#201: Dr. Genevieve Clarkson - What Drum Corps Taught This Tuba Professor About Teaching

Tuba professor and Bluecoats drum corps instructor Dr. Genevieve Clarkson joins the podcast to talk about what it really means to be a great music teacher. From purposeful practice and growth mindset to the unexpected lessons learned teaching at the highest level of drum corps competition, Jenny shares a philosophy of teaching that is equal parts inspiring and actionable.

In this episode we cover:

• What makes a truly successful music teacher
• How to help students practice more effectively
• What drum corps taught her about teaching fundamentals
• Why potential matters more than perfection
• How to give feedback that builds confidence instead of fear
• The Repertoire Expansion Project and why new music matters

Dr. Genevieve Clarkson is Associate Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at Oklahoma City University and Lead Brass Instructor with the Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps, the 2024 DCI World Champions. Find her at genevieveclarkson.com and on Instagram @GenevieveClarkson.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello, and welcome to it, not hip, hip condensation.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Hello and welcome to That's Not Spit, It's Condensation. I'm Ryan Beach, and today on this episode of the podcast, I am joined by Dr. Genevieve Clarkson. But Jenny, I can call you Jenny, right?

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Yeah, please do.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

I was actually gonna ask you about this. Um, do you like I know Jenny to be spelled J E N N Y, but do you spell, do you think of it the same? Do you spell it the same? Or is it a different spelling?

SPEAKER_03 0:54

I spell it G-E-N-N-I-E because it's short for Genevieve.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

But I are are we rolling now? Because I can tell you why I use Genevieve in all my like professional stuff and then Jenny everywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

We are rolling, currently.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

We are rolling. So uh if I write Jenny, G-E-N-N-I-E on an on like anything, I'll get Genie. And then the first time you meet someone, you have to correct them. And it's like so deeply uncomfortable that I have let people call me Genie for a while before fixing it. So uh that is why all of my professional stuff says Genevieve, because people will pronounce Genevieve correctly because they take one extra second to like look at how it's spelled. But um very few people actually call me Genevieve, except for the at the blue coats. Like a lot of people call me Genevieve at the blue coats, and I think it's because our CFO is also named Genevieve. So it's like a normal name in their vernacular, and so it's like, but I'm when people call me Genevieve in like other parts of my life, I feel like it's very formal.

unknown 1:54

All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Well, I'll call you Jenny.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Okay, that sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Obviously, I had heard ever I was just at OCU about a month ago, and everybody was calling you Jenny. Yeah, but I wanted to ask about the spelling because I that's why I didn't call you that in the emails, because I didn't know what the spelling would be.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

So now I know.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Anyway, um, Jenny teaches uh tuba and euphonium at Oklahoma City University, which is my alma mater. Um, so we have that very cool connection, and then she's also one of the lead brass instructors with the Blue Coach Drum Corps, which we're gonna get into all of that. There's many other things Jenny's involved with as well. So I'm excited for this opportunity to get to know Jenny. I feel like our interactions have always been very fun, and we've had some really nice conversations surrounding like pedagogy and things, and I'm excited to just dig in and get to know you and the way you see things a little bit uh this evening. So uh before we start, thank you for giving me some of your time and letting me interview you.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Yeah, I'm really excited too. I feel like we we started this conversation a few weeks ago when you were here visiting, and I'm excited to get to jump in and dive in deeper too.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah. Well, to start this conversation, since I would say we would probably agree, like the majority of your interactions with music is as an educator. Um, I would be curious if we would sort of start our conversation with how you would define what it means to be a successful teacher or a successful educator. What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_03 3:20

So I actually had breakfast this morning with two of my band director friends, and we were talking about this exact thing at breakfast, and kind of like I asked them the same question, and it's always really interesting to hear how other people see it. I I think for me, there's kind of two main components. The first is well, actually, maybe three. The first is being someone who is egoless and able to admit when you need to learn and continue to understand and continue to search. Because a teacher who thinks they know everything is someone who's stunted their own ability to help and their ability to kind of modify and adapt to what they their students need. And so I always want to make sure that I kind of clock my own knowledge and recognize like when I'm when I have enough and when I don't have enough so that I can keep searching for more information. Um I think a really excellent teacher is someone who is curious about everything, curious about the student in front of them, curious about what that student wants for themselves and what they want to accomplish in their life, curious about how to be a better teacher, curious about how to be a better musician, just like this this sort of never-ending, never-quenched desire to continue to get better in every way as a musician and a teacher and understanding. Um and I think probably the third part of that is someone who holds up a mirror to their students in a way that's not just reflecting back, but reflecting the best version of themselves back. I because I've been thinking about my own teachers and the teachers I've I've been so fortunate to have, and the ones who made me excited to get better instead of ashamed of what I couldn't do. And the ones who made me excited to get better, they always helped me see what the best version of myself could be. And that's something I try and bring to my lessons now is just this sort of like constant encouragement of you're doing great, but just imagine where you're gonna be in a week. You're doing great. Imagine if you keep on this path where you're gonna be in a month. And I think there's a huge difference when a student leaves your office and is like hungry for that next compliment, that next encouraging word, versus afraid to come the next week because they're like, oh God, I really pooped the bed and I hope I don't do it again. But like teaching in this way that that like tries to get rid of fear and shame and instead like replaces it with excitement and again, curiosity. And so much of being a really good musician and performer is sort of this like fearless nature. And I know that that's the fear of imperfection and the fear of not being good enough starts really, really early. And I think at the college level, what I feel like I am dealing with the most is teaching students that being imperfect is okay and that's part of what it means to be a musician, and helping them understand that if they try their best and they perform in a way that's musical, the mistakes are just part of what it means to be really musical sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

