Why We Teach Music, Interview Stephen Melillo

This is an inspiring talk with composer Stephen Melillo about how important music is and the motivation behind teaching it. He goes over why he wrote the real reasons he felt teaching music was important. I think you'll find this interview enlightening and inspiring. Stephen has worked with many high school bands and also has created over 1,300 pieces of music.

Transcript

A very big aloha.

I'm Cindy Palos here with my mentor and truly an inspirational teacher,

Musician,

Composer,

Bandleader,

Many,

Many,

Many things as you can imagine everything to do with inspiring music,

Stephen Melillo.

So wonderful to have you here today,

Stephen.

How are you?

Good.

And thanks for having me.

Well,

Why I wanted to talk today is because you post some very interesting things on your Facebook and sometimes an email blast as well.

And there was one you posted that really touched me.

They all do,

But this one I felt was important to share because it went into a subject that I think touches anyone who loves teaching and music's heart.

And this has been a hard time over the last actually decade for music teachers.

There's been setbacks,

There's been funding cuts,

There's been a lot of issues that have happened that have in some cases actually cut teaching music out of a lot of schools.

Thank God sometimes nonprofits in the area of the schools will pick up those pieces and try to go in schools and have classes where children can have some input about music.

I thank God every day that I had music in my life in my school.

And I'm sure you do too.

You know,

You started with music and being inspired and at the very young age of 21,

You became a professor.

Tell us the story of what you wrote at that time when you were actually dedicating yourself at a young age of 21 years old to what you wanted to do when you teach music.

Well it was my first year of teaching.

I just came up from the Boston Conservatory of Music and I had kids in my band who were three years younger than me.

I was 21,

I had 18 year old kids in the band.

And in your first year of teaching,

Especially where I was,

This was a place where onion farming was the thing.

And the kids would come in and have dirt under their fingernails.

And here all of a sudden was this romantic,

Idealistic music teacher who was put in front of them.

And of course,

This is my first year of teaching.

There's all other kinds of other elements and things to get that inertia going.

And at one point I remember that the kids didn't understand music the way I thought of music.

And so I wrote them a letter.

Now that letter was originally done pencil.

And I just whipped this thing out.

I mean,

It was like an emotional,

You know,

Hey guys,

Don't you understand?

And I wrote this thing and I,

You know,

I tacked it up on the cork board in the band room.

And then later on,

I typed it.

I used my old Boston Conservatory,

Royal typewriter,

Where I don't know if you can see in the back there,

All those three ring binders,

Those are all filled with stuff from Boston Conservatory and lesson plans and all these personal journal notes and everything like this.

And so I typed it up.

Well,

That was 44 years ago.

Okay.

So now I am doing this rehearsal.

This is right before the pandemic.

And I'm doing a rehearsal with my kids in the band.

My kids are in the band that I'm going to do a rehearsal with.

One of them's at Smithfield Junior High School.

One of them's at Smithfield High School.

And we're going to prepare the Escape from Plato's Cave,

Which symbolically,

I mean,

Think about it.

We were going to do in the,

During the pandemic.

So I go to the band room for the afterschool rehearsal and on the band room door is why we teach music.

But it wasn't why we teach music.

It was like,

It was like,

Like a highly edited,

Flipped out,

Different version of why we teach music.

It was why I teach music.

The first thing was the title change.

And then it was this whole thing,

Right?

These list of things,

Basically like I had written 44 years ago,

But nowhere,

Nowhere near the meaning.

I found it really fascinating.

Then I went to Norway to do rehearsals there with groups.

And I saw another version of that,

That thing from 44 years ago.

And then I saw many,

Many people doing Facebook posts with that.

Oh,

Look how cool this is.

Look how cool this is.

Why teach music?

Why music?

Why this?

And all this stuff like this.

And I actually got to the point where I said,

Well,

There's a number of levels of frustration to this.

So let me actually share the original version of this.

