Picture this...

Picture this.

A classroom. 25 yellow chairs. 15 music stands. 35 guitars lining the back wall. The bell rings. Here they come. The infamous 6th period class. They trickle in a few at a time, put their book bags down, and head for the guitars. You hear 13 year old chatter of cheating boyfriends, crazy teachers, and whose team is "going down" at P.E. They begin tuning their guitars and playing songs they learned over the weekend. All of them. Each student. All 20 students playing a different song. You feel your hair turning gray as they warm up. You know if you can get through the next 50 minutes without losing your mind, your day will have been successful. 

The timer sounds. You gave up on trying to begin class with a discussion on the second week of school so you announce the warm up song. You count off with the obnoxious steady beat of a metronome, and they begin playing. It's rough at first. You tell them to repeat. They finish the warm up and move onto barre chords. They gripe and complain with every barre chord because "it's too hard" or "it hurts" or "it's dumb". You require them to muscle through barre chords for 15 minutes claiming it will make them better musicians and that eventually barre chords will make playing the guitar easier...secretly knowing you thought the same things when you attempted barre chords yesterday. 

You move on to Christmas music. You require each of the 4 parts to practice individually. You have to constantly remind the other 3 parts to stay quiet while the remaining part rehearses. This lasts for 20 minutes. You play from measure 21 to end with each part and then together. You turn the metronome off. You step up like you are the conductor of an orchestra. You finally get all the 13 year old nervous/excited energy channeled to a goal: playing "Carol of the Bells". You count them off quietly. Part one plays for a measure. Part 2 joins on measure 2. Part 3 joins on measure 3. Measure 4 brings part 4 in. All the students are focused. All the students are engaged. All the students are playing. You are singing the song in your head. It actually sounds...delightful. 

The gray hair is worth it. 

Welcome to my world of music education. 

P.S. I'll be coloring my hair soon.