There's a lot to unpack there. I appreciate you. I appreciate you thinking about it and being very sort of thoughtful and thorough. Um I I kind of maybe we'll just start at the end of what you were just saying because I feel like I agree with you, and I maybe have learned to embrace the imperfections in my own playing. It's not none of us like it, obviously, but I think maybe for someone like me, and maybe you would agree that uh we have a developed enough level of skill that maybe the imperfections are fewer than less developed players. And so I'm curious just how you might help someone think through how they sort of sit with that when there's a lot that they maybe don't like. Uh, and how do we wrap our head around this process of what we're doing and how long it could take? But it's just I'm curious how you would help someone navigate that because I can remember when I was that age, a lot more frustrated with my imperfections than I am now just because of the progress I've made. So I'd just be curious for some of your thoughts surrounding how you help students navigate that when they're at those stages of development.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Yeah, absolutely. So I know this is like an eye roll phrase, but I always look at kind of areas of weakness in playing and my playing and my students' playing, and I call those areas of opportunity, which is like such a uh business-coded term. But but really, if you think about any weakness you have as instead of like a dig on yourself or your students, it's more just this like place you haven't spent enough time or place that you haven't like diagnosed properly yet. It's it's so much less shameful to address them that way when you know that there are places that you can get better and not just things you're bad at in this moment. Um and with my own students, I mean, first off, most of the time we're our own worst critic. And so I'll have students come to my office after their recitals and be so down on themselves. And then I usually say, like, oh, well, you know, just so you know, I didn't use any of the recordings from my last recital because I didn't feel like any of them were up to snuff. And they'll, they, their minds will be blown. They're like, oh my God, I thought that was so strong. It's like, yeah, but I hear mistakes in a different way than you do because I experienced them. And sometimes we need to recognize that what we're experiencing in the moment as the performer is actually not as important as what the audience is experiencing in front of us. Um, and and sort of just understanding that our own in-the-moment self-assessment of performance is not always the most accurate. And I'm saying this, uh, I need to listen back to that and at myself on that too, and just recognize that what applies to my students applies to me. But I the way I help my students kind of like flip the script, right, on those weaknesses in their playing, those areas of opportunity. A big part of that is like listening to themselves and being able to address what they're doing well and what they need to work on in as neutral a way as possible. Right. So, like I record a lot in lessons. Um, I have that little like shore MV88 sitting out at all times. And we record, we listen back, I play, they play back, we listen back to that. And we try and diagnose things the way a doctor would, right? So, you know, not being able to articulate 16th notes at 120 is only a fact. It's a data point. It doesn't make you a stupid person or a bad person or a lazy person. It is just something that we need to diagnose, right? We need to work on. And if you can look at those areas you need to work on simply as data points, it makes it also a lot easier to like approach them head on instead of avoiding them for the rest of your life. Like, I mean, for me, I again, at myself, that's one of those things I could think about with like double tonguing. I thought for the longest time I couldn't double tongue. I told people I was bad at double tonguing. I like avoided it at all costs. I learned how to single tongue up to 160 because I was like trying so desperately to avoid having to double tongue. And then I finally had a teacher who was like, Yeah, I just don't think you've worked on it in the right way. And we sat in a lesson for an hour and just like did stuff back and forth, and all of a sudden I can double tongue now. And it's just one of those like mental blocks, right? And what a story I was telling myself that I believed genuinely I couldn't do it and I just needed someone to help reframe it for me. And I try and help my students do the same thing. Like if a student comes in and says, I can't play high, I always say back, you can't play high yet, or you can't play high today, right? But we're gonna work on it. And then you might find that in a month and a half, you have no problem with it. But most of the time when students feel like they have those like areas in their plane that cause them shame or make them want to be avoidant, it's almost always because they're making it harder than it needs to be. Because someone along the way pointed out that that was something they didn't do well, but then didn't take the next step to tell them what they needed to do to fix it, usually. And so if a student knows that they have an area of their plane they want to work on, but they don't know how to approach it or they don't have a systematic plan or they don't have someone guiding them through it, it's so easy for those areas to become like shameful instead of just something that you put in your fundamental routine and work on a little bit every day, right? Like it's not honestly, it's not rocket science. It's just like not avoidance either.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, it's so good. And obviously, you're touching on things like, you know, fixed versus growth mindset and people even just being aware that those exist can sometimes help begin to identify and raise awareness of it. And I don't know, I uh you strike me very much, uh, and the very little interactions we've had and the stuff I've seen online, you just strike me as a very thoughtful person in like the way that you try to communicate and encourage us, let's say specifically your students, but I assume just anybody in your life. And so I'm kind of curious like in a world where there's a there's just countless people who have these experiences with their teachers that potentially led them to believe this wasn't for them. That these experiences with their teachers have given them these um, let's say uh this baggage, right? The teachers, you're good at this, you can't do this, you didn't do it my way. You just strike me as someone who's very thoughtful about the way you might give constructive feedback or the way you think about them as more than just a musician. And I just would love for you to sort of riff on that for a second about like what you think, why you're so thoughtful about it, like what you're thinking about in terms of when you're giving feedback. Like, I don't know, I'm there's no real like thoughtful question. I'm just responding, but I'm curious for your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I I feel very, very fortunate to have had the teachers I've had. Um, and I in both positive ways and like less positive ways, you know, I I've learned so much from the teachers I've had who made me feel excited to get better. And I've also learned, I think, equally as much from those teachers who taught with a little bit more of a like a shame-oriented approach. And I've I think after, you know, some time out of school, being out as a professional person trying to do this thing, I've been able to reflect back on what those differences were in the teachers who made me feel excited to get better and who made me want to practice because I was excited, versus the teachers who made me want to practice because I was embarrassed. And so much of that is truly syntax and like how they treated the things I needed to work on and how they talked to me about them, their body language, their their like tone of voice. And I I think that a lot of it has just been me sort of like being a good observer of people and like seeing how people walk out of a lesson or a masterclass or or any like teaching scenario and just trying to absorb as much information as possible, both in like what to do and what not to do. But I know that for me, like language matters a lot. Like how we talk about what we do, how we describe it, the analogies we use. It's so easy to set a student on the wrong path just by using like one, wrong adjective. And and for me, a little bit, I taught um right out of my doctorate, doctoral coursework, I taught at the elementary school. Not excuse me, I taught um middle school and high school lessons, but I taught a lot of beginners, sixth graders in um outside of Austin, Texas. And that time in my life, I realized how super, super important your word choice is to students, especially beginners, because again, it's so easy to set them on the wrong path if you're not careful. And even though I really don't teach beginners anymore, I definitely feel like that weight of word choice still is something I think a lot about. Um, I'm fortunate right now. I teach brass methods at OCU, and that's I love teaching brass tech. I love seeing people who are very accomplished on bassoon uh just be trash at trumpet. Like I love it. Because it's like it, it there's something so rewarding about seeing people who are like very accomplished on one thing have to be beginners again on something else. And so I still get a lot of practice with that, sort of like the nuance of word choice. And if a student gets in front of the class and is doing a little bit of like peer teaching and says, okay, I want you to push the air. I'm like, ooh, let's try any other word. I want you to squeeze a little harder, like let's let's evaluate what that's really going to do to a student. And I know that's all like very much physical and pedagogy related, but I also think that applies so much to like the brain part of what we do and like the mindset part of what we do. And I think for me it's been again, it's like a lot of absorbing good and less successful teaching that I've seen. And also probably a lot of just like reading about what we do and how our brain absorbs information and how we can just set things on a positive spin by being more conscious of of how we talk about challenges. And but I yeah, I'll be honest. I don't know that I've ever thought that I about how much I think about that, but I do think about it a lot.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah, it's very clear. That's what I got's kind of one of the reasons I wanted to sort of get your take on it, is because I just get a sense. It's it comes across to me as I'm like observing that, yeah, you're very thoughtful about it. I try to be very thoughtful about it too. For maybe that's partially why I pick up on it, because I want to be somebody who can help people be real with themselves and we need to improve these certain things, but to frame it in an appropriate way so it doesn't feel like a weight. It doesn't feel like something that's insurmountable, but something that's and I love your I resonate a lot with your language surrounding it's a data point, we're diagnosing like a diary, it takes so much of this subjectivity and the, like you said, shame about I'm not good enough out of it, and it turns it into do I have the right information or not? And so I'd love to just chat a little bit about your approach to teaching and and how we can maybe set up practice sessions or whatever. I guess that's a good place to start, but how do we set these things up so we can think about it more in terms of data? Think about it in terms more in terms of I need to figure out what are solutions to these problems. Just kind of curious for how you might uh help people navigate that so they can be less about am I good enough, and more, how do I find the right information?

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Yeah, absolutely. You know, one thing I'll say, and we we talked about this when you were visiting, but like I think that like understanding how to practice, learning how to practice is is actually the most important part of my job, teaching my students how to do that. And even though that's something I have thought very clearly is my sole responsibility for a couple of years, I'm still learning more about practicing. I'm still honing my own skills as a practicer and a teacher of practice. And so, like whatever I say today, just know that I'm gonna keep reading and researching. So if I say anything that's wrong in 10 years, know that I know.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Um it speaks to what you said at the beginning, right? That you think a good educator, a good teacher is somebody who is willing to question what they know and is curious about it. So I appreciate your like being self-aware that like this is the demonstration of a good teacher, is someone who's like, this is what I know now, and I'm gonna put it forward. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Yeah. I mean, I so like I've said this to so many of my students that I feel like I'm a broken record. But like good practicing is the same as problem solving in like any area of the world. It's the same as writing a good lesson plan. It really takes your ability to assess where you are now, understand where you want to be and what your potential is, and getting from point A to point B. And that's like really all good practicing is. And so, so much of the time, like young students, high school students who come to college, their practicing is just mindless repetition. It's banging their head against a wall, it's playing upper left to bottom right, ad nauseum without a plan. And, you know, if you if you stop and say, okay, let's let's like take these steps. We're gonna identify where you are, we're gonna record you and listen back and say, I want you to tell me the three things you love that you're doing and three things you think are the most important for us to address. Then we're gonna talk about where we wanna be. Sometimes that's listening to a recording, sometimes that's me modeling, sometimes that's just us imagining, especially if it's something that doesn't have a reference recording. But imagining what is the potential, where can we get? And then we talk about that that point from A to B, right? And that point from A to B, there's a lot of different ways to think about it. But the analogy that I end up using the most is developing our toolbox of tools and then picking the right tool for the job, right? So if you're building a house and you need to get a nail and some wood, you can use a screwdriver. Like a screwdriver can eventually get the nail in the wood, but is it the most efficient tool for the job? Absolutely not. Are you gonna have to work way longer and way harder to get a poorer result? Yes, right. So it's not just about having a lot of tools, but it's about being able to actually know what tool you need and why. And being able to the know the why part, I think, is where students sometimes falter the most. It's like they'll absorb practice techniques, they will like know some of the most basic ones that they've seen for the longest, but they don't always know why they work, right? And I feel like that extra little step of being explicit about the why is something that I find opens up my students' eyes a lot about how their own practicing looks and like how they can hone it a little bit better. But, you know, so much of the time, especially with students who've been working with me for a little over, you know, for a year or so, when we go through this process, we do the self assessment, we talk about where we want to go. And then instead of me telling them what I think their first step should be, I'll be like, Okay, well, if you had a student who is in the same Struggling with the same things. What would your techniques be? Tell me like how you would practice this. What are your ideas? And I find too that forcing students to like put it in their own words helps so much, not only for them to sort of solidify the concepts in their mind, but also to be able to get a little bit of that practice in for when they inevitably are trying to explain the same thing to a student in a practice room or in a classroom or in any scenario. But it like good practicing, it really can be as simple as you want it to be, right? I mean, there's lots of ways to make it interesting and different and complex in a way that's more engaging, right? And I and I'm I'm still like searching for that a little bit on my own too. I'm someone who starts to check out if I do too much of exactly the same thing over and over. So I crave variety and I crave um like change every day in how I practice. But you have to have at least a little bit of a system so that you have framework in which to explore, right? And framework in which to try. And I think that that's one of those things that I feel particularly good at is helping my students build a framework in which to try and a framework in which to explore so that they can figure out what practice techniques really work best for them and they can ex, they can like be able to search and try and apply a bunch of different things. And, you know, honestly, I learn a lot from my students in that regard too. Like, uh especially students who march drum core or students who teach lessons or who go into the schools and and do observations. Like when I ask them, okay, well, how would you practice this? And they bring something new that I've never heard of or considered, that's a good day. Like that's a really good day to hear them bringing new things to me. But a big part of what we do in lessons here is like build that self-awareness of curiosity and saying, like, you can absorb ideas from anywhere. You go to a vocal masterclass, you should be leaving with ideas. You're going to a string masterclass, you should be living with ideas. Like we need to open up our eyes and our ears and recognize that we can get better at our instruments and get better as teachers everywhere if we know how to look for the information.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know I resonate with a lot of this. We have a lot of a lot of overlap in in the way we think about things. Before we dig into, because I want to hear how you like your ideas of brown frameworks and how you help build them. Uh, but before we do that, I'd be curious just to say, like, why does this matter? Like if we go one level deeper, you know, there's the immediate thing of, well, now I know how to practice, now I can do this, now I can do that. But why does this matter? Like, what does it allow us? What does it unlock? When we have a framework, we have a system, and what you have seen in your own playing and in students playing, what does this help unlock? What opportunities exist? Where does this, what does this mean for players who because I think sometimes people can look at practicing and say, like, why do we want to think that much? You know, why do we need to work that? How we just like show up and we just play. You know, there's this potential, like, I don't want to overthink it, all this kind of idea. And so I'm curious for you who values built helping them build frameworks and systems to uh and to work with curiosity and all this, like, why does this matter? What do we get out of the deal?