So I know that part of this is,

Is,

Um,

You know,

Audio only,

But if you want,

I can share the screen with you.

Yeah,

Let's do that.

Because,

Okay.

You know,

What's touching about this is the fact that,

Um,

That,

That indeed,

You can see your version was originally done in,

In typewritten version so long ago.

And so we know how things change as people read and interpret and take things.

But I thought it's so wonderful to get back to the source here.

Well,

Get back to the source and find out this,

These words have become over 44 years,

They still work perfectly.

I mean,

They still,

Every single element still are able to be used and really well.

But,

But see,

Here's the thing,

Cindy,

They only work if the teacher is in fact,

A person who is capable of delivering these ideas,

Just to quote them doesn't mean a thing,

Right?

Or,

You know,

Oh,

Music is math.

Well,

Okay.

So explain to me how music is mathematics.

Music is history.

Okay.

Explain to me how music is history.

And many teachers don't have that skill.

In fact,

One time I was guest conducting,

And a call a famous college band director,

Whose name will be unspoken,

Actually boasted to the kids about the reason why he went into into music was because he really didn't do well in school.

And he told the kids,

You know,

I got a 400 and something and there was 460 if I remember correctly,

In my math scores on the SATs.

He was boasting to the kids about this.

This is absolutely contrary to my concept of a,

Especially a Renaissance teacher and a skilled,

You know,

Eclectic,

Balanced music teacher,

Teacher of music,

I should say.

Okay.

So are we sharing screens?

Yes.

Okay.

So you see this.

So this all happened in the winter of 2021.

And Tom Reynolds,

Dr.

Tom Reynolds,

Who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

And who recently commissioned a piece from me,

Asked me to do this article with him.

And the article is called Why We Teach Music.

And this goes back to Boston Conservatory times.

And this is the actual letter,

I'll zoom in on it,

That I had written some years ago to my students,

Why we teach music.

And by the way,

This article,

You can find this article on my website,

It's under the you look under about,

And I have storm log or storm stories or something like that.

And you could find the actual Why We Teach Music article that was in the Massachusetts Music Educator Journal.

So you can see all the other things that I wrote about this to qualify it and so on.

So here,

You know,

This is what I wrote to my kids.

And you see that this is a much more evolved,

Or I should say devolved version of everything that people have seen on the internet.

And you know,

Feel free to,

You know,

Zoom in and ask any questions on here.

We see that for me,

The biggest part of this is this one,

It's this,

So you will be human.

So you will recognize beauty,

So you will be sensitive to all the thoughts and feelings put into sound throughout the ages.

So you will be closer to the infinity of your own heart.

So you will feel the beauty of being alive.

And so you will come to know the value of your own self.

This is the greatest mission of my soul.

And in the article,

You add to that music is blood.

It is the life of a human soul.

When I listened to Bach,

Beethoven,

Mahler,

Thad Jones,

And many,

Many more great souls across all spectrums and styles,

When my being resonated to Miklos Rosa's heart,

Mind,

And soul,

And know that he left this world just three days after I finally wrote a letter to him,

I cringe in both the stinging frustration and eternal hope.

Music is about giving.

Some people give us notes and rhythms and dynamic markings and typeset scores.

Other people die for us.

There's this magnitude of difference that always startles me.

So that is so powerful.

I mean,

That is amazing.

So yes,

That is why.

So,

But,

But thank God that you,

You did take this and type it and found it.

And I think it's meant to be Steven,

Because this is,

You know,

What's,

Let me stop screen sharing for a second.

I want people to be able to see my face here.

See in my third year of teaching.

Okay.

See,

This is,

This is the part that people don't understand.

Say you copy that letter.

Oh,

I found out after 44 years that Steve wrote it.

So let me put that up in the band room.

Okay.

But here's the problem.

And this is follow this story.

So when I was my first year at Harrison high school,

Which is,

You know,

Several years into teaching on my third year,

And I,

Then I would teach there for some years.

