Who am I? and Core Values

            Hi! My name is Jake Habegger. I have been playing music since I was eight years old when I started taking piano lessons. Some of my favorite musicians and bands are Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. I love to go jogging, hike in the woods, go skiing, eat delicious vegetarian food, spend time with my fiance, and play N64. When I was about fourteen years old I switched from piano to drums. I graduated from Watertown high school in 2007 and then attended Western Connecticut State University from 2007 – 2011 majoring in music performance. It was during my college years that I began to play more gigs and teach private lessons.

When I was in my junior year at WCSU, I started telling my friends that I was gay. Although I had come out to my family in high school, this point in my life marked my true coming out because I started telling everybody. When I started college, I didn’t tell any of my new friends about my sexuality because there was no easy way to bring it up. When I came out in high school, I basically let the word spread that, “Jake’s gay” and avoided the subject at all costs. Coming out to my friends in college was my own choice and I finally mustered up the courage to say it out loud to the world.

If you talk to me or see me, you probably won’t pick up on the fact that I’m gay. I have a “straight guy” persona and hang out with mostly straight dudes and I do not have a good fashion sense... When I was growing up, I rejected my sexuality and consciously or subconsciously emulated the mannerisms and vocabulary of a straight dude that played drums and loved Zeppelin. I mean, I really love classic rock and playing music and probably would have gravitated towards this path no matter what, but I sometimes wonder about other versions of Jake Habegger in a parallel universe that faced their fears earlier that I did. I’m not saying that to identify as gay, you have to look and act gay. There is nothing wrong with being a stereotype, but there is something wrong with feeling ashamed of who you are and trying to act like someone you aren’t.

Now that I am a teacher and I’m shaping the futures of so many children, I feel that it is my responsibility to be known as that “awesome music teacher that also happens to be gay.” I want the kids that I teach to know it is okay to be the person that they truly are. I happen to love playing music and want to pass on that passion to my students, but at the end of the day I feel that the most important gift that I can pass on to my students is to unabashedly be myself every day. Peter Boonshaft puts it beautifully in his book Teaching Music with Purpose:

“A hundred years from now… it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove… but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”

I hope I can live up to this quote and guide many children through the path to figuring out what they will do with their lives. I also hope that I will acquire the great skill that Boonshaft has for telling stories. I love his anecdote about spilling an entire bag of M&Ms on the floor of a movie theater and relating the horrendous sound that they made to his ensemble.

The above tale of my life sums up my core values as a human trying to make the world a better place. But specifically as a music teacher, one of my core values is teaching students to really understand rhythm. I believe that having a firm grasp of how to read, count, and play notes on a page is one of my main jobs as a music teacher. In contrast with this principle, I also believe that music is for enjoyment and expression. I incorporate a lot of improvisation in my piano and drum lessons with the intent of having fun and being creative. Basically, I want my students to be excellent improvisers and excellent readers. Charlie Parker says it best:

“You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”