Music is for All

Key Insight 1

In 2004, Music For People created A Bill of Musical Rights, a list of music philosophies that center around the idea that everyone needs music. The phrase “music is for all” has become a summarizing statement that encompasses all these ideas. The statement that I have found myself continuously coming back to throughout college is, “Any combination of people and instruments can make music together.” In the spring of my freshmen year this document started off my first music education course, MUED 200: Music Education Practicum. The question that we were then asked throughout the course, using this document as a springboard, was why don’t more people make music? I found that it came down to these two main ideas; many people do not have the financial means or resources to make music, and there is a misbelief that not everyone is musically talented. 

Our final project for MUED 200 was to create an initiative that brought more music to more people. I proposed “Drumming Up Connections,” a student led drum circle that collaborates with the local nursing home. The mission is to create a collaborative environment where youth and seniors are connected through a shared musical experience.This project tackled both of the reasons people don’t make music.  Drum circles are an easy way to make music and anything can count as an instrument used in a drum circle. With some research, I found that the list of benefits from participation in a drum circle is long. The service project allows kids to build connections that they would have otherwise missed and to benefit their community using their passions. “Drumming up Connections” allows students to share their joy of music making with a crowd needing encouragement and musical enrichment.

In the summer of 2024, I volunteered with the Living Music Foundation based in Mbarara, Uganda. Here I traveled around the region and taught piano, guitar, band, and general music to young adults and children. My most memorable placement was at Kashaka Girls' Secondary School. There were only a handful of western musical instruments and a collection of dusty and broken traditional west-african instruments. The group of students, aged 16-20, had few opportunities to make music. The students were raised in a culture where traditional music was seen as inferior and only men could play western instruments. After explaining the guidelines behind a drum circle with the occasional translator, the students were ready to give it a try. A room of 35 young women sat shoulder to shoulder hitting drums, clapping, plucking strings, singing, or using whatever they could get their hands on. Student after student came to the music room every night asking for help, and I shared anything i could. There were smiles and laughs all around and it gave me goosebumps.

Although many miles and ocean away from one another, the people I worked with in Mbarara, Uganda were the same as the Americans I have grown up with. We are from different cultures with different skin tones and speak different languages, yet we made beautiful music together with whatever we could find and it was incredible. The girls that I taught that weekend call me their sister. Together we saw these fundamental human rights in action. The principles I learned in MUED 200 were in action. Regardless of instrument availability, stereotypes, and experiences, we were all making music together. It was only when I began compiling documents for this portfolio that I found how similar this experience was with the final project I wrote as a freshman. We saw in action that music can be made with anything and with any group of people. In a setting that made teaching feel impossible, together we made music and all were welcome.

As I transition from a college student to a full-time public school band teacher, I run into the same fundamental problems that prevent music making. Next year I will be working at Clinton Middle School in upstate South Carolina. The inventory of the band room has not been updated in years and being a Title I school means that it is unlikely that every student will have a functional instrument in their hands. The impact of my experiences in college and in Uganda are that a lack of resources and funding is an obstacle that can be overcome with diligent work and flexibility. When our goal is for every person to be able to make music, we find a way.