SPEAKER_03 25:30

That's a great question. You know, I think so much for me, my own experience as a student. Like, I was someone who was honestly pretty structured on my own. Whether I was a good practicer is like a whole other thing, but I was very structured. And I felt like as soon as I got out of school and I didn't have someone overseeing my progress, I didn't have someone giving me feedback every week. I really floundered. Like I struggled a lot to know do I sound good? I struggled a lot to like gauge what I should be working on and what I should do next. And so much of that, I think, was just a reflection of me not engaging with the structure my teachers were giving me in a way that gave me autonomy over it. Right. And so one of the things I think that frameworks do for students is also help them build the autonomy they need so they can build a framework themselves without me needing to do it for them. Right. If they understand how things work and why, right? Why does like a timed practice session, why is that more effective than an untimed one? Why does turning your phone off create better results than having your phone on and out the whole time? I think so much of it is just demystifying it for students and understanding that like the more understanding they have of the processes and also the justification behind them, why they work, the more likely they are to engage with it like directly and to make those choices for themselves. And I say to my students all the time, like, what we do in lessons is really a coached practice session. So what you're doing on your own should look a lot like what we do in here. And nothing we do in here is sacred. Like me playing something and you playing it back, you can record yourself and play back and forth with yourself in a practice room. You can use the piano to model, you can do all these things. And I just think that my goal with all of my students is to set them free of needing constant feedback. As much as I am again adding myself, I'm like, I still crave constant feedback. I'm like, I don't know if you're into Enneagram stuff at all, but I'm a type three Enneagram, which is someone who just like constantly wants to be told they're doing a good job. But I know that about myself now, and I can totally point to that period of my life after school when I struggled so much and know that the reason I was struggling is because I didn't get any feedback and I also didn't know how to trust my own judgment to tell myself I was doing a good job. You know, and I want my students to be able to leave school. And if they want to keep playing and if they want to like take auditions, if they want to do competitions, if they want to just perform, that they know what they need to do to be able to achieve whatever that next step looks like without me needing to be there to give them the stepping stones to get there.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

Yeah, I'm an eight.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Yeah. Um that's enneogram talk for those of you non-aniagrammers.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Umneogram corner.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

And and I I mean uh I don't want to, we don't need to put too much more of a fine point on it, but I just think there's people out there who think that they can't do things. And really it's just that they don't know how to practice. Like that's it. Like those things are accessible to them, but they just don't know how to practice.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

Yeah. Are you familiar with the concept of spiral curriculum?

SPEAKER_01 28:55

No, please.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

This is like it's like a music ed term. But spiral curriculum is this idea that like any skill, subject, content can be taught at any level if it's approached in the right way and and like formatted in the right way for the level of the student, right? So like you can teach triplets to kindergartners, you can teach triplets to first graders, you can teach triplets to second graders, it's really about how you approach it and how you teach it. And like I think about that a lot with skills on tuba, right? A new phonium and any instrument, really, right? But like if you, as the teacher, if I format things in the right way, if I help my students have that interaction with this skill or content or whatever in a way that makes sense to them, that's meaningful to them, and structure that engagement in a way that like is relaxed and easy and fun and and not stressful, then they can continue to build on that. But the the idea that like anyone can do anything if they know how is sort of this spiral curriculum. Now, spiral curriculum, I think, depends a lot on the instructor to format that, right? And in a way, like engaging with students, teaching them how to be their own teachers, teaching them how to approach new and difficult things from this this framework, I think is also sort of an avenue into that spiral curriculum where they can teach themselves how to do anything if they know where to start.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yeah. And I what I think is Again, I'm sort of sharing my opinion on this, but I just find it to be very empowering. You know?

SPEAKER_03 30:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Yes. It's not off limits, you know? You just don't know how.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

Yeah. I know. Like I said, it's that that whole like adding of yet to anything my students tell me. Like, I can't do this yet. I don't know how to do this yet, right? It's I don't know, it's just a matter of time. And I feel like that's that's one of those most powerful tools, especially when you're young, is like you have so much time. Not that you should waste it, right? But like, you know, if you're a freshman and you you can't play into the stratosphere on tuba, it's like, okay, we're just gonna work on it. Like, no biggie. We'll pick music that challenges you a little bit, a tiny bit, and makes you keep playing higher. I'm not gonna assign you something that you can't play at the end of the year, right? That's that would be me doing a bad job on my part. But, you know, so much of it, I I don't know that students always recognize how much attention teachers put into like the repertoire choices and why. And and making sure that you are picking things that are like just challenging enough for a student to have to challenge themselves to push themselves to get better, but in that zone where they can still nail it at the end of the semester and and feel proud and accomplished. And like, I don't know if we have if you're a Harry Potter person at all, but I always think about me when I'm picking repertoire for my students, it's a little bit like that when Harry Potter went in to buy his wand for the first time. And like the wand shop owner is like pulling everything from the shelves and like having him test drive stuff and seeing what fits and finding the perfect fit. And I always feel that way when students come in and we talk about what they're what rep they're gonna play that semester. I'm like pulling everything from every drawer in my office, and I'm like, this one's cool because it's gonna challenge you this way, but this one's great because it'll challenge you this way, and this one's awesome because there's so many reference recordings. You can use so many different ideas with it. And I hope that my own enthusiasm and excitement kind of like rubs off on them a little bit because that is how I feel about picking repertoire. It's like, it's this um like never-ending treasure chest of things and challenges and like ideas, and that like picking something for a student to do for a semester could be as simple as like, well, first semester everyone plays Celebedev, and second semester everyone plays Marcello or whatever. But I I don't look at it that way. I look at it so much more as this like constantly evolving like, what are your goals for this semester? How are we gonna challenge you to get there? What piece is going to make you excited to face these challenges head on? And I always feel like my students get really invested in the pieces that we pick to do together because we approach it from this standpoint of like, what piece is gonna be the most perfect choice for you right now to make you better, but also have fun along the way?

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yeah, I love that. I think to me, you're we don't have to talk about this, but it sounds like you're describing flow state basically, like managing that challenge skill balance, which I think again, this is sad about me, but I think like that's everything too. Like if you just understand how to manage the the skill and you can just make it a little bit harder than what you're capable of, but like you said, I love the way you said it that you can still nail it at at a certain point. If you just understand how to do that, almost like you can do anything. There's some stuff around it, which I'd love to talk about next, but I really think like that's such a huge lever to pull that I don't think I understood for I don't I didn't understand it. I was letting people do it for me, kind of like what you were describing, and I never really learned how to own that process. So it seems like we have some overlap in our experiences there too. But I would love to talk about how you think about managing, especially maybe in a single practice session or over the course of a you know a week or so, like in the actual practice session. Like, how are people, what does good practice look like to you? What is practice that drives results that you're trying to help your students understand? What does that look like to you?