Do you know that I actually went into the calculus class and showed the kids how box Bach used matrices to compose the Goldberg variations.

Do you know that I went into the English class?

What books are you guys reading this year?

What do you want to know so that I could read them and catch up on them and make literal references in music making to the kids?

Isn't that a great way to teach?

We're team teaching here.

You're teaching English.

I'm teaching music,

But we're teaching the cat on the hot tin roof.

And we're teaching war and peace,

Whatever,

Whatever it is.

Do you see what you see what I'm saying?

So I made a point of visiting all these teachers history all the time.

It's one of my favorite subjects,

By the way,

I'll go in there.

What are you guys doing in history today?

You know,

Well,

Why do you want to know?

Well,

Because I can select pieces of music from program for programs that correspond to the lessons that you're teaching in history.

So my point that I'm making to teachers is,

I'm sorry if this offends anybody.

But unless you're going to the calculus class,

And unless you're going to the physics class,

We had a great time with it.

I love physics teachers.

Oh my gosh,

I was a physics major my first year of college.

When you if unless you're going to the history class,

Unless you're going to the English class,

Those are just words that you posted up on the band room wall.

Sorry,

They have no meaning.

You have to bring meaning.

You know,

My second year of teaching this and here you see that I'm living by what those words say.

I would have kids come down.

And this one girl came down one time,

And this one girl came down one time,

French horn player.

She came down from a front for her French horn lesson.

And she had tears in her eyes.

What Karen?

What?

What's going on?

What's wrong?

Do I'm not doing well in math,

Mr.

Mel,

I'm just not doing well in math.

And so what I was taught when I was at Boston Conservatory,

By a very enlightened teacher was always teach to the needs.

And my kid at that point did not need a lesson on the French horn.

What she needed was and she told me with her tears and her word choice was she needed help with math.

So you know what I did?

What do you think a real music educator,

A real Renaissance person would do?

Karen,

Put the horn away,

Get that math book out.

Let's figure this stuff out together.

And she left that lesson with a smile on her face.

And she did well in that class after that,

Because all she needed was that little tweak in that little inside that little insight.

Let me let me show you the inside workings of that.

Okay,

That's basically it.

Now,

My son,

My son right now,

Naval architect,

Major at Virginia Tech.

He's beyond me.

Okay,

My Renaissance training ends,

I have,

He shows me math and stuff like that,

That I just go,

Good luck,

Son.

So but,

But my point is,

You have to be for the kids.

And you have to be a Renaissance person in that building.

And you mentioned before,

How music programs get cut.

And so on.

And you know,

Right?

Because,

Oh,

They're the jukebox,

Get them to play at the parade.

Or Oh,

They need new uniforms.

What are you kidding me?

We got to get the football team uniforms.

Okay,

This is the reality of teaching,

Right?

Okay,

Music in our world,

But not just our world.

Remember,

I go back to the 1980s.

It was the same then,

As it is now,

I go visit the high school band director.

Yes,

He's got the same problems.

And it bothers him when he has to talk about selling M&Ms.

But I get it.

Right.

So if you're going to be the Renaissance person,

And you're going to prevent the administrators from cutting the budget,

Guess what you have to be able to do?

Not with words,

Not with a cute little banner that you know,

You took and edited highly.

No,

You need to be going into the administrators and saying,

Why do you want to cut music,

Which is mathematics?

Why do you want to cut music,

Which is history,

And is literature,

And is all of these incredible things besides being an art?

Why?

Why do you want to do that?

What is it that you know,

That I don't know?

Like,

Why are you willing to cut it?

At one point,

I have a friend of mine who I look up to very much.

His name is Ed Lisk.

He actually made dolls.

He made a doll of Beethoven,

Like a G.

I.

Joe doll.

And he made like a doll of Shakespeare.

And he made a doll of Einstein.

And he went into the administrators thing with a scissor,

Right?

And he put the Beethoven doll up and he put the scissor around Beethoven's head.

