To Be Of Service — David Gregory

TO BE OF SERVICE BY DAVID GREGORY

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The National Band Association celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2020 and entered into its seventh decade of service to bands stronger than ever before. The time in which we now find ourselves is one of unprecedented opportunity to change our profession for the better. Ours is an organization which offers many venues through which diversity and inclusion can be expanded, and it is one that will continue to search for ways to be a voice for those who do not have one and a forum for those who cannot find one. In short, the NBA will continue be the most significant professional organization for bands in America. It epitomizes service to others.

The legendary Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. challenged the world with his immortal words cited at the beginning of this article. There is no uncertainty as to what he believed our purpose should be, either as individuals or as organizations: service to others. I believe it is most appropriate that we as professional music educators ask that same question of ourselves...and not be afraid to accept honest and realistic answers. My career-long mentor, Dr. William J. Moody, once said to me during one of my learning conversations with him that answers usually bring more questions. Upon that premise, and the statement of Dr. King, I base the following comments.

I fear the line between being of service and self-service has become less and less clear. Internationally renowned maestro Ricardo Muti commented during an interview marking his 80th birthday: "Today, many conductors use the podium for excessive gesticulation, for show, trying to make an impression with an audience more interested in what they see than what they hear." I find that Maestro Muti's words ring uncomfortably true in our profession today, and the ease with which one may move from serving others to that of self-service is a slippery slope...one upon which balance and purpose easily can be lost. Teaching is about service to others; it is not about self-serving actions.

The years of one's career, indeed one's life, fold easily upon one another. The years of my career certainly have done so, but during those decades a number of observations and questions evolved. And they persist even today.

Dr. David Gregory, Founder and Conductor Emeritus of the Georgia Wind Symphony, is former Director of Bands/Coordinator of Music Education at Reinhardt University (Ret.) and Conductor Emeritus of Tara Winds Community Band. He has conducted elementary, junior high, high school, community college, university, and professional bands during his career. He is a Past President of the National Band Association and served eight years as Advisor to the Executive Committee of that organization. Maintaining a regular schedule of appearances, Dr. Gregory has received invitations to appear throughout the United States and abroad. He has conducted allstate bands throughout America, and his band activities have taken him across the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and the European continent where he appeared as guest conductor of La Banda dell’Esercito of Rome, Italy (2x), the Associazione Musicale “G. Verdi” Band of Aci S. Antonio, Sicily, the Federazione Bande Siciliane of Santa Maria di Licodia, Sicily, the Lucania Orchestra di Fiati of Matera, Italy, La Banda di Sant’Oreste (Rome), La Banda di Commune Triuggio, and five times with La Banda di Sacrofano in Rome. He is an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association and served as a member of the Board of Directors for that organization. In February of 2020, Gregory was inducted into the National Band Association’s “Hall of Fame of Distinguished Conductors” and was named as a “Midwest Legend” for 2021.

Thoughts and Observations:

• Those more concerned with their personal and professional image than that

of their students and their program have lost themselves in self-serving actions. • Those who regularly use social media to promote their personal agenda of clinic invitations, guest conducting appearances, personal accolades, and professional recognitions are the anthesis, if not the enemy, of service to others. • Conductors who regularly post on social media their "thanks" and "appreciation" for conducting invitations flirt with self-serving actions.

It is obvious to most that the purpose of such posts is not to express sincere gratitude (which easily can be expressed to the director through a letter or email) but to solicit additional invitations...and subsequently we will see even more such postings on social media. • Composers whose works are performed and are recognized in the audience by the conductor but who "invite themselves" to the stage for bows and congratulations rather than standing and accepting the recognition are fully engaged in self-serving activity. The idea of service to students and our profession has been abandoned by them...if it ever were present. • Conductors whose personal reputations have been nurtured more and are better publicized than that of the programs they oversee possibly have crossed the line from serving others to selfservice. • Conductors who use their programs and professional organizations to promote self-interests are not serving others. They are engaged in flagrant self-service. • As professional educators we must realize that very little good is done for our students or our profession through rather juvenile postings on social media regarding awards we have been given, recognitions we have garnered, recordings of past performances of our ensembles, or selfaggrandizing name droppings of "great" and "grand" friends.