SPEAKER_03 34:38

I I think that's such a good question. And the reality too is like good practicing can look really different from person to person, I think. It depends so much on like what that person needs, right? But to put it in like a measurable way, I always think that like a great practice session has at least a goal or two at the top, and that you've made progress toward that goal at the end, right? Most of the time when I have students who really are struggling with their practicing, it's also because they don't have any goals. And they just say, like, this is bad. And they they point to their piece and they're like, This sucks. And you're like, Okay, what about it sucks, right? Let's be as specific as possible. And and a big part of that specificity, I mentioned this earlier, is like recording and listening back, right? So, like, if a student is saying, okay, I I just I can't play my piece, it's it's horrible. And I'm like, all right, let's break it down. And I I started doing this for myself a couple of years ago. I've been having my students do it. And it it seems, at least to me, from like an anecdotal point of view, a really, really great way to like start to understand that framework and structure. But when a student gets a new piece of music, I have them go through it and chunk it out into like sections that kind of make sense. So they can be harmonically like unified or tonally unified or technique unified or whatever it might be, right? So in a Bordoni A2, it could just be like A, B, C, and A and C are almost identical. Or if they're doing a longer piece, it could be like through Compose in a bunch of different sections. But we go through the piece and break it down together in a lesson. And then I say, okay, I want you to skim through it. We're not, we're not playing through it yet. We're just getting a general glance, and I want you to tell me what three sections you think are gonna be the most difficult to learn. Almost always, they're not the beginning, right? So students will start chronologically if they don't have a plan, but if they actually stop and think about what's gonna be the hardest, what's gonna take me the longest, they'll usually start at that like 75% mark, right? And I'll say too, as a teacher who hears a lot of juries, it's really easy to tell when people have worked chronologically versus when they've started with what's hardest. Because the beginning of a piece will sound phenomenal and then they get halfway through and they just start to break down. So I have my students chunk out the piece, break it down, highlight the parts that are gonna be the most difficult to learn, and then that's just their assignment for the week. Okay, this week I want you to look at those three chunks, and we're gonna look at those together next week. And I think that the most simple way to approach practicing is to always think about, like, you know, the scope of what you're working on. That can be chunks, that can be etudes, whatever, however you want to think about it. Your goal is to always take things that are in the red zone, meaning like deeply unprepared, and turn them into yellows, which is like on the way, and then turn your yellows into greens, which is ready to go. And I I like literally use highlighters in lesson sheets of red, green, yellow. And we just go through and we're constantly assessing, like, okay, what's in the red this week? Cool, that's your assignment for next week. What's in the yellows? Cool. I want you to like touch on this every few days, but not every day. And I found that like treating these pieces as component parts instead of like a huge top-to-bottom like challenge makes it feel so much more digestible for my students and also like helps them sit down and practice in a way that feels really organized, right? So they know, like, okay, this week I have these three sections I need to work on. I'm gonna sit down and just start with this one. And my recommendation for the longest time was always 15 minutes on, five minutes off. Like that's kind of been my personal preference, though I will say that's definitely adapting and changing as I learn more about practicing in the brain and like how we hold on to information long term. Um, but we start with that. We start by like getting the whole thing sort of in a learned way, in a place where they can like run like maybe chunks one and two or two and three and putting those together. And then from there, I've started to use a lot more of that interleaved practice from um learn faster, perform better, which we talked about when I was when you were here. Um, and my students are loving it. Like uh yeah, they are loving it. Like they the um time constrained practice has been great. I've loved that myself too. And then um, I have a student who is giving his recital next week, and he's been using the perform in a random order for about a week or two, and he loves it. And it's just like unlocking his confidence as a performer because he I told him I was like, look, the biggest thing you need to work on is not the techniques, it's your ability to get up in front of people and like own it from start to finish, and sort of like forcing yourself to to be attentive to every section and starting place. I have he has never been performing better. Like I've been so impressed with the results. And I feel like it gave you a really, really long answer to a very short question. But that is like, but yeah, I I just I think so much of it is is like having a plan, right? And executing your plan.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yeah, I mean, as you know, again, this is like a big thing I'm I'm all about too. And so one thing I feel I am you already spoke to it, so I would like to dig in a little deeper. One thing I'm I'm noticing more in my own playing, and it's something that maybe I know I sort of you would say potentially naturally do based on like just the level of skill I've developed, but I'm starting to understand that I need to say it more often is the come the specificity of goal component and how much more specific I think people need to be than they realize about what they're trying to accomplish. So when, and I agree with you, goals are like the first step. And so I'm just curious for you like how you help someone understand what uh what an actual useful goal is for your practice versus somebody just saying, I want to have a good sound. You know what I mean? Like someone might say, I want to learn this, that's a goal, or I want to have a great sound, like that's a goal. Like, what's a goal that's actually useful to you in a practice session?

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Yeah. I I use that SMART acronym a lot with goal setting. So SMART is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. And it's this understanding that like a good goal is so specific that it can meet all of those parameters, right? So a specific goal is measurable. Like you can tell yourself whether or not you got there. Playing with a good sound is like, how do you know? How did you get there? Um, but you could say, I want to make sure that today my F natural and my all the way up through C natural chromatically sound identical and I'm gonna record it and listen back at the end of my 20 minutes, right? Like you, you're right that like students' goals are generally don't suck, and that's like not a good goal because it's also avoidance. It's like they're like avoiding things instead of aiming for things, right? But I I go through that like goal setting process with um, especially my freshmen. I'll be like, okay, tell me what goals you have for this piece or this week or whatever. Um, almost always it it comes in the form of like, what are your practice goals this week? And like tell me how many times you want to practice and like what that looks like. And they'll be like, oh, I think I'm gonna try for two hours a day. It's like, okay, where? When? Who are you gonna be with? What materials will you have with you? Like the more you start to ask them questions about like the details of what their goals are, I think more often my students start to realize, like, oh, I don't know. I don't know what I'm gonna do in those two hours. It's like, okay, well, tell me what materials you need. I don't know where I'm gonna do it. Okay, well, where's your material? Where's your tuba stored? Like, you know, thinking about, I mean, I I've always been, I think, a very logistically minded person. It's something that um maybe unfortunately comes naturally to me. And so I I ask my students a lot of questions about the logistics of what they're trying to accomplish because I I want them to have the most clear picture in their head of what that's gonna look like when they go to do it, right? Um there's so much I of the time I see students who have really lofty goals, but the goals are way too big, right? And because they're so big and so like, I mean, it's not that they can't achieve them, but it's that they set them so high that if they miss or or fail, right, one day, they give up because then they feel like, oh, well, I didn't get it, I'm never gonna get it, right? So I think most of the time when I'm talking with my own students about goal setting, it's mostly like pairing back what their big goal is until what they can do today. Okay, how is that gonna manifest today? How is that gonna manifest tomorrow? And and helping them also understand that like a hundred percent all the time, every day, is completely unrealistic for most people. Um, even though that's not what the internet tells us. That's like not what we see on social media. The reality is like it's so much more important to show up every day than it is to be perfect every day. You know, and I I've had students who, especially maybe with tuba, because it's such a pain in the behind to get out and like get it out of the case and play. Students will be like, oh, well, if I can't get two hours in, I just like don't do it. It's like, oh my gosh, don't why? Like, 15 minutes is better than zero minutes. Five minutes is better than zero minutes. Like just show up a little bit every day. And you know, I'm sure you know this too, but like motivation, so many, so much of the time students are like, oh, I just wasn't motivated. And it's like, yeah, motivation is a byproduct of action. You have to show up to be motivated to show up. And I think like students think that motivation is this like mystery that they're just waiting to lightning to strike. And that's certainly not how it works. Like, you will never be motivated to do something if you don't choose to do it regularly first. And it's again, it's like so much of what I do in here when it comes to like teaching students those goals and the commitment to long-term, slow, gradual improvement, is also helping them recognize their own like fallacies as people and like knowing that if you're waiting on motivation, it's never gonna happen. If you're waiting for that perfect practice session, it's never gonna happen. If you're waiting to be like the most alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic you've ever been to practice, it's never gonna happen. Like you have to show up as your holy imperfect, slightly sleepy, a little bit sweaty and smelly self in that practice room and just like do the unglamorous work of putting the right button down at the right time slowly and then eventually faster.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Yeah, I love it. It's it's like so true. I mean, it's like it's funny because I think some people could could hear you and and think to themselves, oh, but here's this reason why, and here's this reason why. And it's like part of you wants to be like, well, I understand. Maybe there are circumstances in which this thing didn't work out for you, but you're sort of describing an attitude of like, but that thing, ideally, if it's a legitimate thing, is not gonna derail you forever. You know, it's you're not, it's like a temporary thing. These other things, I've seen it, and I know you have too. I've seen it just stop people long term because they're just it's like they've got some idea of it's gotta be something. And I appreciate you're talking about part of the job is helping people work through and seeing like potentially a story they've told themselves that is standing in the way of them actually doing the other thing they say that they actually want to accomplish. They just don't see that these things are at odds with each other. I don't know if you have any, obviously, you don't have to use names, but if you have any kind of specific situations that come to mind about, you know, things you've heard and conversations you've had with a student or students that when they kind of understand what you're meaning about some excuse or some way of seeing it, kind of the progress that can happen when that when that is removed, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

Yeah, absolutely. I I mean I definitely feel like I see it very, very consistently in first semester freshmen. Cause when you're coming from high school, you know, school is 730 to 330 every day. And then you do your homework and then you practice. And they follow this sort of like cycle where practicing is always the thing they do last. It's always the thing they do after everything else is done. And it's looked at as like the bonus time if all of their other work is completed. And so a lot of the time I have students come in and they're like, I'm really struggling. I cannot get any time into practice. I'm I just don't know how to fit it in. And like I have fully a stack of like blank schedules in my office that almost every freshman ends up going through with me, where we fill out their schedule and I say, Okay, tell me what your class schedule is. Okay. Tell me when you eat lunch. All right. Now show me like any other little thing that fits in there. Right. And then we go through and sort of like highlight all of the unaccounted for dip parts of their day. And, you know, I've had students come in and say, Well, I'm not a morning person, so I can't practice in the morning, or like I need to have eaten before I can practice and all these things. And like, you know, it's there's a certainly an element of like that metacognition to it, right? Like students understanding their own learning and knowing what parameters they need to learn best. But so much of the time, the parameters they think they need are parameters that have only been there because of necessity or circumstance in high school versus really understanding what actually makes them do their best work, which is like a dedicated time where your attention can be on your musicianship and that's it. Right. And you can find that time any time of day if you know how to do it. Um, but I I found that students, you know, I remember when I was a freshman in college, and this is one of those moments where I can look back on it and I and and like laugh at myself because of how silly it says, it feels to say aloud. But I remember going to my teacher in college and being like, same conversation. I'm struggling to practice, like I'm I'm having trouble finding the time I need. You know, I have so much homework for my other classes. And he he asked me, like, well, why do you think tuba is the least important part of your homework? Isn't this also a class? And I was like, oh, oh my gosh, it is a class. And it is actually the most important thing to me, not the least. And just him asking me that, asking why I was treating tuba as like not part of my homework really shook me in the moment. And now karma has come full circle because I ask my freshman that all the time. But it is just like we get into this kind of scenario of looking at band or orchestra or choir as extracurricular and thinking that the things that we do for extracurriculars are less important than other things. And, you know, you choose what's important to you every day. Like you are what you opt into. And if you want to be a musician, you have to opt into being a musician every day, right? That might look different every day. It doesn't mean you need to be perfect every day, but it it does mean that you need to make a choice of a musician every day. And I think sometimes students just feel like so many of their circumstances are out of their control. And a lot of maybe what I what I do with my students too is like teaching them how much autonomy they really have over their lives. Right. Not everything is in their control, not everything is like something that can be bended or malleable, but it really is just as simple as like laying out your schedule and and thinking about where things are going to fit in and then committing to that fitting in of the things that are important to you.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

It's interesting too, because like as I have, you know, moved on to this stage in my life where I'm no longer in a full-time orchestra and and now I have to manage my entire schedule. It's like I find myself having to have learned some of these skills you're describing, where I've got my schedule and then I have to find time for these other things. And it's like I actually I'm just very willing to say I have the time. I need to find it. Sometimes I don't always use it properly, but I have the time. And so I would, I mean, I think most I just want your take on this because I think most teachers acknowledge that what they're doing has uh has bigger ramifications than just can they play their instrument. But it seems to me you're teaching skills that are gonna be very beneficial and more than and like to me that's one of the big benefits of of really like pursuing an instrument seriously. And I just kind of I'm very curious for your take on like how you think about that role uh that you play in your students' life.

