Full Music Circle

By Cindy Deane, ETM-LA Music Teacher
Education Through Music-Los Angeles
April 13, 2026

 

Before I worked with Education Through Music-LA in the elementary classroom, I was performing with orchestras, participating in AFM-funded educational shows, and – through other nonprofits – presenting chamber music programs for students. I’ve been teaching since I was 16, starting with private lessons when my middle school band director began sending horn students to me. In fact, my first two students both went on to become professional musicians: performing, arranging, composing, and teaching. At the school where I currently work, I had also previously performed in educational settings for several years with woodwind quintets and brass ensembles. 

Recently, one of my colleagues was in town. We had been performing together as a professional horn duo, playing arrangements of jazz standards, and we decided to bring that collaboration into the school setting while she was in the Los Angeles area. 

With the warm welcome of ETM-LA and the school principal, we had the opportunity to present an educational performance at the school where I currently teach. 

We performed for 3rd and 4th grade students. Our program included an introduction to the horn — how it began and how it evolved. We shared examples like conch shells and animal horns, and even used a long hose “horn” to demonstrate the full length of the French horn. Students who held the hose could feel the vibrations of the sound, turning the experience into something physical and immediate. This performance was supported in part by the Music Performance Trust Fund. 

In the classroom leading up to the performance, I had introduced basic ideas of jazz and improvisation, giving students opportunities to create their own rhythmic responses — a small window into what it means to improvise. We also talked about what it means to be a thoughtful audience member — how to listen, respond, and be part of a live musical experience. 

After five years at this school, administrators and teachers have begun to notice a shift in the students’ musical abilities. They’re more confident, they’re more engaged in singing, and they participate more deeply in music-making as a whole. 

Sometimes you go into music because you want to play. 

That’s the whole reason — you want to perform, to make sound, to be inside the music. Other times, people enter music knowing they want to teach. 

They’re drawn to guiding, shaping, and passing something on. 

But sometimes, as a performer— 

as someone living inside the work—

you realize you have something to teach because you perform. And sometimes you find yourself teaching in a way you never planned— and somehow, things come full circle. 

And the truth is… 

these paths don’t stand alone. 

They inform each other. 

The performing deepens the teaching. 

The teaching clarifies the performing. 

And the more I teach, the better performer I become. 

And somewhere in the middle of both— 

that’s where real musicianship lives. 

That’s the space we bring into the classroom. 

Not just notes and rhythms, but lived experience— 

the connection between sound, listening, and expression. Because music isn’t just something we do. 

It’s something we share.