Autoethnographic narrative as a lens on life-long musician-teacher identity

Introduction

In retirement, the question of what is the good for me takes on a new and potentially refreshing significance. The retired person usually has a long past on which to reflect in search of an embodied narrative that ties their particular life together . . . in retirement the completion or end of life usually comes into clearest focus (Bochner, 2020, p. 82)

I face retirement now, and Bochner’s comments resonate with my 40 years of musician-teacher service. As I reflect with attended circumspection, I also invite you, the reader, to reflect on your own unique professional identity changes, engaging in an interplay of emotion and memory. In local and international contexts, my identity metamorphosed over time, emphasizing the fluid nature of musician-teacher identity. Initially, I investigate the terms “lifelong” and “career cycle,” the notion of musician-teacher, and a possible method for examining my career life.

“Life-long” and career cycle

“Lifelong” usually refers to life from birth to death (Cambridge, n.d.). In this present context, life-long refers to a timeline from childhood to retirement, tracing progress through a “career cycle” that reflects “the professional and personal development of the teachers over the course of their working life” (Bayer et al., 2009, p. 2). This cycle provides predictable pathways for us to examine our musician-teacher career trajectories (Brand, 1983; White, 2008). There appear to be five to eight stages of the career cycle which can provide a career framework comparable to my own (Baker, 2005; Bayer et al., 2009; Brand, 1983; Fessler, 1985; Fessler & Christensen, 1992; Huberman, 1993; Lynn, 2001; Rolls & Plauborg, 2009; Steffy & Wolfe, 2001; Štemberger, 2020; White, 2008). Extant literature also examines life-long teacher career trajectory (Baker, 2005; Boyle, 2021; Brand, 1983; Lynn, 2001).

Substantial literature details curated moments of pre or early career musician-teacher identity (Brashier, 2018; Brunetti & Marston, 2018; Chua & Welch, 2021; Conway & Eros, 2016; Draves, 2012; Eros, 2011; Haning, 2020; Lorenzino & Dos Santos Cunha, 2014; Lynn, 2002; Pellegrino, 2019; Reed, 2018; Woodford, 2002) or difficulties mid-career (Howes & Goodman-Delahunty, 2015; Reichl, 2019; Rolls & Plauborg, 2009). Autoethnography has examined musician-teacher identity too, though again limited to curated moments such as pre-service growth, or in-career reflection (de Bruin, 2016; Kladder, 2020; Nethsinghe, 2015; Sutherland, 2015; Zdzinski & Horne, 2014) or international teaching experience (Dunbar-Hall, 2009; Sahling & De Carvalho, 2021; Yuyan, 2009), or documentation of research into studio teaching (Gouzouasis & Ryu, 2014). There is limited literature, however, dealing with lifelong musician-teacher identity per se (Eyre, 2007).

Literature pertaining to individual personalized episodes detailing career musician-teacher life’s journeys appears to be lacking. Given the many ways current musician-teachers engage in their profession, further research would uncover commonalities in what for many has become a portfolio career (Boyle, 2021).

Musician-teacher

“Musician-teacher” references “two shifting positions and contexts in music educators’ professional identities—musician and teacher—that exists in relation to one another in various ways” (Bernard, 2005, p. 10). These shifting positions are often seen as polarizing tensions (Dust, 2006; Eyre, 2007; Lamont, 2017; Pellegrino, 2009), though differing views remain as to the degree of tension, its long-term effects, and its resolution (Ballantyne et al., 2012; Bernard, 2004; Dust, 2006). Yet I see “musician-teacher” as less binary opposition than multi-faceted intertwining of identity facets (Chua & Welch, 2021) that reflect professional, biographical, and personal life experiences—“we teach who we are” (Palmer, 1997, p. 15).

The term “musician-teacher” can encompass a very broad range of situations, training, and affiliations. Studio music teachers (such as composers or performers) may or may not have teaching qualifications or formal music education training. School teachers may earn income by performing, while performers teach students to supplement their income. Musician-teachers may be entrepreneurs for concerts. With such a diverse range of potential careers, I state mine below to provide focus for the ensuing discussion.

Personal context as validation for this article

I have worked as an instrumental studio teacher, freelance professional orchestral musician, a full-time classroom music teacher, taught at tertiary level, managed music-related departments, and worked in Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Holland, and China. For the Association of Music in International Schools (AMIS) I have been a Board member, conductor, chaperone, and attendee. The differing educational, social, cultural, and musical contexts Boyle (2021) might call a “portfolio” career reflect slowly evolving changes in identity, and autoethnography is a valuable tool to examine this career.

