Interview with Josh Geddis
Originally hailing from Strathroy, Ontario, Josh Geddis made his first marks in London, Ontario, touring the bar-band scene while in high school and playing bass in a few full-fledged ska groups in university. After 2005's demo EP "Fairytale Ashes of a Simpler Life," Geddis self-released his debut solo record "Yellow Tent" in 2008. That same year, he began teaching the music program at St. Anne's Catholic Secondary School in Clinton (Ivan Raczycki, 2013)
This is my interview with him, conducted on October 29, 2015. Why did you decide to go into Music Education? If you would have asked me 10 years ago, when I got into teaching, if I was gonna teach music, I would have said no. I really like teaching, and my first two years were teaching English, I really, really liked it, and I |
and I really, really liked playing music a ton on my own time, but I didn’t quite know if teaching it in a high school was for me. I got a call for this job that I’m at now in the summer after the end of my second year teaching in Stratford. It was “Hey, would you like to try teaching music at St. Annes,” and my answer to that was yes, because I needed work. Since my university path was all over the place, I had enough credits to have it as a teachable, but at the end of the day, I was qualified to teach music on paper, so I decided if it flies, after maybe the first week, I realized this is what I want to do, and it’s time to go to work in this music program. So I guess, I really decided music education really clicked for me when I realized I could teach them to love music as much as I do.
What’s one thing you’d like your students to take away from being in a music program?
It probably has nothing to do with music, and everything to do with what you learn through music: leadership, work-ethic, how to strive to be excellent at something but never be satisfied. When I look at all my graduates, and not just the ones that go on to be in music, I see a high caliber of individual. They’re somebody who has actually made it through the four years, I can’t think of a single person who’s studied music grade nine through twelve, and been in ensembles and band, who’s graduated and gone on… who I wouldn’t consider an upstanding citizen, somebody who is excellent at whatever they do. Even kids who have had a tough go… whether they know it or not, with hard work and leadership, responsibility, I think [music] really helps. I think athletes get that too, a lot of them if they’re really good at what they do, but I don’t think really in high school, there’s any other avenue than music and athletics that come away with that sense of leadership and ethic.
What’s one thing you’d like your students to take away from being in a music program?
It probably has nothing to do with music, and everything to do with what you learn through music: leadership, work-ethic, how to strive to be excellent at something but never be satisfied. When I look at all my graduates, and not just the ones that go on to be in music, I see a high caliber of individual. They’re somebody who has actually made it through the four years, I can’t think of a single person who’s studied music grade nine through twelve, and been in ensembles and band, who’s graduated and gone on… who I wouldn’t consider an upstanding citizen, somebody who is excellent at whatever they do. Even kids who have had a tough go… whether they know it or not, with hard work and leadership, responsibility, I think [music] really helps. I think athletes get that too, a lot of them if they’re really good at what they do, but I don’t think really in high school, there’s any other avenue than music and athletics that come away with that sense of leadership and ethic.
So do you think that comes from having a position of responsibility, or does that come from music, or is this just something you try to instill in your students?
That’s something that I try to use music to instill in them. So through band or through class, even coffeehouse, if somebody brings something to the table, [and I see] this is how they’re playing it now, or |
but it mostly boils down to teaching kids flat out what hard work looks like and the success you can get from hard work and applying yourself |
this is where it’s at, by the time this student gets to grade twelve, they understand they will never be as good as they could be. You can always to be better. Using music and using the idea of “the rehearsal” versus “practice”: practice is what you do often to get ready to rehearse. Getting kids to understand that. Using music and music practice and rehearsal to prepare them. You know, I’m not going to stand up in front of a class and say “this is a lot like life: you need to learn how to do things before you go in and actually do it,” but to get kids to click in, that whatever they’re doing- if they’re going into business, do they want to be the section leader or the first chair in their program? or do they want to be the person who’s still sitting at the end? Instilling a little bit of competitiveness, but it mostly boils down to teaching kids flat out what hard work looks like and the success you can get from hard work and applying yourself.
How do you think your teaching style has developed over the years?
