Repertoire in reverse.(music education)(Column)

In high school, forbidden stacks of pop sheet music bulged my creaking piano bench. I hid them there, sitting on a gold mine of pleasure. Hanon, Bach, Schumann paled next to REO Speedwagon and Bon Jovi, with air time only after weekday practice was complete or during long Sunday afternoons. But I thought about them all the time. Lionel Richie breathed on the hammers, singing melody lines no Chopin could tease from teenage fingers. Song lyrics taped on locker doors shaped countless melodies on the old Baldwin in my living room. Billy Joel taught me forte. Elton John was a study in chord theory.

No question, I was a difficult student to motivate: I was gifted, I was bored, I was naughty. I wanted the life I felt in music to stand in my line of sight, to end up on my practice sheets. I was willing to count it, transpose it or even rewrite it upside down in a bathtub filled with jello, if they just let me play it. My teachers sighed.

So, I learned what I was supposed to learn. I covered the standards; I practiced correctly. Other than one brief stint with a Baptist minister's wife as my teacher, musical constipation ruled my piano training. I was sure college would be the gift of creative expression in exchange for the years of conformity I paid at the keys. Strangely, "creative expression" didn't show up on college course requirements.

How can any successful musician love the music I craved? The hierarchy of pieces we love determines our seriousness as a musician, or at least that's what I was taught. Don't let anyone hear you playing the music that is on the radio, the themes from musicals, Amazing Grace improvised in cut time, I was told. "Cooperate to graduate" vibrated in my eardrums each time I left the practice rooms, while my musical self died in a coffin of repertoire rules and regulations.

I played my last college jury that year in yellow sweats. Not out of spite, certainly; I simply ran straight from a dance final to the recital hall. I earned an A. Intended or not, the message was clear: you can be who you want to be, play what you want to play and wear yellow sweats or a black skirt and white blouse. I realized I wanted to love music. I wanted to study how to love music and how to help others find a music they love.

As teachers, we struggle to keep pace with repertoire too large to consume. We agonize over options at each level, shaking our heads at stacks of lists, storming stores for compilations, genre-based songs or the newest music. We ask students to play from books other people have selected. Serious ...