Research approach

I use the qualitative research method of autoethnography to engage personal narrative that elicits “the life experiences and performances of a person” (Denzin, 2014, p. 1). In looking inward to personal experience and outward to cultural experience (Ellis et al., 2011), I connect self to culture (Ellis & Adams, 2014), using hindsight to view the past from the present (Bruner, 1991; Ellis et al., 2011). As both author and subject, I use vignettes to drive research through critical self-reflection, documenting changes in values, perceptions, and assimilations that influence my growth as a musician-educator. The stories reflect meaningful experiences—“epiphanies”—that linger and remain (Denzin, 2014) that in turn can impact classroom practice (Bogiannidis et al., 2017; Burnard, 2012; Hogan, 2004; Measor, 1985; Rogers et al., 2018; Yacek & Gary, 2020). Such epiphanies are a form of selective recollection of events and the personal, confessional vulnerability of emotion that entwines each story (Van Maanen, 2011). Their use negates the concept of verifiable truth (Chang, 2008; Méndez, 2014; Wall, 2006) to explore the individualized meaning of lived experience, with its fluidity, negotiability, and its ability to “empower, transform, and to emphasize” (Bochner, 2018, p. 363).

The driving question was: How does a life-long career modulate the identity of a musician-teacher? I collected data through autobiographical narratives and their interpretations. I analyzed my written data using the tenets of thematic analysis to develop and refine themes of change, conflict, and resolution in my career life (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Maguire & Delahunt, 2017).

I also used artifacts to trigger memory. Memories are capricious things—they appear as they will. Yet memories can be prompted by cards, conversations, photos, concert programs, or musical instruments (Bogiannidis et al., 2017), opening “rivulets” to the past, that with reflexive thought become “rivers of musical experience” (Baker, 2005; Burnard, 2012; Chua, 2018). Several items were valuable here: my old recorder; my first solo performance music; a musical score; my concert dress; two Wayang Kulit. These objects presented icons of my musician-teacher journey that led to epiphanic “bends in the river.” I also used Chua’s (2018) seven frames of reference to expose interrelationships and multiplicities of my existence over a constructed, “temporary” life (Harter et al., 1997). Chua’s facets included ethical self, self-efficacy, self-concept and possible-self, emotional self, musical self, teaching self, and we-self. These seven facets were seen as interconnected and integrated, which in turn developed my self-perception in diverse environments (Lamont, 2017). As I created those “rivers of musical experience” I began to explore rhizomatic “threads” as a metaphor of multiplicities connected to other multiplicities (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). I then selected epiphanies reflecting “performing” and “teaching” for this article. Used chronologically, these selections showed the changing nature of my personal experience, the varying emphasis moving from performing to teaching, then finding a balance between them.

Vignettes

Commentary

I maintain that, despite some conflict, the essence of musician-teacher identity is not conflict but negotiation, re-negotiation, adjustment, and evolution that changes and develops over a lifetime (Hallam, 2017). These vignettes focused on the two “rivers” of performing, teaching and their interrelations, their differing aspects of identity.

My first epiphany occurred during adolescence. Erikson (1982) posits that adolescence is the formative moment for identity creation, with musical identity development in pre-adolescence and adolescence seen as pivotal to forming future expectations and potential involvements in music (Barrett, 2017; Bernard, 2005; Davidson & Burland, 2006; Evans & McPherson, 2017; Gardikiotis & Baltzis, 2012; Hargreaves & Marshall, 2003; Lamont, 2017; Miranda, 2013; Symonds et al., 2017), and indeed, stringed music students usually have several years of intense training prior to formal college music studies (Freer & Bennett, 2012; Guttiérrez & Jaramillo, 2014). This training is pivotal in forming student identity, and the learning context motivates the desire to perform music (Hargreaves et al., 2007; Sloboda & Howe, 1991). My career path’s genesis began during adolescence through learning violin within the Western classical tradition, which in turn generated a “possible self” instigated through an epiphany of insight, triggering a life-long career. Such a career would mean a move from a working-class ethic to one of the middle-class, an understanding I did not yet comprehend.

Teacher training was far less important to me than the Conservatorium experience, the latter “feeding into” the construction of my own intentions, beliefs, and future desires. Music “in and of itself” held sway, as did the idea that performing music was the music itself, with education playing around the edges. The TIME project in England referenced similar aspirations, noting that whilst music students pursuing a career in education tended to which emphasize the personal, social, and communicative aspects of the benefits of music, the non-education students valued intrinsic value of music as I did (Hargreaves et al., 2007). The negative stereotype of the “lesser” classroom music teacher was not as prominent at our institution, though I did see it elsewhere. The performing cultures of Conservatories at that time (Guttiérrez & Jaramillo, 2014), and the hierarchical nature of performance based on a “master” musician passing on knowledge led to the belief that performance majors have more musical “credibility” and that teacher trainees could be viewed as “failed musicians” or a “backup” plan for the not-so-gifted, reinforcing a hierarchy maintaining a lower status for music education students (Boyle, 2021; Freer & Bennett, 2012). As a student of both performance and education, I didn’t see the general music classroom as lesser, simply not for me. So, my preference directed me away from classroom teaching. I thrived on the “Canon” of great (Western) composers and their compositions, and the Conservatorium emphasized this. In my first year at “Concert Practice” class, a guitarist performed a popular movie song. He was castigated publicly by the convenor for performing “pop” music, and to not bring “that” music to class again. Another time the same convenor in a choir rehearsal of a Bach cantata criticized the Beatles, dismissing their music as having no value compared to Bach, and no place at our institution. These memories certainly influenced my understanding of what was acceptable in performance and gave clear indication of direction in learning as well. As an instrumental student, I was deeply influenced by my viola teacher of 3 years—a master violist performer who was inspirational to me, as was his other students. Also influential were symphony orchestra visits to my hometown each year when I was a high school student, and I imagined being able to perform with them. This imagined self indeed did occur at age 26. So, acculturation and role models influenced and strengthened my desire to perform (Hargreaves & Marshall, 2003), and dampened the desire to teach classroom music.