SPEAKER_03 51:54

Yeah. I mean, I I definitely feel like I parade as a life coach sometimes more than a tuba teacher. And a lot of that is is just like truly life skills, you know, like helping students sort of take ownership of like what they do and how they do it. And it is like this is a conversation I was having with my band director friends this morning, too, about the students who are coming to college now have been protected so much from failure that they're completely unwilling sometimes to put themselves in a situation where they could be making mistakes or have to be vulnerable. And, you know, I have the privilege, I would say, and I really do mean it as a privilege, to create a space on campus where like pooping the bed is regular and like embraced. And I want my students to like to go for it 100% of the time and to like really truly try whatever that might look like in front of them and to understand that if they make a giant mistake, it actually makes my job a million times easier because I can tell them how to fix it. Tiny mistakes are incredibly hard to fix. Big mistakes are easy. And so when we're in here and we're doing stuff together or when we're in studio class doing stuff together, I'm I'm always asking for big mistakes, active mistakes, like go for it 100%. Um, and that that applies everywhere else, right? Like the reality is if you're someone who is so like paralyzed by fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of not being perfect, then I I honestly just don't know what kind of life that would be. Like to go through your world and go through your days and like you only ever do things where you're 100% sure you're gonna be good at them. You only ever try things that you know you can be successful at. Like, what a miserable, sad existence. And so, I mean, I I tell my students all the time that I like regularly search for things to be bad at because I constantly need to be reminded that like being new at something is normal and that being a beginner at something is is like good and you should embrace it. And I think that's one of the reasons why I love teaching brass methods so much is because I get to see that happening for people in real time. But yeah, I mean, I I want always to foster in my students this like almost craving of being bad at stuff, not from lack of effort, but from discovery. Like if you treat, treat finding new things that you have to work on as this like, oh, I found something else. It's like, I don't know, it totally reframes it. Um, this is gonna be like a deep dive into magic school bus. But have you ever seen that magic school bus episode about molecules?

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Where they like go in the body.

SPEAKER_03 54:55

No, no, no, that's a different one. This one is about a car wash, and they have a woman come by getting her car wash named Molly Kuhl.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

Okay, no.

SPEAKER_03 55:04

Um no, sorry, it's but it's I I I just haven't seen it, I mean.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Maybe I saw it, but it's been a it's been a minute since I've watched the Magic School Bus.

SPEAKER_03 55:12

Yes. You know what's really crazy is I'm gonna reference this, and I I could not tell you the last time I watched it. Like, I probably should go rewatch it and make sure I'm being accurate. But I tell my students this story all the time. But there's this episode of Magic School Bus where Miss Frizzle and her students are having a car wash, and Molly Cool brings her car by and wants to get it cleaned, and the kids wash it and they're like good to go. And then Molly Cool takes out this, you know, microscope and is like, it's not clean. And so the kids shrink down to a molecular level and they learn like, oh, a molecule is like the size of something that still retains its attributes. So a molecule of oil is still slippery and a molecule of soap is still sudsy, right? But the most important thing is they like zoom down to this molecular level and deal with problems on a molecular level. They clean the car on a molecular level, and then when they zoom back out, the car is ready to go. And I I have always felt like for me, that is a little bit what I love about practicing in that way. It's like when you find something that needs fine-tuning, you can zoom in until it's like huge. You can find and diagnose a problem in a way that like makes it one big thing and you can address that one big thing. And then you just continue to zoom out and zoom out, zoom out until you've you've put that thing back in its place and it feels easy and comfortable. But, you know, I I like I don't know, I I do genuinely love finding out I'm bad at things. Like it, I because it gives me more to do, it gives me more to work on, it gives me like more resources to explore, more people to talk to and ask questions like how do you do this? How do you approach this? And, you know, I I hope that I never run out of things to be bad at.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

Yeah, I resonate a lot with what you're saying for sure. So one thing that one problem that I could see, and like you're describing, like, you know, let's say there is a problem or I think I've got it all figured out, but let me go look for situations in which I don't uh it reminds me of some things I've heard online of people that say that the most successful people are just the ones who have failed the fastest. That kind of idea. So, how do we balance then as an instrumentalist? Because we want to be able to walk on stage and have confidence and to have that evidence of sex success. So, how do we balance this, this failing and this discovery and all of that with establishing myelinated skill that we can trust and rely on? What's your approach in terms of this, these different types of focuses?

SPEAKER_03 57:45

That's such a good question. Because you're right that I don't want to keep finding things I'm bad at the day before a performance. I I definitely feel like for me, and I and I'm gonna like put a little asterisk on this, because like the way I would have approached this up until two months ago is maybe different than how I would approach it after reading that um book by Molly Gabrian. Um, but I would say for me, like I would discover things I'm bad at, I would zoom in on that molecular level, work on them as a skill and not just in the context of the piece, right? Like making sure my skills are getting better on the instrument and not just on a single note or a single transition or a single articulation or whatever. And like zoom back out, zoom back out, gradually speed it up, and just get so many repetitions in that my body only knows how to do it correctly, right? That is certainly how I have practiced the vast majority of my life. And it's worked well, right? I remember um going to a master class, this is back when I was in undergrad, I think, and Brian Bowman, who was the euphonium teacher at North Texas for a very long time, talked about the 10 penny method and how if you always start things slow enough to sight read them accurately, and you only click by two clicks at a time, and you always get 10 repetitions of consecutive correct reps in before you go faster, then you your body only ever knows how to play things right. And in that moment, I was like, that's my new practice method. That's exactly how I'm gonna do things. And when I'm learning things for the first time, I still absolutely use 10 penny method. Like I have um two sets of abacuses for my the tuba storage room in the basement just to like encourage people to keep track of their repetitions. Yeah. Um, and and I think that like a lot of that works really, really well. And for me, like I said, just like sheer consecutive correct repetitions is always how I've approached that in the past. Um, but as I said, also more recently, after like learning a little bit more about practicing, I have gotten a lot more into the like serialized practice and hopping around. And like I mentioned earlier that I approach all my pieces in chunks and like learn things and component parts and then piece those component parts together. But now I spend a lot more time on the component parts in a random order versus playing them consecutively and like forcing myself to hop around at random orders and like at different times of day, even because I'm I'm someone who loves a morning practice session. And so for me, practicing at night is like really challenging. But I've started practicing performing at night more because I that's usually when recitals are, unfortunately. And I have found that that helps me hone in on my mistakes in a totally different way. Because it's helping me recognize what mistakes are coming from technical deficiencies that I need to address in my fundamentals, and what mistakes are coming from like brain farts and like not being attentive and not being focused. And unfortunately, like that's where a lot of my performance mistakes come from, right? It's not from a lack of technique or a lack of practice, it's entirely from a lack of attention in the moment. And, you know, I wish I had known about this practice technique when I was in graduate school, because I easily gave the worst recital of my life as my first master's recital at CCM, like easily the worst performance of my life. And it was entirely because of attention, like entirely because of where my head was at in that performance. And I kept making mistakes and it just continued to snowball, and I did not have any reset points where I could like lock back in and get myself back on task. And now I feel like if I had a student who was struggling with that, I would know exactly how to help them because I have all of these tools again in my toolbox. But but it really is just like I I think that the the reality of neuroscience and how little we actually really know about how the brain works and how in the grand scheme of things, there's still so much to understand and discover. Just makes me really excited to keep reading and finding out the new things we're discovering, so I can keep stealing them from other people and adding them into my own practice sessions and and feeling like I don't know. It just I don't know. When you when you understand why something works, it makes you feel kind of like a superhero, at least for me. Like it's not mysterious anymore. You're like, oh, I know why this works, and I can, I don't have to, there's no mystery to it. It just is illuminating.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

Yeah, I've always found that once I've like started like you know, the first thing is like the talent code. You learn about like myelination, right? And then I read Molly's book and I've read some books on like, you know, visualization, and I've read um cut just a couple other books like that. And it just feels like one you know, Peak by Anders Ericsson. Like when you read a couple of these books and you start to understand how the brain works and like what science is out there about learning, part of me is just like, man, we should be like talking about this more.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