I was not a good classroom manager when I started ten years ago. I had brutal classroom management: I was teaching english class, a lot of college level stuff, and I didn’t really understand how my personality worked with that type of student. I have a really easy-going personality, and I’ve had to learn how to use my personality effectively with students. I’m very close with my core group of students, but learning to differentiate how to be a collaborator and director on the same level. So when you do have to reign a group in and be focused, students will take you seriously. I think a lot of [controlling a group is] knowing what you’re talking about and being good at your job and every music teacher I talk to in the first one or two years say it’s tough. It’s not like it’s a job teaching English where you teach your lesson and assign work and go around the room working one-on-one making sure every kid is doing their work. I wasn’t great at that, but when you wind up in front of a music class, you’re teaching the entire time. There’s thirty kids and you’re standing up there in front of them and you’re on for 75 minutes. I found that is actually better for me once I learned how to do it. I find managing music class is way easier than managing any other class because every kid who is in a music class wants to be there, playing all the time. Of course you get the odd kid who just wants to play a Bb trill on the saxophone the entire time, but that’s easy to manage: you just pull him aside and respectfully say “dude, you’re driving me nuts. You’re not a bumblebee, cut it out.”, and that type of management works really good for me: I don’t have to raise my voice or get mad. I think music teachers have a relatively easy go in a high school, just because everyone wants to be there. But it is a lot of getting used to, thinking on your feet, not so much knowing how to play the instruments in the room, but learning how to read a room and get kids to do what you need them to do in the music and how to describe things in a way that they get. Subdividing counting, for instance, might not work, but “ya-ba-da-ba-doo” works. Little things like that, learning techniques and tricks. It didn’t start out like that, very rough. I don’t any first year or second teacher is good at management, you kinda get thrown to the wolves, and you very quickly, in those first couple years, what kind of teacher you’re going to be. Some teacher are loud, and that works for them, the kids love them. I don’t have that, and I’ve had to learn how to use silence… to keep things moving.
How do you think your teaching style has developed over the years?
I was not a good classroom manager when I started ten years ago. I had brutal classroom management: I was teaching english class, a lot of college level stuff, and I didn’t really understand how my personality worked with that type of student. I have a really easy-going personality, and I’ve had to learn how to use my personality effectively with students. I’m very close with my core group of students, but learning to differentiate how to be a collaborator and director on the same level. So when you do have to reign a group in and be focused, students will take you seriously. I think a lot of [controlling a group is] knowing what you’re talking about and being good at your job and every music teacher I talk to in the first one or two years say it’s tough. It’s not like it’s a job teaching English where you teach your lesson and assign work and go around the room working one-on-one making sure every kid is doing their work. I wasn’t great at that, but when you wind up in front of a music class, you’re teaching the entire time. There’s thirty kids and you’re standing up there in front of them and you’re on for 75 minutes. I found that is actually better for me once I learned how to do it. I find managing music class is way easier than managing any other class because every kid who is in a music class wants to be there, playing all the time. Of course you get the odd kid who just wants to play a Bb trill on the saxophone the entire time, but that’s easy to manage: you just pull him aside and respectfully say “dude, you’re driving me nuts. You’re not a bumblebee, cut it out.”, and that type of management works really good for me: I don’t have to raise my voice or get mad. I think music teachers have a relatively easy go in a high school, just because everyone wants to be there. But it is a lot of getting used to, thinking on your feet, not so much knowing how to play the instruments in the room, but learning how to read a room and get kids to do what you need them to do in the music and how to describe things in a way that they get. Subdividing counting, for instance, might not work, but “ya-ba-da-ba-doo” works. Little things like that, learning techniques and tricks. It didn’t start out like that, very rough. I don’t any first year or second teacher is good at management, you kinda get thrown to the wolves, and you very quickly, in those first couple years, what kind of teacher you’re going to be. Some teacher are loud, and that works for them, the kids love them. I don’t have that, and I’ve had to learn how to use silence… to keep things moving.
How would you define yourself as a musician?
