Artist.

 

I am asking you to contribute a letter to "Letters To A Young Artist." I think it would make a great publication, and I certainly know it is needed! Too often we, as Teaching Artists, don't take the time to pass on what we know and what we have learned from our work. Please include personal anecdotes. We have a wealth of experience that so often gets overlooked in the hurly burly of getting jobs, our own work, attending conferences, standards, keeping up with funding, etc.

Letters came in, not enough for a book as I originally envisioned, but a collection.

Here is the collection.

            Dale Davis

 

From MARK DEGARMO

Dear Prospective Teaching Artist,

I understand that you want to pursue teaching artistry. I have worked in this field since, at least, 1986 and still find myself feeling like a pioneer or a Johnny Apple-Seed for dance and the arts. I believe that this work is critical for U.S. society at this time. I have some questions for you to help me understand how to assist you on a practical level. I might offer some advice as a mentor, if these thoughts are helpful and if you want this kind of exchange.

I am interested to know how you are currently thinking about what you do and what you propose doing.

I want to know: how do you understand the origins of your interest? Is this, for you, a gig, a job, a vocation, a career, a calling, or a profession? Is there some other way that you frame your interest and its wellspring?

Why do you want to do this work? Have you ever taught? If so, what did you teach? What were the contexts for your teaching? What led to your sense of satisfaction, dissatisfaction, or some combination thereof with your work?

Have you thought, and what do you know and understand, about your learning style? How do you approach a challenge, or something that is new to you that you want, or have, to learn? How do you describe the way that you go about solving different kinds of problems in different areas of learning and fields or domains of knowledge that you have encountered?

What is your relationship with education and learning? What degrees have you earned? What alternative sources of learning beyond educational institutions have you accessed and used? Are you comfortable in schools? Are you comfortable learning outside of schools, colleges, and universities?

Are you an artist? What inspires you in your creative process? How do you describe imagination? What is creativity? How, when, and why did you discover yourself as an artist?

How do you describe your art form? What are the critical questions, trends, and themes in your field? Who are the major artists, the less well known, and unknown, but important artists in your estimation? How and where do people practice this art? Why do people practice this art whether as amateurs or professionals? What do you know about the intercultural and international practices, domains, and fields through and in which this art appears? How do you answer the previous questions in this paragraph using intercultural and international lenses?

How do you characterize your artistic practice? When, how, and where do you share your practice publicly? Do you have a current or upcoming exhibition or performance?

Can you send me today a videotape or DVD of your performance work, a catalog of an exhibition, or a portfolio and current CV? Can you clearly and simply communicate verbally and in writing your background, previous experience, education, and other indicators of your serious and sustained pursuit of your art form?

How do you situate your work within artistic domain(s) or field(s)? Who are the artistic and other communities in which you create and demonstrate your artistry? Do you participate in community service as an artist? If so, how do you define community service? Why do you participate in it?

Are you as passionate about the possibilities of this opening into teaching artistry as you are about your art itself? What are the qualifications for the opportunities and work that you seek? Which skill sets do you currently possess and can you demonstrate? Which skill sets do you want to achieve? What do you propose as education and training for yourself as educator-artist/teaching artist in order to gain entry to this interdisciplinary domain and emerging field?

What are your goals and objectives? What is the previous learning on which you will build your core competencies as a teaching artist? Who inspired you to teach? Who are your mentors both in your art form and in teaching? 

What is education? How do you envision yourself making a difference in the fields and domains of public and private education?

What is skills-based arts education? What is arts-integrated teaching and learning? What is aesthetic education?

Who are the critical philosophers and writers in the field of arts education? Is there a difference between arts education and arts-in-education? If so, how do you describe these differences and how they impact or might impact your imagined work as a teaching artist? 

I have posed a lot of questions because my learning style is grounded in questioning. An integral part of my artistic practice as a choreographer is to question myself. It follows that I use questions as a Socratic approach to teaching and learning.

I practice “‘arts education’ and ‘arts-in-education’” as an interdisciplinary field. My research in arts learning is within what I have conceptualized as a broader field of experiential education and the arts that encompasses arts education/arts-in-education. I am thinking of experiential education as grounded in and inspired by the work of Dewey, extending back to the guild system of the middle ages to the way that earlier and ancient societies regulated practice of artisans, and a basic way that humans know and understand based in doing.

I am defining interdisciplinarity as bringing together into dynamic interaction, at least two fields or knowledge domains. The rationale for interdisciplinary theory and practice is to a) amplify understanding of critical issues and challenges from multiple perspectives, b) discover new relationships beyond the constructs of individual fields and knowledge domains, and c) construct knowledge. Three fields comprise the interdisciplinary field of arts-in-education you seek to enter, that is, a) the arts; b) the particular arts field you know, understand, and do; and c) education.