And he says,

Now you're gonna cut this,

But not Shakespeare,

And not Einstein.

Can you tell me what it is that you know,

That I don't know before I cut this guy's head off?

And you see that kind of that kind of this,

You know,

And you know,

I would go in there all the time to the administrators and say,

You know,

It's funny,

But you know,

See,

There's our link back to MIT.

Remember,

I went to Boston Conservatory.

MIT was the first people to ever play my music in 1980.

They played only for now.

And then the connection was that Dr.

Tom Reynolds became the teacher there.

And he commissioned a piece last year.

So I went to,

I would say to the administrators,

Do you know that at MIT,

You can take music and get an engineering credit?

Oh,

I'm shocked at that.

That's amazing.

What is it?

And I and it always comes,

What is it that they know that you don't know?

And another,

Another thing I would always say is,

Um,

Marvin Minsky,

Who I worked with,

I don't know if you know that name.

Marvin Minsky was the father of artificial intelligence.

He teaches at,

Uh,

MIT,

But you know what he would do before class every time he would play Bach organ fugues.

He had an organ in his office and he had this,

You know,

The three panel,

You're at the top panel,

Middle panel and the foot pedal.

So the guy was very,

Very talented and he played Bach organ fugues.

And I would tell the administrators Marvin Minsky,

The father of artificial intelligence,

Who at that time taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

The pinnacle of technological science across the world plays Bach organ fugues before he goes in and teaches.

Can you tell me what is it that,

You know,

That he doesn't know.

And you see,

Unless you're willing to make that fight through a knowledge based point,

Right?

Could you imagine going in there and saying,

Well,

I read,

I read this,

I read this,

Uh,

This,

This thing that music is math and music is science and music is history.

Okay.

How do you do that?

How do you do that?

If you do that,

You're going to have the program cut.

But when you go in there and you actually know your math and you know,

You're all this stuff that's listed there,

Right?

What do I list there?

Science,

Math,

Language.

Oh my gosh.

It's is musical language.

Of course,

History.

It is physical education,

Especially if you bring into it all the things that happen with marching band.

I actually did a calculation,

You know,

That kids in the marching band were burning as much calories as the quarterback in a football game.

See,

I'm,

I'm,

I'm doing,

I'm doing the math,

Right?

So you can't argue with it because it,

Because there it is.

It's,

It's an objective assessment that's in their language.

You see?

So anyway,

That's,

Uh,

It got any questions because I absolutely 100% agree,

But I know many teachers who are so overwhelmed and so underpaid that they really do love music,

But maybe they haven't been educated in the math.

Maybe they haven't really gone through the history.

They probably know the name of some of these great musicians,

You know?

So then at that point,

I would,

I would,

And I would encourage this with you or anyone to be able to have,

Um,

This inspirational class available to those teachers who I totally have compassion for.

Okay.

Wonderful people.

They're getting paid so little,

They don't have any time because they may be working two jobs and they don't know that other part.

Two things,

Two things.

So again,

On my website,

And it's also on the Apple book store,

The Apple bookstore is a book called midi mast ways of knowing.

Now,

Let me just say,

Let me see if I can quickly find this for you because this is,

This is huge.

This is how you beat the administrators.

This is how you give yourself,

You arm yourself with,

Uh,

Knowledge.

This is how you do it.

Um,

Let's see what we got here.

Good.

So here's the,

Here's the picture of what you're going to be looking for on the score,

On the,

Uh,

The book on my website or at the iTunes bookstore.

It's called ways of knowing midi music,

Math,

Science.

So briefly,

Briefly,

Briefly,

This is a teacher based curriculum guide.

That means that teachers can get this.

They don't have to implement it.

They just have to get it and go,

Wow.

I never thought that.

I never knew that.

I never knew that there was an intersection of periodicity and music.

I didn't know that recursion was a part of music or sequencing and so on and so forth.

You see what I'm saying?

Okay.