Just another musician! Somebody who loves to play, who is always learning, just as interested in all music. I love band repertoire: I could go home and listen to band-rep all night. I love old stuff, new stuff, I love going to see wind ensembles, I love playing in them on my saxophone. More so than that, I just see myself as a person who plays music that loves to connect. I love playing my own music, I love writing my own music, I think that it is something that music education could use more of, out of the box-music teachers. I’m in my mid-thirties writing and recording folk music, and I’m doing that now more than I was in my twenties. I don’t think that kids are necessarily listening to folk music, but I think it’s still cool that my students can turn on the radio and hear me, or see me in iTunes. I’m a musician that I want to be… I’m not playing right now in a community band, becuase I want to focus on my music and I’m in band here 24/7 at school, so when I leave school, I use it as a way to step out of band mode and into me mode. It also helps me when I have a kid who comes in here who doesn’t want to be in band or wants some flexibility in the program. I have coffeehouse for those kids, and just being a teacher who is open to all different types of musician [helps exponentially]. Anyone can be in the band program, but I also get five or six quiet and shy singer-songwriters in the school who I can tap into and help them and nudge them along when they need it. As myy own musician, one day I’ll play saxophone in a band again, one day I might play fiddle, I might get sick of my own folk stuff. When I first started teaching, I played in a metal band for a year because I wanted to. And that’s the beauty of music: practicing pays off and can you show kids that: I didn’t play guitar in grade 10, then played in two rock bands in grade 11- I had to I lock myself in my parents basement! [Just show them that] once you know how to play, you can do whatever you want. All of your evolution can be coordinated. I like seeing what kids are interested in: the sheer amount of music that music teachers get exposed to helps us develop with our students.
Just another musician! Somebody who loves to play, who is always learning, just as interested in all music. I love band repertoire: I could go home and listen to band-rep all night. I love old stuff, new stuff, I love going to see wind ensembles, I love playing in them on my saxophone. More so than that, I just see myself as a person who plays music that loves to connect. I love playing my own music, I love writing my own music, I think that it is something that music education could use more of, out of the box-music teachers. I’m in my mid-thirties writing and recording folk music, and I’m doing that now more than I was in my twenties. I don’t think that kids are necessarily listening to folk music, but I think it’s still cool that my students can turn on the radio and hear me, or see me in iTunes. I’m a musician that I want to be… I’m not playing right now in a community band, becuase I want to focus on my music and I’m in band here 24/7 at school, so when I leave school, I use it as a way to step out of band mode and into me mode. It also helps me when I have a kid who comes in here who doesn’t want to be in band or wants some flexibility in the program. I have coffeehouse for those kids, and just being a teacher who is open to all different types of musician [helps exponentially]. Anyone can be in the band program, but I also get five or six quiet and shy singer-songwriters in the school who I can tap into and help them and nudge them along when they need it. As myy own musician, one day I’ll play saxophone in a band again, one day I might play fiddle, I might get sick of my own folk stuff. When I first started teaching, I played in a metal band for a year because I wanted to. And that’s the beauty of music: practicing pays off and can you show kids that: I didn’t play guitar in grade 10, then played in two rock bands in grade 11- I had to I lock myself in my parents basement! [Just show them that] once you know how to play, you can do whatever you want. All of your evolution can be coordinated. I like seeing what kids are interested in: the sheer amount of music that music teachers get exposed to helps us develop with our students.
IN 2014, ST. ANNES MUSIC PROGRAM COMMISSIONED THE SONG SONGS OF KAREGNONDI.
THIS A DOCUMENTARY FOCUSING ON THE MUSIC PROGRAM.
THIS A DOCUMENTARY FOCUSING ON THE MUSIC PROGRAM.
What does music education mean to you? What’s the point of it all?
The most important thing for a grade 9 student to do is sign up for a music class for two reasons. One, you can’t have strong group of grade 12’s without first those grade 9s. Every single grade nine class I start with the same question: who has listened to music today? Was it O Canada on the announcements? everyone puts up their hand. Was is a soundtrack? Was it the radio on the way to school? Was it a computer game? And nobody in a grade nine class can deny that music is an enormous part of life. Playing music is intrinsic. You might look at art from time to time, look at a photograph every once in awhile, you might watch a tv show, but you’re not really paying attention to the acting. In terms of the arts, that are taught in highschool, I think music is the one that no matter what you do, is vitally important in your life. Our existence here, some people argue, revolves around music. Walking outside in a thunderstorm is music. Music education is proving to kids that music is vital and important, that there are lessons to be learned thorugh it, and its valuable, even if you just take music in grade nine. You will learn a little bit of how to play something, but you learn a little bit about the music you’re going to hear for the next 60 years of your life.
Any advice for hopefully music teachers?
