Apple TV's psychological thriller Severance has captured audiences worldwide with its eerie aesthetic, thought-provoking themes, and unsettling workplace dystopia.

Severance is set in a dystopian society where some company employees undergo a surgical procedure to separate their work from their personal lives. It's a disturbing yet fascinating take on work-life balance taken to the extreme.

At Lumon, select employees undergo the severance procedure, creating two distinct versions of themselves:

"Innies" – Their work personas, who exist only inside the office and have no knowledge of the outside world.
"Outies" – Their personal lives, who do not remember what happens at work.

Amid Lumon Industries' ominous halls and the eerie detachment of its workers, an unexpected presence stands out: the marching band.

Yes, if you live under a rock or are culturally unaware (as I typically am), the marching band has become a cultural phenomenon.

In the last episode of season two, the marching band, part of Lumon's Choreography and Merriment department, symbolizes compliance and control. The band's performance serves as a demonstration of the manager Milchick'sunwavering commitment to Lumon's ideals as he leads them in the workspace to celebrate a great accomplishment.

For music teachers, this eerie concept may be too real. While we may not have undergone brain surgery to split our identities, the struggle of separating work from home is an ongoing battle—one few of us win.

Unlike many professions, music teachers don't just clock out at 5 p.m. and forget about their jobs. This crazy profession follows us home, quite literally, into our nights and weekends with an unending list of tasks and a mental playlist of every wrong note played in rehearsal.

In the series, employees struggle with the idea that their innie (their workplace persona) has no real agency outside of work. This isn't a sci-fi concept for a music teacher but a daily reality. Our "innie" teaches, conducts, organizes fundraisers, handles school politics, manages the inventory, polices the practice rooms, and somehow manages to teach Holst and Holsinger along the way. But their "outie" still gets late-night emails from parents, contests on weekends, and hears the distant echo of a student asking, "Wait, when's the concert again?" in the supposed solitude of their living room.

Beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, how many of us struggle to maintain the "ethos" of our job at home? How many of us feel guilty about not studying scores when we ask our students to practice? How often have you had cognitive dissonance preaching work ethic to your students when all you wanted to do was go home? How many days during the summer break did you go to work or feel guilty about not going to work when you weren't even supposed to be there?

As dark as Severence is, and it's dark, they may be on to something with this separation of work and home.

Imagine finishing a stressful day of rehearsal, stepping outside, and instantly forgetting about the trumpet section's inability to count rests.

Sounds heavenly, right? But there's the darker side of the equation.

With Severance, my "innie" wouldn't remember ANY of what happened at work. I wouldn't remember the joy of a well-played phrase, the excitement on a student's face when they finally played it correctly, or the emotional rush of knowing we wouldn't crash and burn at a contest (admit it, you've felt it).

Unlike the workers in Severance, music teachers can't simply separate their professional and personal lives by pushing an elevator button. Their work is deeply personal, emotionally taxing, and, in many ways, a fundamental part of our identity. When students succeed, it's a personal triumph. It feels like an existential crisis when funding is cut or programs are undervalued. The stakes are too high for a clean divide.

But just like in Severance, there's also a struggle for autonomy. Music teachers constantly navigate school bureaucracy, battling for budgets, rehearsal space, and performance opportunities. Their passion is sometimes reduced to a series of spreadsheets and justifications to administrators who see the program as a dispensable extracurricular rather than an essential part of student development.

Despite the challenges, the very thing that makes a Severance-style split desirable is also what makes being a music teacher worthwhile. We live for the moments when the "innie" and the "outie" align—the moment when the hours of work pay off in a standing ovation, when a student finally masters that impossible passage, or when a marching band takes the field under stadium lights, ready to perform for the first time.

Ultimately, we don't need to sever our brains—we need balance. We may never fully escape the demands of our chosen profession, but I wouldn't want to. Unlike the corporate drones of Lumon, I don't just work to survive; I work to inspire. Our mysterious and important work, despite its challenges, is worth remembering—inside and outside the band room.

Have a great week!

Scott

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