Too often as music educators - and humans - we think that having more is better. More done-for-you lesson plans, more instruments in our classroom, more repertoire in our files, more ideas stashed away on our computer. 

Sadly, what we really need as music teachers is less. Fewer. 

When I took over the band program at my school I was elated to find that there were filing cabinets chocked full of old - like, 50+ year old - repertoire and method books. Why? Why on earth was I elated by this fact? 

Because they were there. 

How many lines of music was that? How many songs in how many books? My goodness, I was so lucky! All of those resources for my students!

And how many times did I pull out those old, falling apart books? 

Exactly zero. 

Of course I didn’t, because we had plenty of material already. We had one method book and my ability to quickly produce exercises and literature that were far more targeted to the needs of my students than anything in those old, incomplete sets.

I was able to create what I needed in shorter order than what it would take me to find something similar that might work from that massive pile of repertoire. 

Eventually, the space they were taking up became more valuable as I was able to acquire new material, more relevant material. 

There was nothing inherently wrong with the books and decades old repertoire. Some of it is pretty good. But it’s usefulness was over. So why do we hang onto things that are no longer useful? 

Because we think they WILL be. 

It’s like packing for a long trip. You think you have to be prepared for every eventuality. But what if what if what if….

The truth is that we can do so much more if we have less. Pair down that file full of lesson plans to the ones that are the best, and let the rest go. Give away, recycle, or rent out all of those old materials that haven’t been used in years and watch what happens.

Whether we recognize it or not, the stuff we have weighs on us. We carry it energetically. And when we let it go, we feel it. It’s not a sense of loss at all, it’s a sense of relief. You don’t realize how much the sheer volume of stuff we have demands of us, especially if we aren’t using it. 

How different would it be to take the Spartan approach. Keep only the needs, not the wants. If there is something that we need in the moment and we don’t have it, we can borrow it or buy it. 

Here are some question to help you purge your stock of ‘potentially useful but not being used stuff’:

1. Is it something you use regularly? If not, let it go. If it hasn’t been used in the last school year, then you don’t use it regularly.

2. Is it something that you enjoy, but has been packed away, unseen? Then pull it out where it can be enjoyed.

3. Is it something that is easily searched for and accessed online? Then get rid of it, you will be able to find it again.

And that’s it! 

At one point in my life I was living in a 5 bed, 3 bath house and owned 3 cars and 6 couches. I won’t bore you with the details of my paradigm shift, but one day we decided that our family priorities weren’t owning stuff, it was doing stuff. If we sold most of what we owned and rented the big house out, we could move into a smaller place and have some disposable income.

So that’s what we did. 

We didn’t have a yard sale, we had an everything sale. A fire sale. I walked people through the house and sold, gave, lent, and purged 95% of what we owned. 

It was bliss.

With every item sold, I felt lighter and freer. Eventually I even sold our bed and opted to sleep on the floor. 

I gave our kids toys to charity, and let them pick which 2 they wanted to keep. Their stuffed animals that were newer we gave to our city emergency responders to use when taking kids in police cars and ambulances. 

Did my kids miss them? Absolutely not. They were so happy to be giving their things to kids who would need them more. 

We found a tiny apartment and started spending our cold winter weekends in the much warmer climate 4 hours south of us. I was able to buy a new bike, and enroll in a master’s degree program. 

So ask yourself, what do you really need? Isn’t the most important teaching tool you have….you?

You have a wealth of skills, abilities, and resources right at your fingertips. Pair down to the essentials in your classroom and your life. Release it all and see the power of less. Or fewer.

What is the most important teaching tool in your classroom? What have you minimized lately?

Leave a comment and let me know.