Musicians push for better music education, to help students learn life skills

On a trip to New York with his high school ensemble, Dylan Maddix learned how music can help people develop wider life skills.

The ensemble was there to compete in a music festival, performing O Magnum Mysterium by Morten Lauridsen. But before they took the stage, their judge made a simple request: during the climax of the song, when they are all playing, to think of someone they love.

"I thought about my grandma," Maddix said.

"And we did that same piece of music, nothing's changed except our thought … and the whole band was bawling. Our conductor, Mark Ramsey … was bawling. The audience was bawling. For the first time in my little high school life, I discovered why music can connect," he said.

Speaking on CBC's The Signal, Maddix — a musician who also teaches at Memorial University, and is the director of the university's wind ensemble — said music is a universal language everyone should learn to speak. 

"With music, we are able to express very complex, emotional situations in a very natural way," said musician Florian Hoefner, an assistant professor for jazz studies and conductor for the MUN jazz orchestra.

Playing in an ensemble can offer mental, emotional and social benefits, especially for middle and high school students, he says.

That's why both Hoefner and Maddix are advocating for greater recognition of music education, arguing that it's more than just a hobby — it's as valuable as studying mathematics.

The anxious view from stage

Susan Evoy, a music teacher at Waterford Valley High, says students in an ensemble work together toward a common goal, and that helps them develop teamwork skills.

"If you don't know your part, then it's going to kind of ruin it for everybody else," she said.

"So, students are learning not only to be prepared, be accountable, but they're learning that they can depend on one another and support each other," she said.

And ensembles are also where students learn how to fail.

Evoy remembers one performance that didn't end up happening.

She and her Grade 6 students were on stage at the Rotary Music Festival. The curtains lifted, the auditorium full of family and strangers clapping, and the students frozen in fear.

"I put the baton down to start.… Nothing," she said. "They are just trembling. They're holding the bows and I'm whispering, 'play something.' and they say 'we can't.'"

She turned around, with the audience still clapping, watching the curtains fall down.

Afterwards, the students were mortified, but Evoy says the experience taught them a lesson about performance anxiety — and next time, they did play.

"That [experience] bonded us, we had such a laugh about that," she said.

For Jo Dashney, a musician and graduate student at MUN who also plays in the wind ensemble, performing on stage in front of an audience comes with nervousness, regardless of skill level. There's always a fear of letting down your team members. Of failing.

But for people like Dashney, that same energy can become inner fuel for excellence.

"There's a lot of energy within us, and we channel that into the excitement of playing together, it helps a lot," they said.

Dashney says during ensembles is only time they truly feel present and focused.

It's a sentiment echoed by Hoefner, who conducts MUN's jazz ensemble, and says during the rehearsals, phones are nowhere to be seen.

"Once they step into that band room, they put their devices away. They're offline in the real world," Hoefner said. "They're interacting with each other, creating something together that still feels real in flesh and blood."

The wind ensemble at MUN brings together undergraduate and graduate students with diverse musical abilities and performance experience. This mix, Maddix says, creates natural mentorship opportunities. Through rehearsals and shows,  in a space that welcomes mistakes as a path for growth, sharing a common goal and passion for their craft — that's where he says the community takes shape.

"What's most beautiful is whenever students see potential within each other," he said.

"In certain sections, I see them helping each other. Someone who might not have had lessons, maybe has not played in a big ensemble like this. The section really huddles around them, helps them get through that"

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