The Benefits Of Being A Music Teacher: How I Re Discovered My Appreciation For Rock N Roll

I’m learning a lot by teaching. I think it might be a good idea for every musician to take on at least one student. It forces you to focus on every minute detail of music. The fundamentals; the nuts and bolts. Heck, you might even discover that you missed a little here and there or that your own understanding shifts the way you look at music. It teaches you about yourself. What do you really know? Are you as good as you think you are? You’d better be because this person is going to take your knowledge and run with it. Teaching music has renewed my appreciation for all forms of expression again.

You know, lately I’ve been straying form rock n roll. Not that I have anything against it mind you, but for years, I was consumed by it…I was so involved in it that I lost myself. That can happen with Rock n Roll because rock is excess. It’s is over the top, it is everything society screams against when it’s done right. The fact that society mirrors Rock N Roll in many ways is somewhat disturbing.

 Society is on drugs all the time, staying up way too late and having far too much sex with unsavory characters. That’s what’s wrong with us- we've decided that everyone is a rockstar; every man, woman and child. Hey rockstar, its time to change your diaper again.

 You know, when you watch Star Wars, Darth Vader is awesome, but you’re not supposed to go out in the world and be Darth Vader.He is the bad guy. Rock N Roll is like Darth Vader, strong in the force and a very, very bad guy. They kind you don't take home to mother. And as cool as he is, you don't want to be like him, really. He is living in hell, his mind is constantly being tortured and he lives in constant pain. HE does look good on camera though, ill give him that, but at the end of the movie you leave his excess behind in the theater and resume your daily routine. End scene.

Society needs a reset button. That’s why I’m playing in a folk band. It’s a rocking folk band, to be sure, but it is a folk band. It’s time to drag you all the other way and pull you out of the excess, so rock can mean something more again. God bless the rockers for sacrificing their sanctity in the name of our merriment and escape.Rock has given us people to vicariously live through so that we don’t have to abandon our families, get wasted on Night Train and wake up in a puke stained hotel room with some dreadful woman in your bed. It’s no fun and besides, what do we tell our kids when we stumble through the door at 11 AM, reeking of Stolis and vomit?

Now i can appreciate it again, after taking my brief hiatus. I'm still having way too much fun playing old drunken folk songs and recalling cold winter nights in old European inn's. Everyone's dancing. I like that. It took putting it down, walking away from it to find it again. More specifically  by going back and teaching others why it is so good, I rediscovered what I love about it.

Back to teaching. Teaching allows us to impart all kinds of wisdom about music to open ears that are uninformed and opinionated. What a responsibility and what a joy. We get to go back to the roots ourselves and give it to a new generation, to see what they do with it.

The last thing I want to do is make them play like me. No, no, no. I want them to take my knowledge and write the song nobody’s thought of yet. But in order to do that, they must know everything from the ground up. Nuts and bolts. Then they can build their machinations as they see fit and our past is relived, our metal tested. Dust off the old books and try again.

So learn something about yourself by teaching someone else, you will regain an appreciation for something you never knew you lost. Long live Rock N Roll.