Work as hard as you possibly can. Find a music job, and if you’re working hard, people will notice. When I first started at St. Annes, there were two music courses, band and grade 12, and the music teacher was gone for a year. I didn’t really have any responsibility. i could have came in, taught for a year, ran the 12 person band and that could have been it. I could have left, got paid, people would have liked me, I’m a nice guy, kids would like me, but that's not what I did. After the first week, I thought; “wait a second, what if she doesn’t come back? I don’t want to be teaching just two music classes and directing this very dedicated but you can’t do anything with an only 12 person big band! I don’t want to be doing this.” So I started to just work. Every night, working uniil 5 jus thinking, moving chairs around, sitting and staring at music, what could this program look like? I started to really work on lunches, inviting kids in on lunches, teaching grade 9’s just to bring people in. It really just resulted in broken things, and literally every waking moment- I didn’t even do my own music!- I just worked and next year I had 5 music courses and a 45 person band. If you work, you’ll get work. If you don’t, it’s such a small community that people will be able to tell that. I got hired back the second year, still as an LTO, still no contract. But the second she was done, I had it. No interview. And I’m still here, 6 music courses and a 55 person band. A $ 10 000 grant. It’s really hard work, but once you got the program, people take notice, and they see your hard work and want their kids to be a part of it. Even on your sick day, you feel like garbage, your kids have been up all night, you come into work you’re on 110%. Just being in that role of music teacher, once you’re in, September to June you just go like Hell, and from there just good things will happen. If you put in hard work, kids will put in just as hard of work (laughs) maybe not, but they’ll see you working hard and they’ll be like “ugh, I have to work harder”. And maybe they won’t, but still worth the effort.
The most important thing for a grade 9 student to do is sign up for a music class for two reasons. One, you can’t have strong group of grade 12’s without first those grade 9s. Every single grade nine class I start with the same question: who has listened to music today? Was it O Canada on the announcements? everyone puts up their hand. Was is a soundtrack? Was it the radio on the way to school? Was it a computer game? And nobody in a grade nine class can deny that music is an enormous part of life. Playing music is intrinsic. You might look at art from time to time, look at a photograph every once in awhile, you might watch a tv show, but you’re not really paying attention to the acting. In terms of the arts, that are taught in highschool, I think music is the one that no matter what you do, is vitally important in your life. Our existence here, some people argue, revolves around music. Walking outside in a thunderstorm is music. Music education is proving to kids that music is vital and important, that there are lessons to be learned thorugh it, and its valuable, even if you just take music in grade nine. You will learn a little bit of how to play something, but you learn a little bit about the music you’re going to hear for the next 60 years of your life.
Any advice for hopefully music teachers?
Work as hard as you possibly can. Find a music job, and if you’re working hard, people will notice. When I first started at St. Annes, there were two music courses, band and grade 12, and the music teacher was gone for a year. I didn’t really have any responsibility. i could have came in, taught for a year, ran the 12 person band and that could have been it. I could have left, got paid, people would have liked me, I’m a nice guy, kids would like me, but that's not what I did. After the first week, I thought; “wait a second, what if she doesn’t come back? I don’t want to be teaching just two music classes and directing this very dedicated but you can’t do anything with an only 12 person big band! I don’t want to be doing this.” So I started to just work. Every night, working uniil 5 jus thinking, moving chairs around, sitting and staring at music, what could this program look like? I started to really work on lunches, inviting kids in on lunches, teaching grade 9’s just to bring people in. It really just resulted in broken things, and literally every waking moment- I didn’t even do my own music!- I just worked and next year I had 5 music courses and a 45 person band. If you work, you’ll get work. If you don’t, it’s such a small community that people will be able to tell that. I got hired back the second year, still as an LTO, still no contract. But the second she was done, I had it. No interview. And I’m still here, 6 music courses and a 55 person band. A $ 10 000 grant. It’s really hard work, but once you got the program, people take notice, and they see your hard work and want their kids to be a part of it. Even on your sick day, you feel like garbage, your kids have been up all night, you come into work you’re on 110%. Just being in that role of music teacher, once you’re in, September to June you just go like Hell, and from there just good things will happen. If you put in hard work, kids will put in just as hard of work (laughs) maybe not, but they’ll see you working hard and they’ll be like “ugh, I have to work harder”. And maybe they won’t, but still worth the effort.
SONG FROM HIS LATEST ALBUM