Now,

Besides that,

And besides arming yourself at your own pace with this knowledge that's in this curriculum,

Because,

Because city,

We did this curriculum in the 1980s.

This is how I was working with Marvin Minsky.

This is how I was working with Seymour Pappert,

Who is the inventor of logo also from MIT.

And we did this in the inner city schools in New York city.

So we were in parts of the Bronx,

Spanish Harlem,

Harlem,

Queens.

And it was like a father Flanagan approach.

We went to each second grade classroom and we took two kids from every classroom.

And I also did it with kindergarten kids.

And I also did it with fourth graders and sixth graders.

Now the,

At the end of two weeks,

Two weeks,

Their math and science scores were so improved that the principals of these schools asked me to train the teachers.

So in the 1980s,

I had 275 math and science teachers listening to a 23 year old music student.

And I showed them how music can better help them to teach their subjects of mathematics and science.

So that's way one.

Okay.

Here's way two.

And way two is the,

Is,

Well,

I shouldn't even say way two.

I should say way one and way two.

Way two is you go make friends with the math teacher and you say,

Hey man,

Look,

I was robbed.

I was robbed.

I didn't have great teachers like you when I was in high school.

I didn't even,

I didn't have,

By that time I was doing music and I was in college.

I didn't have great math teachers.

I didn't,

I didn't have people like you.

Can you,

Can we hang out sometime at lunch?

And could you like give me some ideas?

And cause I really want to understand mathematics the way you do.

And I don't mean arithmetic.

I mean,

Mathematics.

Like I want to think like a mathematician because if I could do that,

Then I can see the correlation.

Then I would understand that E equals MC squared and a Mahler ninth symphony are really very closely related.

And,

And,

And once I do that,

Then I can be a better teacher.

And that's really what I want.

And I made so many friends that way.

I did it.

I did it at Harrison where I was last teaching and at SUNY state university of New York.

And I,

I had,

We had the greatest friendship math teacher and I,

And he would tell me all these things about Archimedes principle and why it was based on faith.

And it was all,

It was like so cool.

It was like a great thing.

And so that,

That's what I inspire you to do now.

Let me show you the negative.

I got to do it.

I have to do it.

If you retreat and say,

I am too busy.

I cannot get my,

I do not have that kind of brain wiring.

If you do that,

You betray yourself.

You're indirectly betraying your kids.

You have to first see yourself as someone who could do anything.

If you're given a great teacher and discussion and that kind of,

You see what I'm saying?

You make friends with these people.

What are you guys,

What are you guys doing in English this year?

Oh,

We're doing,

Um,

What was the last one?

Oh,

We're reading Edgar Allen Poe.

That's cool.

That's cool.

I think I actually wound up writing a piece about Edgar Allen Poe because of me talking to the English teacher.

And by the way,

Here's another biggie.

I don't know if I mentioned this in the article or not.

It was not my band director that inspired me to go into music.

This is absolutely key,

Everybody.

It was my English teacher,

Ms.

Rafel.

I must,

I get chills when I say her name.

I remember one day going into class and we were reading Lust for Life by Vincent van Gogh.

And she put a record on and it was Mozart.

It was a Mozart symphony.

And then she had projections of Antonio Gaudi architecture.

And we're all reading and we're doing this stuff and,

You know,

Dumb Steve because,

Ms.

Rafel?

Yes.

And she was a,

She was like this elegant,

Super like artist woman,

Right?

She always had a scarf.

And she,

I mean,

She just looked like a character from like a great movie or something.

I said,

Ms.

Rafel,

Why are we reading the Lust for Life about Vincent van Gogh and listening to Mozart and seeing these images of Antonio Gaudi?

And she looked at me with a smile on her face and she said,

Because they're all the same thing.

And that woman made me want to understand what she meant.

And that's the woman that inspired me to go into music.

Wow.

Amazing.

And the teacher,

A teacher has that gift to change a person's life.

When you think of what you created now,

Like 1,

289 pieces.