Yes, 100%. I I feel like I've learned so much from like we do these reading groups on campus, uh, learning communities, and I've I've been able to do a couple of them. And I remember we read this book uh called Teaching Change that was about critical thinking, which is like, you know, not specific to music, but there was so much in there that I immediately like took and added to what I was doing. Just in terms of like how you approach challenging situations with students and teaching them how to approach challenges with again, with this sort of like curiosity and discovery versus like, oh God, a challenge. No thanks. Right. And I think one of the books that has shaped my teaching more than any other one is by a physics teacher. Like I just feel like I'm constantly like reading things by non-musicians and then stealing their ideas. I guess they put them in a book, so it's okay to borrow, but I like I'm I do just I I like I said I never want to stop wanting to be better. I never want to stop like searching and getting recommendations. And I I have this like giant list of books on my phone that people have recommended to me that I I know I probably will never get through all of them, but at least the intention is there and I'm gonna keep reading.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:11

Yeah. No, for me, it's uh I can be similar, you know. It's like I go through I get through bouts of I'm not reading a I haven't read a book in a while, and I'm just working with the ideas, and then I come across something or I read a book. Uh, and you know, I ironically, you talked a lot about focus, and I would love your take on just what does it look like to practice improving, like what does that look like? What does improving focus look like? But I've sort of like come to a belief that confidence, this is from books that my wife and I have read. Confidence is directly related to being in flow state in a performance. Um, so if I'm not trying, if I'm not forcing anything, I'm not controlling, and instead I'm letting go, I'm trusting my skills. I've got like kind of a specific focal point that helps keep me like mentally engaged on what I'm doing so my mind isn't wandering. That is what I have found to be a very effective uh performance headspace. But I start to realize like a lot of that hinges on how well you can keep yourself on that focal point. If you look at that as some sort of um catalyst or almost like Pavlovian, like when I think this thing, everything works. Well, how well can I think that thing? And so I'm like, ah, I should read some books on how you could improve like focus. So I'm kind of curious to hear from you if you've like done some research or your own experiments or what you share that you've seen that works. What does it look like to actually improve or at least to make attempts to improve focus?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:46

Yeah, that's such a good question. I I definitely feel like that's actually one of the things I've had to work on the most in my own playing. Like I mentioned that Bastard's recital at CCM that was that was easily the worst performance of my life. And um I say attention, it really is focused, right? Like it's my ability to stay on task. And I think that there's like a couple parts to it, right? We are we live in a world that like encourages casual multitasking all the time, right? I don't know if you've heard of this concept of like dual screen viewing, but like I was listening to a podcast this morning about the Oscars, and they said that um screenwriters now are being told that they have to restate the same things multiple times because people will be on their cell phones while they're watching a movie or a show. And we are so accustomed to multitasking in so many ways, right? Like listening to uh like a music or podcast while we're working or writing emails while we're watching a TV show or whatever that might look like. And it's become so normalized that I think we really don't realize how bad it is for us and how much it trains your brain to not be focused on a singular thing in the moment. And I know for me, like I have I'm I'll be honest, we're on spring break right now and I'm doing a terrible job of not multitasking the past couple days. But typically, like when I'm at home, I get home from school and I'm like ready to unwind for the day. I put my phone in like a different place of my house. And I try not to be on it, I try not to be around it because I want to practice just watching a movie. I want to practice like just talking to my husband. And like, and the reality is like students, I think don't always recognize that being attentive takes the same kind of practice that learning your like B flat melodic minor scale does. Like you actually have to choose to do it, you have to opt in, you have to set parameters up in your life that allow for that choice to be less difficult, right? And that even just opting out of multitasking for me has made a massive difference in like my ability to stay on task for a given amount of time. Um, and the other thing that I have found helps me a lot. I mentioned earlier that I've always liked that sort of five minutes on, five or sorry, 15 minutes on, five minutes off approach. And like when I feel like I'm practicing my best, when I feel like I'm doing my best work, both in my like typing email-y life and in my tuba life, it's because of that. It's because I am giving myself a singular task to do for 15 minutes and then giving myself a five minute, five minute break. And for me, it works really, really well. And like doing that, opting into that approach sort of like resets my brain so I don't crave that dopamine hit every 30 seconds that you get from continuous scroll on your phone. Now, when it comes to like a performance, right, and getting my head in the right place for that kind of thing. I again, 20 or like for the past 20 years, I would have said 15 minutes on, five minutes off. And then the last two months, I would have said, like, oh, you need to like randomize your practice and just like run it in random orders, right? And that really truly has helped my attention so much because it gives me like constant reset points, you know, and it's sort of like you've acclimated to what it feels like to start something in completely different spots every time. So if a section doesn't go well or you or you find yourself slipping, you have this like re-entry point to the music to re-engage with it. But honestly, the other thing that I have found helps me if my mind starts to wander in performance. And you know, when I'm practicing, my mind wanders to like what's for lunch or what's like what's on TV tonight. When I'm performing, my mind is like, you messed that up. Oh, there's another one. Oop, you missed that cue. And like I'm it's assessment, it's not like what's for dinner, right? But what helps me the most when I catch myself doing that is shouting the music so loudly in my head that there's like no space for anything else to exist, right? I've described it to my own students as this like a dometer where you can be shouting the music at like full volume or at no at mid-volume or no volume. And like if your brain starts to wander, you just need to ramp it up all the way. And like the only thing going on is you singing the music as loudly as you can in your head. And you it needs to be so loud and so confident that you can't even remotely think about anything else. And as much as I wish I didn't still have to lean on that technique, I still regularly have to lean on that technique when I'm playing too.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:32

I yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me. Uh, one way I was I think about it too is like uh I think like an optimal performance is one that you like can't remember because you were so you were so consumed about what you wanted it to be that you couldn't really pay attention to what was actually happening.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:53

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:54

Like that's kind of how I'm thinking yeah, it's how I'm thinking about it right now. I'm very similar to you. I've got like different ways to describe it based on like, you know, two weeks ago it might have been something different. Um, but I like what you're saying too, because that's essentially I think one of the actually the hard misunderstood things about focus is it's it's actually, I mean, if you could be a hundred percent focused, that's amazing. That's the goal. But it's actually not necessary for high-level performance. It's actually the thing that's necessary is your ability to bring your focus back. And so I think having a having a technique like, and it's so visceral too, like scream the music in your, you know, it's so visceral that I feel like it can be it can somewhat snap you out of. And then the only other challenge is just recognizing when you are some somewhere else catching it. Um, but I think this is I I think honestly, and maybe you would agree. I you don't you don't have to, we don't have to agree on everything, but I would say this is potentially the most valuable skill for high-level performance, like learning how to like you like you said, have this kind of attention or have this kind of focus and be able to bring it back. I think it's an underrated skill, and I would say it's actually potentially the most important skill that someone could work to develop. And like you said, I agree that it's something that you you work to develop. It's not something you have or don't have.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:19

Yeah, a hundred percent. I I think so much of the time, like a poor performance is rarely from lack of preparation. Especially when you have a teacher who's on you, who's like helping you get through stuff, who's like monitoring your progress. Rarely have I seen a subpar performance be because of lack of preparation. It's almost always the opposite. Like you're so well prepared and you've put so much pressure on yourself to perform it perfectly that you make one little mistake and things just start to crumble. You know, and yeah, I don't know that I've thought about it the way you just put it, but I absolutely think that like being able to recover and put your head back in the right place and recognize when you're not in the right place is is probably one of the most important things that we can do as musicians because we both know that getting a full performance of anything in where you're actually 100% focused the whole time is like, I wish. Like I'm genuine, like has that ever happened to me? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:24

And that's just a helpful reality, I think, for people to hear. You know, I I feel like so much of the time students hold themselves to the standards they see online, right? Like a perfectly polished performance that has been edited to hell and and has like, and granted, like if you're creating a reference recording, yeah, you should edit it, right? I'm not I'm not like begrudging people who edit, but it's more just like when students see that, they forget that like it took a hundred takes to get that recording, right? And like people rarely post online the the works in progress, right? They post the product. And even for me as someone, like one of the things I try so much for in my own teaching and playing is transparency. And I have like been posting more when I'm in like prep mode for things of like the the work in progress and what the progress sounds like. And even that is like, it's almost feels like you know, you're you're standing naked in front of a bunch of people by showing them how bad you can sound. But I think it's so important that students know that like even professional people who look like they have it all together, who seem really like accomplished, still have to like get their brain onto the music. They're still thinking about Costco hot dogs in the middle of a sonata instead of like what they should be thinking about. And we all need to practice it and get better, but some of us are just better at hiding it, maybe, than others.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:52

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:53

Costco sponsor me.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:55

Yeah. No money, just hot dogs.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:59

Yeah, just hot dogs. I'm good with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:01

Yeah. Well, I think this has been this has been a great conversation. I'd love to branch out a little bit just because there are other things that you are um into. Yeah. And I think one of the I think I'd like to talk about blue coats um because I know this is a big part of what you do, obviously. And I kind of want to start it. I when I was sort of looking around and doing some stuff, it is it's true that you applied, but you did not think that you were going to be accepted. Is that true?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:32

