Mr. Holland’s Opus Monologues

A frustrated composer finds fulfillment as a high school music teacher.

Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page. I can teach you notes on a page, I can't teach you that other stuff.

Mrs. Jacobs, you tell them that I am teaching music, and that I will use anything from Beethoven to Billie Holiday to rock and roll, if I think it'll help me teach a student to love music.

You work for 30 years because you think that what you do makes a difference, you think it matters to people, but then you wake up one morning and find out, well no, you've made a little error there, you're expendable. I should be laughing.

He couldn't hear. Of all people. Not a thing. And because Beethoven couldn't hear, the thought of him conducting, let alone composing, was pathetic to most people. And so to answer them, he composed and conducted the seventh symphony. Just try to imagine; Beethoven standing on that podium, holding his baton, his hands waving gracefully through the air. The orchestra in his mind is playing perfectly, and the orchestra in front of him, trying desperately just to keep up. There is a story, that in order to write his music, Beethoven literally sawed the legs off of his piano, so that the body would lay flat on the floor. And he would lie down next the piano with his ear pressed to the floor, and he would hit the keys with his fingers in order to hear his music through the vibrations of the floor.

Well... Beethoven wasn't *born* deaf.

The day they cut the football budget in this state, that will be the end of Western Civilization as we know it!

It's almost funny. I got dragged into this gig kicking and screaming, and now it's the only thing I want to do.

These tests are pathetic. "Name an American composer." Miss Swedlin, your answer was?

Johann Sebastian Bach. Oh, this… this is my favorite one. "How do you know what key a concerto is in?" Mr. Mims, your answer was "Look on the front page", question mark. Now, this question mark. Was that because you weren't sure or because your English skills are on the same level as your musical theory?

Well, congratulations, Gene. You've been looking for a way to get rid of me for 30 years, and they finally gave you an excuse.

That's because you're the enemy, Gene. You just don't know it.

I'm 60 years old, Gene. What are you going to do: write me a recommendation for the morgue?

The only ingenue we seem to have so far is Todd Markam. I really don't think that Todd Markam, or his parents, are-

Enough of us already think "time" is a magazine.

I'm Glenn Holland. I'm the new music teacher.