Depending on the practitioner, other fields and domains might also contribute to the interdisciplinary dynamic of arts education/arts-in-education, including intercultural communication, cognitive science, and psychology. The other content areas of the PreK-18 curriculum are also potentially present in the teaching artist’s understanding and practice and include: English language arts; social studies; math, science, and technology; health and physical education; and language study other than English. All art forms are potentially involved, such as dance, theater, music, and visual arts, as well as art forms that do not appear explicitly as part of the Learning Standards for the PreK-18 public school curriculum, such as, creative writing; video, film and animation; performance art; circus arts; and dance-theater.

I hope that this line of introductory inquiry has helped you understand my perspective as a practitioner of teaching artistry and as an arts educator/teaching artist. This reflection on interdisciplinarity is fundamental to how I am thinking about some of the theoretical and practical issues that we in the U.S. currently face in the fields of the arts, education, and arts education/arts-in-education.

This letter might seem more like an interview or a lecture than a letter. I had hoped to find an approach to creating a conversation with you. I also wanted to share with you what I believe are critical issues for you to consider as a novice teaching artist. Maybe when we next meet I will have received your reply. When we meet I also want to hear what you have to say in person about your reasons for entering this field and how I might help you.

I want you to know that I cannot necessarily offer you a job. I cannot answer your questions for you. I am really interested to hear how we in this field are approaching formulating and answering the questions that we are passionate to interact with and untangle. I am curious to know how we might collectively raise the level of discourse about learning and teaching within the scope of our work. I am also interested in how we can extend the scope of what we are expected to do in the context of public schools. How do we work well in and out of the box?

My own teachers have included many and varied individuals working in dance, the arts, and education for many years. I build my own practice on their shoulders. I am grateful for their belief in my potential for learning and change. I hope that you and I can inspire learners to become themselves as fully and fearlessly as possible. I hope that our learners can find ways to act well in the world.

I look forward to your response.

With best wishes for your every success,

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From NICK JAFFE

I've found that having some instruments and amps around is pretty key, even with kids who are primarily interested in sampler-based production.  The availability of live instrumentation adds all sorts of musical and technical dimensions, and the kids really gravitate to the performance possibilities too, even kids with no prior training.

Multipurpose is ideal--leads to interesting work. I'm sure you'll find what works best for you in terms of curriculum.  For me, working with kids from 4-18 years old, I found that what worked best in most cases was combining a little technical/theoretical teaching with a little musical/aesthetic training and discussion and a lot of entirely student-driven production work, right from day one. 

Kids are very good at absorbing pretty complex technical and musical skills on the fly, if they are interested in the work and need the skills to achieve the artistic outcome they've envisioned.  So a hypothetical 2-hour studio session might look like this:

10 minutes -- Kids, or self-selected kid "studio manager" might fire up the gear.  The rest of us might sit around and bull.

15-20 minutes -- Straight up lecture demonstration on a technical or musical topic.  Kids encouraged to take notes, but not required to.  Topic might be anything from how to coil a cable to binary math, or wave mechanics, notation, simple music theory issues, (depends on age, interests, teacher expertise, etc.).  Discussion, questions and argument strongly encouraged.  The vibe is very de-schooled---the point isn't to learn this to meet some state standard or prepare for some test, but to learn it because a) it's cool and interesting and b) it's  useful.

10-15 minutes -- Some sort of musical discussion.  We might listen to something (familiar or unfamiliar music, student work in progress, whatever) and talk about it from an engineering standpoint, or a musical standpoint.  Strong opinions and deep discussion encouraged!

1 hour and 15 minutes -- Production work.  Kids can work individually or in groups.  My role is primarily as tech support and artistic provocateur.  I often hang out OUTSIDE the studio during this time so the kids are really forced to run things by themselves.  Some kids might be heavy into tracking or sequencing, others might be writing, others might be sitting in the corner and watching/critiquing/hating.  All of this is cool.  The only rules are:  treat the gear well; don't be an asshole; don't get in the way of the work.  There is zero tolerance for censorship of any kind.  I might argue with kids about the political implications of some lyrics or something, or even refuse to participate in something I find really objectionable (it’s never come to that) but I don't place limits on expression. 

The issue of the school's rules, culture, and my job security are dealt with openly, but at the distribution phase--some work is for some audiences and some is for others.  Kids totally get this.  If the school needs a certain type of work to be produced for particular purposes or for show, we're honest about that, and it becomes similar to working in a jingle house (for ads)--the kids are set with the task of finding ways to creatively address the particular challenge.  But, the emphasis is on original, innovative work that the students want to make.  I often tell them that if less than 50% of their music is incomprehensible to me they are doing MY work not theirs.

So, in practice there are a million variations on this type of sequence, and just cause it works for me doesn't mean it should for anyone else.  The bottom line is that, if the kids are working on music that matters to them, and they have someone around who knows some things, as you do, and is willing to find out about things they don't know, as I'm sure you are, they will learn a great deal and produce some really cool stuff.  They'll also have a blast.

