MUSIC

typical music teacher. Though their students aren’t preparing guitars with electrical wire and bottle caps or writing atonal compositions, that same spirit of exploration remains crucial to Riggs’s classrooms.

Riggs received a bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2007 and a master’s in music composition from Wesleyan University in 2012. Then they started working toward what Illinois calls a professional educator license. By 2016, they were teaching core subjects at Dore Elementary, and three years later they moved to James Wadsworth Elementary to teach reading.

But throughout this period, Riggs was mainly interested in teaching music. The possibility echoed through their head constantly, like the dull hum of guitar feedback. They had met all the prerequisites for certification—they just needed to pass the Illinois Licensure Testing System’s music exam. Riggs did so in summer 2022, and they applied that fall to teach at Doolittle Elementary in Bronzeville, attracted by the school’s robust selection of elective classes.

“Especially on the south side, you have plenty of schools where the only special class is gym, and that’s incredibly sad,” Riggs says. “To know [principal Iysha Jones] was prioritizing those things made me really happy.”

In January of this year, Riggs started at Doolittle, where they teach pre-K through eighth grade. On an average day, they’ll open class with a song that students might recognize— earlier in June, it was “Wishing Well” by Juice WRLD—and use it as an instructional tool. For their second grade class, Riggs input the “Wishing Well” beat into an online music sequencer, encouraging students to take it apart and make something new using the same components. Of course, if a student preferred to make their own beat from scratch, they were more than welcome to.

Riggs also teaches an elective class every Wednesday afternoon. It’s nonevaluative, meaning no one is graded, and it’s even more exploratory than their other classes. Some students record original songs, during this period or before the school day begins (Jayveon Thomas and Bobby Wright are particularly prolific), with Riggs walking them through the basic steps of the mixing process. Riggs then listens to these recordings and looks for specific techniques—such as the use of triplet rhythms—to discuss in their other classrooms.

This level of creative freedom wasn’t always encouraged in Riggs’s own education. At

Oberlin, a particularly conservative professor strongly discouraged them from performing atonal music. As early as fifth grade, they recall a music teacher playing two pieces, one tonal and one atonal, then asking the class to vote on which was better—and the teacher’s thumb was clearly on the scale for the tonal piece.

“I’m seeing now that, as a teacher, if a child comes to me and they’re legitimately interested in something, I’d better use that as an opportunity to engage with them,” Riggs says. “Whatever it might be, to pass it o is a huge mistake as an educator.”

Riggs and their students have a mutually beneficial relationship. Riggs gives everyone in their classes a space to create and explore, and in the process students frequently introduce Riggs to new sounds. It wasn’t until a recent student concert at Doolittle that Riggs realized the brilliance of Chicago footwork music, for example.

Riggs’s artistry has also been influenced by their students. At Wadsworth, they learned about TikTok from their fourth grade class and subsequently joined the platform, so they could reference it during lessons. Riggs posted a video playing guitar, and other users liked and commented on it. Their account, @autistic guitarist, has since evolved into a creative outlet for Riggs, who has an audience of nearly 14,000 followers.

“I had been in kind of a dark place for a number of years, artistically, prior to that,” they say. “I started getting responses and people liked what I did, and I didn’t have to dress it up at all. I didn’t have to release an album. I didn’t have to be something other than what I was, and they liked it. That made me think that I should keep doing what I’m doing.”

What Riggs does is simple—they seek out sounds that give them pleasure, and they make them over and over again. Maybe those sounds give you pleasure too, in which case you’re welcome to listen. And if not, well, you can just keep scrolling.

What better example to set for young musicians? Riggs’s students might not all wind up as avant-garde noise guitarists, but that isn’t the point. What matters is that they’ll know how to discover their own creative paths and stick with them, regardless of what anyone else might think.

Riggs demonstrates that there’s no right or wrong way to create music—just find a sound you like and start making it. v

@austinwds64