Rather than helping our profession through such actions, I believe there is the very real risk of sending wrong and misleading messages to younger professionals. We are not called into this profession to serve ourselves, but rather we are charged with the responsibility of serving our students. • There are those directors who will not accept student interns because they are not paid by the respective college/ university to do so. Perhaps they consider themselves above such things as serving future teachers because their concept of "service" seems to be measured in financial gain. • There are those who choose not to serve our profession by holding elected or appointed positions in professional service organizations because they do not receive payment for doing so. Theirs is a very short-sighted view of the true

meaning of service to our profession. • Conductors who post video recordings of themselves on social media under the pretense of "hearing the progress" of the ensemble should understand that the video should not focus primarily on them. Even those of us who are the least media savvy recognize that ruse. • Are any of us worth exorbitant fees for clinics or conducting appearances? Are any of us really that good? Perhaps true service to others would address the issue of excessive clinician fees charged by those who have become selfabsorbed and do not appear to have service to others as a priority. • Do we really believe others do not see our self-serving acts of self-publicizing, selfaggrandizing and bragging on social media for what they truly are: actions by someone who needs and desires affirmation and attention, regardless of the degree of shallowness? • Lastly, is there any evidence of service to others, especially our students, through detailed postings of personal and private health issues on social media...a practice that has become common place with many in our profession?

Again, possibly actions by those who need and desire affirmation and attention. In cases of personal medical and health issues, those who need to know and should know, will know.

To Be of Service, David Gregory, cont.

To Be of Service, David Gregory, cont. Is it not time that we as music educators take an honest and objective look at the messages we send to others in our profession through our actions and words?

Should we set aside the touting of our personal accolades and focus more on how better to serve those entrusted to our musical care? I submit that if we did, ours would be a healthier and more studentcentered profession...one with less "I/Me" and more "They/Them," and that would be a very good thing. Those who should know of our accomplishments will know; the use of social media to honor oneself should not be part of our profession. Our purpose should be to serve, not self-service.

But on the Other Hand • Teaching is our calling; guiding students is our goal; conducting is a tool...serving is our purpose. • Conductors/teachers/ composers who find ways to bring out the best in others are the epitome of service. • Those who give time and talents to our profession through service in professional organizations, without expectation of personal recognition or accolades, personify the concept of a servant-leader. • Those who truly believe in the idea of giving to our profession through service to it are the ones with whom lies much of the hope for the future of our art form. (Remember President John

F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you.

Ask what you can do for your country." Might we substitute

"profession" for country?) • Those who serve understand the nobility of helping others become the best they can be. • Those whose goal is "to be of service" know the integrity and honor in doing for others. • Those who find students who appear invisible to others and paint them with bright colors are some of the greatest servers. • Those who find ways of bringing positive attention and recognition to others rather than seeking it for themselves innately exemplify the beauty of serving. • There are those who show up to work before other teachers arrive and are there long after most others have left for the day, sometimes in discouraging or less-thanideal work environments... serving their students in ways difficult to measure. • Those directors who care for and make certain all their students are provided with the same performance and educational opportunities, regardless of socio-economic level, demographic factors, or other extenuating circumstances, quietly and without fanfare, are some of the greatest servants of students. • Those who refuse to give up on students who are underachievers or lack motivation, who keep encouraging and finding ways to help them succeed, never letting them lose hope in their potential...and then

repeating those actions as many times as needed...those are the champions of service, and they neither ask for or seek recognition for their devotion to their students. Champions indeed... • There are many in our profession who do not need effusive personal and professional titles attached to their names; they are known for their service to others and to our profession throughout their careers. • There are many names that do not need to be seen on social media in order to be known for their true greatness; they have earned it through a lifetime of service to students rather than through self-serving and self-promoting actions. Think back through your career and remember some of those special servants-of-students who have been part of your life. Maybe even drop them a note or give them a call and thank them for their service to others.