Oh,

You're going to hate me.

How many now?

You're going to hate me because this one I just finished today is number 1,

300.

Oh my God.

Congratulations on 1,

300.

So,

And you think of the teacher that can create that gift,

Never even knowing,

Never even having an idea that you would go on to do all of this.

I mean,

That is one of the greatest gifts a teacher can have is to change a person's life and make them have that passion.

And I think music for me is the greatest passion that I have.

It's just,

That is just the greatest gift.

So that's why I really,

Really hope that you also do make a Teachable series or some other series on this,

Actually going through each of these,

Because you have that,

You are a teacher and you have that passion yourself.

And I know you don't have the time,

But you've already said you have the time if you have the passion.

So I'm going to turn that back on you.

I'm just like,

You have the time.

I feel that's got to evolve somewhere back to that,

Because not everyone does have the same gift of communicating.

They may have the same heart,

But they may not have that same gift of sharing that communication with a child.

But you know what?

There's a way to get it.

And that's what,

So you remember the article was to inspire,

Right?

Yes.

So,

So no one,

So I can inspire you.

The article can inspire you.

The book,

Ways of Knowing can inspire you.

Talking to your math teachers can inspire you,

But motivation has to be self-motivation all the time.

You're a person's always an autodidact,

No matter what happens.

There's no way you can learn to be a composer.

I mean,

I mean,

You can learn all these things about music theory,

But you can't learn to be a composer.

The nature of a composer is within you.

It's like,

It's,

It's like,

Like Buddha,

Like Buddha said,

What you think of you become.

So what,

So if you think constantly of,

Of composition,

You become a composer.

And I didn't call myself a composer until 404 pieces.

Imagine I wrote 404 pieces while I'm in training.

And then when I,

You know,

I remember the 404th piece,

I called myself a composer,

But here's the ultimate inspiration.

When you came out of college,

So I'm talking directly to the teachers.

Now,

When you came out of college,

You were inspired.

You were an idealist.

You were a romantic.

You were going to give such good things to kids all the time.

So a,

You must be aware of nature.

So in nature,

There's a thing called the second law of thermodynamics and the second law of thermodynamics paraphrased is everything seeks to reach its lowest energy potential.

Unless you have an abundance of constant energy,

Everything just goes away,

Right?

You have a flame.

It eventually burns out.

That's the second law of thermodynamics.

So what you need to do is you need to get yourself psyched.

And when you leave the office,

Your band room office,

You say to yourself,

I can go out there and I could give myself over to the second law of thermodynamics,

Or I could just be a clinician today.

I don't,

I'm not the kid's everyday director today.

I am the guest.

I am the guest conductor.

I'm going to walk in there and I'm going to give those kids something that they don't expect.

That's how I psyched myself up for 17 years every day.

That's a great clue.

That's a great,

Great thing to remember.

And I could see where that could work because all of a sudden you're stepping out of whatever baggage you're carrying in you and you're becoming the guest.

And then that's a new,

Amazing energy of what you really care about that comes through rather than you having that responsibility of the baggage of being a teacher day after day.

I think that's a wonderful gift.

Well,

Stephen,

This is something that is so important and so valuable.

And I can't thank you enough for that gift.

I know there's probably many,

Many,

Many students whose lives have been changed because not only they took your class,

But also some of them have been able to play in your bands and been able to share that music and see videos where then are shared of them playing maybe in a band somewhere.

I mean,

The fact is that once a good energy thing happens,

It has a way of carrying on,

Even though there may be the second law of thermodynamics.

There's also the law of something will continue like that letter that you posted all those years ago,

Even though it got changed,

It's come back around again after 44 years.

You've been able to again,

Bring it to people's attention and inspire them.

So I thank you so very,

Very,

Very much.

I really do for this.

A very,

Very deep bow of gratitude,

Gratitude and blessings for the work you do.

And for all of those who get inspired teachers and students and students who might become teachers in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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Fun conversation by two passionate people 👍