That is very true. Yeah. I so I never marched anywhere. I have no background in drum core. Um, I went to one show in college. I went to Allentown in 2026 to see my friend Alex Bender play trumpet with uh the blue coats at the time, actually. And I really I like vaguely followed it, and that was about it. And then a couple years ago, actually, well, this is like maybe six or eight years ago, I had a student here at OCU who was marching with the blue nights. And um, this student, as a freshman, struggled a lot with like life skills, struggled a lot to get assignments done, struggled with her schedule. And that was something we worked a ton on their first year. And then they went and marched blue nights and came back and were like way more mature, way more capable of handling these responsibilities. And then he went out and did it again and came back and was even more organized and went out and did it again. And then all of a sudden, he was like a whole adult with a whole schedule and goal setting and all these skills. And I was like, wow, maybe maybe drum core is something I should be looking into more because it really seems like this student has blossomed doing it and engaging with it in this way. And so I started following it more actively. And one of my friends who was working for Bluecoats at the time posted a job application on his Facebook page about uh needing a lead tuba instructor. And I fully like applied, thinking, well, lol, whatever, we'll see what happens. And I sent my resume in, and then I got a call to like have a Zoom interview with their um caption head. And we got on a video call and we talked about like Arnold Jacobs and we talked about like pedagogy and talked about like how do you teach someone who doesn't play music every day to do this really challenging thing in the summertime. And I ended up going through like two in-person rounds of interviews where they had me out to teach twice for two different camps. And like, you know, it was really intimidating. I, as someone who like looks like garbage holding a contra, I was like, how am I gonna do this job? Um, so yeah, I really thought like there's no chance that they'll take me seriously because I don't have any experience in this field. And when I expressed that to the caption head, he was like, Well, we have a whole team to teach them to look good. You just have to teach them to sound good. And I said, you know what? I can do that. I can teach people to sound good. And and yeah, this is I'm starting my fifth year, which is wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:00

Oh, that's awesome. I I over the years have had whatever my opinions are about uh drum core, not really like knowing anything about it, just you know. And then I interviewed many years ago, I interviewed somebody who was heavily uh in involved in um it was Mike Martin.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:19

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:20

Uh I don't remember which which crown crown, yeah. Yeah, I couldn't remember who he was affiliated with.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:25

And uh let me let me make sure let me want to fact check that before you put your podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:30

Well, if we're wrong, we're wrong, whatever. Um but anyway, he he like made a pitch for it. Uh in the sense of like, this is why I think it's a cool and valuable thing, and it was very compelling. And sort of hearing that, uh I think it's a really interesting thing. Um, for especially for it's like I have students who I don't understand necessarily, like they have things that they care about, but like when I was that age, I was very different. Like I had my and then, but it's like it just seems like this is something that all of a sudden it's like, here's this goal, and I'm gonna go after it. And it just really like seemed to light a fire uh underneath them. And so for me, it's like I don't know how I couldn't get behind that for for some people. It just seems to really be like this incredible experience. And so I'd love for you to talk about what is this like working with this type of person and what is obviously it's different. You're you're trying to hone this show and make sure things work. So, how what does it look like to build in fundamentals and try to get just what is this like to manage this kind of crazy thing?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:39

Yeah. So first, I just want to say like I love teaching drum core. I love that every day is different and that every day, especially once you hit tour, once you hit the road, like you're in a new place every day with new weather, new things, new spaces. And like that, there's something about the constantly changing parameters that I feel like have honed my skills as an instructor in a way that I could never have guessed it would do. I am so much more succinct and so much more like quick at diagnosing things than I was five years ago because I have to be. Like I get literally 30 seconds on the field sometimes to tell someone what they need to do to fix it. And I I cannot wax poetic about articulation. Like I just have to go in and you I feel like sometimes you're a little like like sniper. I shouldn't use sniper, but you're you're like boom, fix this by. And you have to like literally run off the field so you don't get hit by a flag when they're like running the section again, you know. And it's I I think there's there's parts of it for me, like I said, it's made me a better teacher, partially partially because of the demands, but also because of the incredible people I get to teach with. Like you're you're doing so much team teaching. And like, you know, I have this whole Rolodex of ways that I would fix things, ways I would explain things, ways I would approach things. And then every time I'm team teaching with these other folks, I hear something new I've never thought of, or see a new approach I would have never considered. And it has really like expanded my understanding and my vernacular around so many things. But like probably the one of the things I think about most differently now is timing. Like the way I talk about time and the way I talk about like internalizing pulse is very different than how I did before I started teaching in drumcore. Um, and also like I have always spent so much of my life being focused on the left side of the note. I've never been so focused on the right side of the note and how we release and how we like release together with other people and stuff like that. It's just like classical musicians think so much about the starts and so rarely about the stops. And like even that has changed a lot for me. But you know, I I it's such an incredible pleasure to be in a space of people who all are on the same page about how exceptional something can be, who like all have the same belief that we can accomplish incredible things if we do it together, you know? And like the members who we get at the blue coats are just the best. Like they're just the best. They like I remember my first season, and I popped over to give someone some feedback and I was like, hey, I want you to work on this, and started walking away. And they're like, Thank you, Jen. And I was like, You're welcome. Like, oh my gosh, people never thank me for feedback. And I shouldn't say that. Like, my students are are thankful people, but you know, it's totally like cuckoo bananas to be like telling someone, I want you to fix this, and they're like, Thank you. Because they they genuinely look at feedback like this precious gift. And it it really is like such a great refreshing reset to be a part of that community every year and and to get to see these students blossom in front of your eyes, you know? And you asked a little bit about fundamentals. Like, I think that one of the best pitches for doing something like drum court is recognizing that like your playing fundamentals have to be so locked in to be able to do them while you're also literally running around the field. But like you learn how to make things organic, you learn how to make them like comfortable. And I do think that there's maybe this misconception that like you only learn the show. And maybe there are some places where that's still the approach, but at least from what I have seen, like we spend at least an hour every day on fundamental skill before we even jump into like show repertoire. And some of those days it's full brass. Some of those days I just get to work with the tubas by themselves, and we just are working on fundamentals and we're doing Chick-owit studies, we're doing beautiful sound exercises, we're playing Chris Olka's peanut butter flow studies. Like, I feel like one of the things I take the most pride in with my work there is that if any of my colleagues in the Tubi phoneming community like asked me about what we were doing, I could say that first and foremost, they're becoming better musicians through the avenue of the production we're putting together. But I am 100% confident that every single student who comes to my section at the Blue Coats is leaving that section with a deeper understanding of their instrument, with a better understanding of how to break things down and put them back together, with better assessment skills, both like for themselves and for their peers. Like I just am truly so confident that we're doing that, that I could guarantee that experience to anyone. And that is also like a really great feeling to be able to know and see that what I'm doing has like impact in that moment and for that year, but also long-term impact for those students. Like they learn how to assess, they learn how to hone, they learn like what it means to really be truly nitpicky in a way that like maybe they've never had the opportunity to do before. And again, I like I said, it's sort of this like constant discovery of things to get better on. You know, at the beginning of the season, it might be like, hey, you played an E flat and that's an E natural. But then by the end of the season, I might say, like, hey, that E natural, you're playing it like 10 cents flat. Let's see if we can bring that up. You know, you can just constantly be more and more nitpicky. And honestly, maybe that's why I like it the best, is because I'm so nitpicky and I get to like really live into my truth when I'm there. But I don't know. I I like if you told me 10 years ago that I would be living on a bus in the summer and truly love it, I would be like, hmm, we'll see. But I do, I I truly love it. I love like the camaraderie, I love the like friendships we make, and I I really do feel like we just get the most exceptional students.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:11

What do you what do you think if this question doesn't make any sense, please like let me know. But what do you think is causing this environment? Like, what do you think contributes to what you just I mean, what you just described sounds so inspiring and so just amazing to be a part of, I'm sure at every level. Like, what do you think is the secret sauce of what like makes this possible?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:42

Man, that's such a good question. I think I think there's actually like a lot of component parts that go into it. I think that like one thing that I maybe I have a big misconception I had about drum core is like that there was a lot of yelling um and that students were going and being treated like they were in basic training and just getting like ripped apart all day, every day. And actually, like that just doesn't happen where we are, right? And granted, again, I want to be clear like that doesn't happen at the blue coats. I don't necessarily know if that doesn't happen everywhere. But like if I need a student to be doing something differently, I just have to ask them. Like, I never have to get like in their face about it. I never have to like there's there's never this escalation, you know. And I and I've mentioned this earlier, but like I just let the students know that I believe they can achieve what I'm asking them to do. And then they're like, oh, cool, okay, I believe it too. And they just hop on board. But, you know, I I think that there's a lot of really conscientious culture building going on all the time. And a huge part of that is our student leadership. Like the section leaders are exceptional. They they do so much work to create environments where people feel safe to try really hard and make mistakes, and they create um camaraderie and like. You know, they they start really early in the season creating like practice buddies and accountabil accountability buddies and like the the student leadership is a huge component of why the organization is what it is. I think another part of that is that the the teaching staff are all again very much in this same mindset of like we focus on potential and we focus on getting students to that to reach their fullest potential instead of telling them what they're doing wrong. Right. Because like there's so there's such a huge difference between just telling someone you mess this up and telling them, I hey, I heard that this wasn't right, but I know how we're gonna fix it and we're gonna focus on that tomorrow. Right. And it it if you it's always framed in this like avenue of I'm so excited to see what you accomplish with this information versus just letting information be like a way to tear someone down. And I I don't know necessarily that that's even a conscientious choice, but it's just the vibe of the environment. Like we're we're a really positive bunch of people. We're a lot of educators who like genuinely care about positive student experiences. And I think that that has allowed our crew of people to come together and like really like create something that helps students go way past where they ever thought, you know, they were capable of achieving. And, you know, that we had a, we actually just had a camp last weekend in Texas. And I was with um my friend Aaron Duggar, who's a band director at Capel High School, and we were asking the Contra line, well, jokingly, I was like, okay, I'm gonna be good cop and you be bad cop. And we were both like, we're both good cop. Everyone here is good cop, like there are no bad cops. And I, it's one of those things where like, I think that sometimes we think feedback has to be harsh for it to be effective. And like, I've just not found that to be true. Like, I remember, so my teacher from college, Kevin Stees, who's at James Madison University, um, told me when I was in like kind of a low point in my teaching life that you can tell students whatever feedback you need to give them as long as you say it with kindness. And I just it's so silly to say, but I had just never had a teacher say that to me before. I'd always thought that feedback had to be like harsh and cruel and like direct for it to be meaningful. And I started to just think really differently. And maybe that's actually back to that question you asked me at the beginning, like why I'm so thoughtful about my word choice. But like, I wonder if that's where that stems from is just recognizing how far kindness goes when you're telling someone something they need to work on. But like, I don't know. I I like I feel like I can truly give my students here and at and at uh blue coats, like any bit of feedback they need to receive because they trust that it's coming because I believe that they can achieve it and I care about them and their their performance, you know, and a lot of that is is like trust building. I mean, you have to have that to be able to give that kind of feedback. But like, I don't know, like if you come to a sectional, like I'm roasting those students sometimes. Like, you know, they laugh and they're like, yeah, you're right, we're gonna fix that. And there's just not this fear around things that need to get improved. There's not shame around it. I it's just I don't know. It really, I feel like I'm making it out to be this like magical fairy wonderland. And I don't know, like I do feel that way about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:27