Service to others sometimes goes without due acknowledgment, but it never goes without appreciation from those who are the recipients. Being of service changes people, both those who give it and those who receive it, and it can change a profession...for the better. Those students we serve over our careers may not remember all the lessons we tried to teach, but they will remember the way we treated (served) them and how we made them feel about themselves.

The Fifty-Seven Dollar Clinic Many years ago former NBA

President James Keene, then Director of Bands at East Texas State University (now Texas A&M University-Commerce), was asked to rehearse a high school band in a small town approximately two hours from his university. The call came to Jim on Thursday for the following Monday evening, and the director mentioned nothing to Jim regarding an honorarium. Back in those days university band jobs did not pay salaries comparable to today's positions, so Jim asked the director if the booster club might be able to provide gas money for the rather long trip. The director assured Jim that they could pay him for his work so Jim headed out for the first-ever, two-hour rehearsal of this small band as they prepared for their yearly concert evaluation. When the rehearsal was finished, the director asked Jim if $57.00 would be enough payment for his services. Jim said it would and the director instructed the students to line up. Each student approached Jim, shook his hand, thanked him for coming to rehearse them, and placed a one-dollar bill on the conductor's stand. Jim said he was very moved by the sincerity of the gestures, but when he got to his car, he realized he only had $54.00. Apparently three students didn't have a dollar to pay. Jim says his memories of that evening so many years ago with that small band remain some of his most cherished. He had agreed to drive the long distance on a work night, with no assurance of financial reimbursement, and to work with the students in their first-ever evening rehearsal without promise of return or reward...actions that exemplified service to others. And Finally...Some Quotes and Thoughts Continued on next page To Be of Service, David Gregory, cont.

To Be of Service, David Gregory, cont.

I find encouragement and assurance many times through the thoughts and statements of those who have given much to so many and are examples of service to others. Let me share a few of them. • "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." Mahatma

Gandhi • "Perhaps the chief requirement of the conductor is...that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience; that all his efforts...be made in the service of the composer's meaning - the music itself."

Leonard Bernstein • "I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him." Abraham Lincoln (Note: might we possibly insert "profession" for place and "work" for lives?) • Frederick II, King of Prussia, had a motto carved above the town gate of the Italian city of

Capua: "Let those who intend to live honestly enter safely."

Version 2 for us, "Let those who intend to serve honestly enter our profession." • "The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away." Pablo

Picasso • "We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give." Winston Churchill

• "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.

It's not." Dr. Seuss • "For those to whom much is given much is required."

President John F. Kennedy paraphrasing a verse from the

Bible • "Life is good when you are happy, but much better when others are happy because of you." Pope Francis • "Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others." Booker T. Washington And once more because it is so powerful and challenging...

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?" -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Coda ... I close this article the way I began...by challenging us to search for ways to change our profession for the better. We cannot do so by allowing ourselves to be lured into the shallowness of excessive self-recognition and self-serving actions. We must not become so self-absorbed with attempts at relevance and implied importance that we lose sight of our purpose, not only the purpose in our work but also the purpose in our life: to be of service to others. It takes very little substance, and even less character, to spend one's days honoring oneself. Such things are temporary and of little worth to our students and our wonderful profession. The true value and worth of a life spent in this profession are best measured through and in the lives of the students we serve. When the time comes, may we all be able to look back on a career filled with helping students and with service to others. Such would be a career, and life, well lived. A noble and worthy goal for all of us...

My best wishes to all our devoted teachers. May you have a life filled with students whose lives you changed for the better, and for good, through your commitment to them and through the compelling beauty of music. You exemplify the best in service to others, and you inspire us to be better.

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