Music teaching is not a production line job

By the time they graduate with a Master's degree in pedagogy, teachers have acquired sufficient artistic and pedagogical skills to be perfectly prepared for the job of music teacher. Internships are an important part of this training. In this respect, it's worth following the HKB's pilot project with the Oberemmental Music School, which will begin in autumn 2026: for the duration of their Master's degree, students will teach three to five children at the Oberemmental Music School. They∙elles will be accompanied by didactic specialist teachers from the HKB and trainee teachers from the music school. They∙elles will receive a salary in line with cantonal scales, and music school students will be able to benefit from these courses at a reduced rate. It is highly likely that such a project will enhance the attractiveness of a master's degree in pedagogy. For we see a problem here: today, far too many students∙e∙s are being trained for a master's in performance, all of whom will never have a career enabling them to support themselves, while the shortage of music teachers∙e∙s (particularly guitar and piano) is already a reality. What's more, teachers in the rock/pop and jazz fields regularly point out that conservatories offer far too few places in these fields, and that greater openness to stylistic diversity should be demonstrated in these curricula.

Daily working life

Young music teachers are unprepared for the fact that it's virtually impossible to work at 100 % as a music teacher if you don't teach at a grammar school or teacher training college - even if you teach a highly sought-after instrument like the piano.
Curriculum 21 provides for fixed blocks of time, and the number of weekly lessons has been increased. Although in the canton of Berne, for example, parents can, under certain conditions, request that their children be excused from a school class so that they can take a music school course during this time, the reality is that music teachers can often only start teaching in the late afternoon. They may then teach from 3:30 pm to 9:00 pm, ideally without a break, so as to be able to teach as many students as possible. Depending on the canton, a full-time workload ranges from 37 weekly 40-minute lessons to 58 30-minute lessons, as is the case in the canton of Graubünden, where the situation is further complicated by the fact that teachers often have to travel from one place to another during this very limited time slot.
The first chapter of The Recipe for Quality Music Teaching describes what an∙e ideal∙e music teacher∙e should accomplish, and I wonder if the «watchful eye and analytical ear» don't end up getting tired from listening to and observing 10 to 11 students every day for half an hour straight, without any breaks to assimilate impressions. Hats off to music teachers∙e∙s who manage to make music lessons generally enjoyable: during the 30-minute lesson, the student has to arrive, unpack his instrument, perhaps tell something urgent or yawn vigorously because the day has been long and busy. Then you have to listen to what he's rehearsed, explain something, introduce a new piece, play a duet and improvise. All this in 30 minutes, always in a good mood, while adapting individually to each student and taking care not to ask too much or too little of him.
The situation can be easier when you also teach a few adult students who willingly attend morning classes. Or when one works as a music teacher∙e in an elementary school, where classes are integrated into the timetable. Perhaps you perform as a solo musician or in an orchestra. Rehearsals for concerts can be scheduled in the mornings, but concerts, if not at weekends, again encroach on precious time during which one could be teaching. What's more, it's difficult to organize family life with children when you're working practically every evening and weekend.

Fortunately, musicians∙ne∙s are creative∙ve∙s and resilient∙e∙s and often find a way to organize their complicated lives with the most beautiful profession in the world.

Possible improvements

It's very important that the music school and elementary school work closely together, so that music lessons are not seen as harmful competition to primary education, but as an important complement that needs to be integrated. When children engage once a week - if possible not after a full school day, when they're already tired - in a complex activity such as learning to play an instrument or singing a solo, it stimulates their creativity, concentration and self-confidence, which has a positive effect on their behavior and ability to learn at school.

Politicians should increase rather than reduce the budget for music lesson subsidies, so that as many children as possible from low-income families can take music lessons, and so that lessons last long enough to provide relevant instruction. Music lessons must not be reduced to assembly-line work.
We are eagerly awaiting the results in the canton of Aargau, where the message on the first reading of the instrumental education revision will be submitted to the Grand Council in the autumn.

The damage that savings in musical education can cause can be seen in the town of Chur, where at elementary school, musical initiation took place in the mornings, during school hours, in half classes. All children took part voluntarily, as otherwise they would have had to be looked after separately during school hours. Today, classes are held in the afternoon and children have to be enrolled, something that educationally disadvantaged families often don't do. Chur saves CHF 40,000, but many children miss out on a basic education.