A Lifetime of Music

Music teacher Ray Kaufman and his students surround the Yamaha Clavinova digital piano

Ray Kaufman’s love for music and for children (he’s the father of ten!) led to a perfect career: elementary school music teacher. Kaufman teaches at Jonas Salk and Tibbott Elementary Schools in the Valley View 365U District in Bolingbrook, IL, and it’s clear he knows how to work a room.

He can do the Macarena or belt out Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” with the best of them, making music fun – and relevant – to the young crowd. After 43 years of teaching, his former students include Salk Associate Principal Michael Gervase and Board of Education member Larry Martinez, who says “he’s one of the few teachers that really made a mark on me when I was younger. His enthusiasm is contagious.” And Kaufman’s Yamaha Clavinova CLP350 digital piano is one of the keys to his success.

Kaufman admits the CLP350’s wheels and light weight were deciding factors, back in the days when regular classroom space was scarce. “It was easy to move,” he says. “And it’s a nice piece of equipment for teaching, because with the orchestra module disk, you can build your own music, with overdubs.”

He uses the Clavinova digital piano, along with recorders, to emphasize the point that learning to read music is crucial. “I bring two or three kids up to the Clavinova to play the treble clef lines, and the rest of the class plays the lines on their recorders. The band director has noticed that the kids can actually read music,” Kaufman adds. “If they know how to play the piano and how to read music, and then want to play another instrument, the challenge comes down to learning the fingering.”

By the time his students reach the fifth grade, they’re ready to grasp the factors that influence a composer’s choice of instrumentation. “A whole note on a banjo is literally a plink,” Kaufman points out. “So, if you need a sustained tone, you may choose a violin. Using the different voices on the Clavinova helps me show them the differences.”

Kaufman particularly enjoys witnessing children attaining new levels of musical awareness. “Because music is repetitious, eventually a light bulb goes off, usually around the third grade,” he says. “It makes it worth every bit of effort.”