Next week, the Disney original animated film The Little Mermaid will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. As a part of the celebration they are bringing a live production of the movie to the small screen. This performance is not the first time a full-length film has been brought to live television but will be the first animated film to do so.
For those of you under the age of 30, The Little Mermaid is a1989 Disney's romantic animated film that tells the story of a mermaid princess named Ariel who dreams of becoming human after falling in love with a land-bound prince named Eric. Over the objections of her father, King Triton, and sidekick Sebastian, she is determined to make her dreams come true by striking a bargain with an evil sea witch and trading her beautiful singing voice so she can be part of the human world.
The Little Mermaid is given credit for reviving the art of Disney animated feature films after a string of commercial failures produced by Disney that dated back to the early 1970s. It also marked the start of the era known as the Disney Renaissance. The film won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song (Under the Sea). But my favorite will always be Part of Your World. It’s simple melody and emotional lyrics allow you to feel Ariel’s angst as she seeks to understand and participate in a world so close and yet so very far away.
Music education is similar in that while everything seems so interconnected, our profession has many “worlds” to it. Orchestra, band, and choir are obvious examples of our different ecospheres, but there are others. General music, Suzuki, Orff, and Kodaly serve music education at infancy, whereas music therapy and play it again ensembles provide enrichment and entertainment to finish out a lifetime of music-making.
Even further dividing us are the idiomatic areas of jazz, chamber ensembles, rock band, marching band, show choir, chamber ensembles, and musical theatre, to name a few.
When I sit back and take a look at it all, I am amazed by the depth and breadth of our profession and what it entails. When you stand back and survey the landscape, it doesn’t take long to see that we are as diverse as we are complex.
Like Ariel, I survey these places from afar and try to understand things based on what little I know and have observed. I never taught a class of beginners or stared down a group of boisterous second-graders in a general music class. My knowledge of the difference between Orff and Kodaly doesn’t extend much beyond their different spellings, and as for Show Choir, let’s say that I can neither sing nor dance.
So, like Ariel, here I stand trying to understand what it would take to be part of your world.
You see, ever since I was sixteen I knew I wanted to be a high school band director. It has been my passion, calling, and life’s work for three decades. I never aspired to teach collegiately and didn’t believe my personality and demeanor to be a good fit for the middle or younger grades. I knew of the pedagogy and completed my student teaching, but suffice to say, I did not see it as my calling, until now.
As a part of a new project, I have recently been delving into the different “worlds” of music education that I have, until now, known very little about. It has been an eye-opening experience. Like Ariel, I am finding things and people that surprise and amaze me. I am experiencing things, sights, and sounds for the first time, and it has me challenging my life long assertion that I am “a high school teacher.”
Beyond that, it has reminded me how much I don’t know about this profession and that I would need to learn and grow to be part of your world. To achieve that, I will be reaching out in the coming weeks and asking for your help. I need you to teach me and share your thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Share with me your obstacles and opportunities, your dreams and pain points. Just share.
The Little Mermaid has always been one of my favorites. The storyline, the music, and a “crabby” conductor make for a wonderful film regardless of your age. But most of all, it is a not so subtle reminder to break outside of our boxes and stretch ourselves beyond our own little curricular areas. Ariel puts it best when she sings "I want to know what the people know. Ask them my questions and get some answers, so I can be... Part of their world. "
Have a great week and Happy 30th Birthday to Ariel, Sebastian, and the entire Little Mermaid crew.
p.s. The Little Mermaid is based on the much darker Danish fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. If you are interested in checking it out, you should know it is closer to Stephen King than it is Walt Disney.