The theme of performance as dominant identity fully established in my 20s. I performed as much as I could, and thoroughly reveled in each experience. There was something “spiritual” about being “in the sound,” hearing ideas unfold over time with textures and colors composers explored. Yet, much of my income came from studio teaching violin and viola (Boyle, 2021; Freer & Bennett, 2012). Yet here, teaching instrumental music was a modification of performing through attending “the music itself,” a way of preserving my performing identity as much as sharing music. The instrumental teaching contexts for so many musician-teachers—from individual tutoring to ensemble teaching—recognize the importance of multiple career pathways (Baker, 2005; Ballantyne et al., 2012; Bennett, 2008; Boyle, 2021; Chua & Welch, 2021; Davidson & Burland, 2006; Draves, 2021; Hargreaves & Marshall, 2003; Natale-Abramo, 2014; Pellegrino, 2009), and for me the pathway was less about being a teacher than a musician sharing music and in being a help to others.

Several major changes occurred in my 30s. The first was an epiphany that happened some months before 1990. I was getting married, and I realized “like a thunderbolt” the need to solidify a secure income in one location, so I joined a large private K-12 school as a full-time employee, teaching violin and viola. Certainly, this change brought financial security, locational stability, and solid employment. I could also keep tutoring music outside the general classroom and freelancing as a violist as well. As Freer and Bennett (2012) state, though, “The irony here is that whilst self-definition as a musician is an integral part of professional identity, the time-intensive pathway toward success as a pedagogue and/or school educator can present an enormous barrier to sustaining the musician’s performance practice” (p. 266). That is, the more a teacher, the less a performer, and the resultant dissonance between my subjective identity and the views of others (Bennett, 2008) meant a fundamental adjustment of my identity from musician to teacher (+musician), and ironically, I became the “failed musician,” the one with the “back-up plan,” existing in the very place I had hoped to avoid. Such a re-think was not the product of an epiphany, but rather a “slow-burn” of gradual realization, and the pain of feeling failure.

My 40s relates to “double culture shock” adjustment (Austin, 2007) to an unfamiliar culture (Indonesia), a very different set of student abilities, cultural expectations, a foreign curriculum, and a large dose of misunderstanding. Unfamiliarity with local customs and “normal” classroom behavior was initially challenging, creating confusion, anxiety, and a feeling of helplessness. Personal/professional change was inevitable and developed into a process of learning about the host culture and “growing” a sense of cultural acceptance leading to the development of strategies to teach more effectively. Such cultural dislocations and reconciliations are part of the international experience (e.g. Ma et al., 2019), and an experience I continued as an ensemble conductor in American international schools in Singapore, The Netherlands and now China. In these latter positions, teaching and performing continue to be intertwined within an evolutionary development through conducting beginner music to standard orchestral repertoire including concertos and symphonies. As a conductor, I find that I am increasingly collaborative, moving from the “master-student” model that I began with. Collaboration becomes a sharing, not a teaching, so conducting our school symphony orchestra or teaching its string orchestra classes is both a satisfying way to be a musician-teacher, and an exultant way to conclude a career.

Final comments

Little research appears to have explored either the autoethnographic concept of “musician-teacher” as a life-long study, or international teachers per se (Bailey & Cooker, 2019). Vignettes describe the growth and development of my musician-teacher identity, including international teaching as a life-changing component of this autoethnography. “Musician-teacher” is a fluid concept, involving changing roles, environments, and identity emphases over a lifetime, and three aspects could be explored in more depth: how instrumental teachers adapt their musicking over decades, adjusting their professional and personal identities to accommodate change in a “portfolio” form of career; cultural impact on teacher international music teacher identity as they enter unfamiliar social/cultural settings; and social movement from the working class to middle class exemplified through the adoption of music and teaching.

The musical-educational world is a different place now to when I began my career, and Covid-19 is powerfully altering the lives of teachers and performers internationally. This article is a timely and needed catalyst for others to reflect on their own experiences as they look to their futures in such a time of such unprecedented change. My hope is that these stories replenish memories and prompt reflection for fellow musician-teachers continuing their career pathway. We navigate multiple cultures as we perform or teach people from diverse cultural, religious or political backgrounds (I think, e.g. of the cultural diversity of today’s Australian education system). As music itself is an impactful cultural phenomenon found across the globe, we as musician-teachers are privileged to share our own unique and personal musical culture in the lives of others. I hope this article gives an empowering opportunity for readers to replenish themselves, a task autoethnographic narratives should do.