A few thoughts on the gear and curriculum:

Sound sources are more important than inputs:  if you have to choose between a bunch of instruments, some drum machines and a few field recorders, or a really fancy multi-channel interface, go for the former.  Initially most of the work the kids do will be overdub based--one track at a time.

If you can get something like Acid, Reason, or Fruityloops (the demo is free and does everything but save a session--you can mix down to WAV though) on a bunch of beater computers, kids’ laptops etc., that is really useful.  Lots of kids will generate ideas, and even fully worked out songs/pieces just working with a sequencer and an onboard laptop mic.  Tracks can later be dumped to pro-tools for additional work, mastering etc.

Spend more time teaching craft and theory, less time teaching the interface.  Kids KNOW how to figure out software.  Better to spend time teaching them how a mic works, and what EQ is all about than how to work a PT playlist.  You can show them that stuff on the fly or they'll figure it out themselves.

Direct teaching should be clearly organized (topically, sequentially, whatever), but the way the kids work will have very little to do with this initially.  So you'll teach EQ one day, but when they start back working on their projects the kids will ignore EQ entirely because they are fascinated with learning to play the drums, or they've discovered the reverb plug-in etc.  A common mistake that teachers make is to try and make these two types of learning line-up.  There is no reason to, and in fact the attempt to line them up gets in the way of the work and annoys both kid and teacher.  What you teach and what the kids discover will intersect organically in the work itself.  Roll with it.

When a kid asks "What do you want us to do?" the first response should always be, "How should I know what you want to do?"  If your goal is fundamentally to get the kids to frame the creative and technical problems themselves, and to help them solve them on their own terms, they will engage in ways no classroom teacher ever gets to see.  The most problematic kid in the school will turn out to be a genius in the studio.  The work will be incredible and you'll have a blast.  The studio is not a classroom, it's a studio.  The rules SHOULD be different.  Teachers and administrators will need to get used to this idea at first, but if you explain that the kids are learning different skills (innovation, collaboration, self-organization) and they see the engagement that takes place, most will come to understand.  The parents almost always seem to get it right away because their kids come home raving about how much they love the studio.

Don't be afraid if a project the kids start crashes and burns.  Force yourself not to worry about the outcome.  Don't worry if, after three weeks of hard work, the kids decide they want to drop a project and start a different one.   If you do these things, you'll find that, as if by magic, the kids will generate amazing, carefully thought out, and finished work.  The less YOU drive it, the more THEY will make amazing music, and the more they will learn.

The one area where it's ok to be really rigid and almost militaristic is with certain types of craft procedures:  proper handling of gear, proper marking of track sheets and so on.  Kids get this.  If kids want to revise procedure once they know it, great, as long as they can explain the reasoning behind the revision.  We had a kid who didn't say or do anything for the first three weeks of an after-school studio program.  Then one day he walked in with a beautifully drawn floor plan and said, "This studio is set up all wrong--it's really hard for 12 of us to work in here."  He was completely right, except for his monitor placement, which he quickly revised once we explained the problem.  He got the other kids to help him move all the gear and furniture around to work better.  He became de facto Studio Manager, which was fine.  Then he started getting off a bit too much on a power trip, which was fine too because the kids asked if they could fire him.  I said, "Why are you asking me?"  They "fired" him, and then "rehired" him with a changed attitude.  It was very cool, and because I didn't take any of it too seriously, they didn't either.  They learned a little about organization, but mostly they stayed focused on the work.

The earlier you can involve students in the studio the better.  If you know there are a few students who are already interested, invite them to a real meeting where you talk about the gear options, curriculum etc.  If they are really involved, they will be a magnet for other kids.  It's fine for kids to recruit their friends and all, but insist that they also recruit kids they don't like, even kids no one likes.  Explain to them that such a mix is necessary if you want to produce really interesting music.  They won't entirely get this, but they will later when the kid no one likes is the only one who seems to be able to figure out how to get the Mac to recognize the interface, or the only one who can syncopate his foot on the kick drum.  Insist that the group is close to at least half girls/women.  Tell them this mix is also necessary for them to make really good music.  The girls always end up being the best technicians in addition to being great musicians.  They'll end up teaching the boys.

Do not, under any circumstances let the school use participation in your program as a reward for anything, or deny participation as a punishment.  This is a recipe for pedagogical, musical, and cultural disaster, and it completely undermines the positive aspects of participation, especially for students who have a hard time in school.  If the school has to punish kids they should leave the studio out of it.  I can't tell you how many times I've had to fight with administrators because they want to pull a kid out of the studio program for something that happened elsewhere, even though that kid has said time and again that his work in the studio is the ONLY reason he still attends school.

Ok, I suspect this seems more of a rant than a help!  Take it just as one person's experience.   If you have specific questions about how to think about curriculum, let me know and I'll be happy to share some ideas.  You can also hear a few examples of the thousands of recordings kids made in the studios I worked in, here:

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