Well, it's yeah, I you said something in there. You said there's so much good. And one of the things you said was that you can give this feedback because there's this belief that you want to make them better. And I was I was actually gonna ask, or at least point that out. Um, because that's what it just seems like. You're thoughtful uh about the way it is, and you're framing it in a way where it's like, I'm telling you this because I believe that you have improvement left, not because I want you to feel bad about yourself, which I think is great. And and I mean, I can tell you, I'd be curious because it it's I'll tell you what it sounds like to me. Okay, is what it could why this, why the maybe this, all these experiences are so good. It's a little bit of like a summation of what you've told me, but it sounds like one of the reasons why it's such a good experience, or maybe the secret sauce, is it just seems like potentially everybody has this belief that it could be great. And everybody's headed in that direction. Like you spoke to that, but then you also talked about the belief component and how every like we believe it's gonna be great. So we're gonna spend an hour on fundamentals, and like these students believe that it could be great. So we want the feedback because we want it to be great. It's like this deep-seated belief that like nothing could stop us from making this incredible experience. And I think if there's one thing that yeah, I mean, belief is just everything. And in being able to accomplish the thing, you first have to believe that it's possible for you to accomplish the thing. And then what I've found is a lot of really interesting things flow when you have when you start with that belief.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:10

Yeah, a hundred percent. I think that's like the thing that really you you summarized it really well. That the what makes that space so special is that everyone genuinely believes it's gonna be exceptional when we get to August. You know, that's so cool. Like, and I I remember last year when we got our closer, we were in Minneapolis and it required the students to march. Oh God, it might have been at like 192. I don't remember. It was brisk, right? As it was a brisk tempo, and the tupas were playing like whole notes tied to whole notes. And I'm sure you can imagine that being gassed and then having to move that quickly and then also play one single pitch for that long is incredibly difficult. And I remember when we first got the drill and we rehearsed it that day, they they came to me and they're like, Jen, we can't do this. It's we are never gonna be able to do this. And I was like, Not yet. Right. And it was exactly that same reframing of like, you can't do it today, but I I believe that you're gonna be able to do it in two weeks. And they were like, I don't think so. And then two weeks later, I was like, Right, I was right. I love rubbing it in, but especially in that context, right? Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:16

I told you you could do this thing you didn't think you'd be able to do, like instead of the other framing as I told you that you wouldn't be able to do it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:23

Right. No, it's like it's it's always that other, it's always the other side of it. It's like, I believe that you're gonna be able to do it. I believe that you have the skills you need. I believe that you have the desire to get where you need to be. And like I will say, one of the biggest luxuries about maybe the blue coats in particular is that because um it's such a competitive audition process, we also we we select for skill, right? Like you have to be very skilled to even get into the space, like into the callback room. But we also get to pick for attitude. Like we get to spend some time with these students and like vibe out. Like, is this gonna be someone who brings that positive energy that like I'm gonna keep pushing everyday energy to the table? Or are they are they someone who is, you know, gonna bring the vibe down? And and we have the luxury of selecting for skill and for attitude. And I think that is also one of the reasons why it can remain this this space that feels so positive and forward moving is because we can also select the right kind of people to perpetuate that culture and to like talk positively to one another, right? I I feel like I have this conversation every year with them as like a we always have like a little um chit chat at the beginning of the season. And I always say, like, the most important things I want you to remember this season are that feedback is a gift and that we should always be grateful for opportunities to get better. And then if you see someone doing something that you think is incorrect, call them in instead of calling them out. Right. And it's like there's such a huge difference too on a cultural level about saying, Hey, I noticed that like you were late to block today. Are you okay? Versus, I noticed you were late to block, you dumb idiot. What are you doing? Right. And like students see it. They might not see it like cognitively and and like recognize what it is, but when they're given the benefit of the doubt and treated like humans and adults, and and you ask, like, hey, are you okay? Do you need help? Is there something that's going on that's keeping you from being able to achieve what you're capable of? They just feel so much more safe and comfortable like asking for help and saying, like, hey, I am actually struggling with this a little bit and I could use some more support. And or just recognizing that like messing up is part of being human. And if people don't immediately think that you're a dumb idiot when you make a mistake, then like it's not so scary to make mistakes and you can just try again tomorrow. You know, but I I again feel very fortunate that I can be in a group of people where I say, like, hey, call each other in instead of calling them out. And they go, like, yes, Jen, and do it all summer long. And I, you know, rarely have to remind them of it because they do genuinely care about each other and they care about the product. And they I think, again, you put it really, really well, but they all like genuinely believe it can be great. And I don't know, it's just like it's I'm not saying at all that I haven't been in those spaces in like classical settings. Because I have. I've I've been really fortunate to get those experiences in other places. But I think there's also something like I said about the constantly changing parameters, but you choose to show up every day and you choose to bring your best self every day, even if it's pouring rain. You choose to be your best self every day, even if it's 110 or 50 degrees outside. You choose to be your best self every day, like regardless of the circumstances. And there's something that's really like character building about that, and and teaches students and staff alike that, you know, just choosing to be your best self every day is something you can take into the rest of your life. And that people will resonate with that when they see it. You know, it's like something that if you show people what your life can be like, if you choose to live that way, it's like, you know, truly leading by example in a way that I think we don't get a lot of training doing that in other places.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:22

That's amazing. I'm inspired.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:25

You should come out. We are. I think let me know if you want to come to a show this summer. I can probably get you in some tickets.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:32

Well, we can stay in touch. That'd be cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:34

I mean, I will say I remember, well, maybe not the first. I don't know how to say if it's the first, but I remember being at DCI shows, and it's like I remember that feeling that you can like feel it. Like you can feel the sound, and you're like, whoa, this is like a different, this is a different thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:55

Um well, I we've been going for a little while, and I have a lightning round, so maybe I'll just like ask you kind of one more question and then we'll dive in. Does that sound good?

SPEAKER_03 1:39:04

Yeah, that sounds great.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:06

Um, well, I'll let you choose. How about that?

SPEAKER_03 1:39:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:10

Um, we could either discuss OCU and just like what's your take on, you know, who I guess you could say it is like, who is the how do I say this? Like, what's a way that I would you know what question I'm trying to ask. Like, who is I don't want to say like who is good for this in a sense, but like what opportunities does OCU present?

SPEAKER_03 1:39:37

Yeah. That's me, like, what kind of student thrives at OCU?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:42

Yeah, yeah. I feel like so we could talk about what kind of student thrives at OCU. Or I like this one that I sent you. You do a lot. How do you break out of the I just do this one thing, sort of very I am a performer, I am an educator. It's like you seem to be willing to sort of step into various roles and do various things and to see yourself in uh multiple different ways. And I think that that is kind of an inspiring thing. So I don't know, which one, which direction would you be interested in taking it?

SPEAKER_03 1:40:15

Ooh, maybe maybe the second one. I mean, not that I don't want to talk about OCU, but more just like well, how about this?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:21

Do you want to give like a like a not an elevator pitch, but you know what I mean? Just sort of like very quick, like who you feel like thrives, and then we'll spend a little bit more time on the other.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:32

Sure. Yeah, let me, yeah. I'll I'll try and make it succinct. I know I'm not good at that.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:37

Well, a part of it is like, um let me see if I can uh I mean you can get going, but uh you put you have it on your website.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:46

Oh, do I? See, this is me. Like, let me pull it up.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:49

Yeah, Project Teachings, OCU Tuba Euphonium Studio. It says a focus on chamber music, effective practice, support of what makes unique. You know, why OCU, small liberal arts college, private, like there's just the you have all these like selling points.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:07

But I was just gonna maybe see just kind of what came to mind as maybe like what you feel like are some of the best things about OCU. Maybe. Maybe that's a way to say it. Like, what do you feel like are are some of OCU's strengths to help connect who might really thrive there?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:22

Yeah. Um, I would say that probably one of the biggest strengths about OCU is the mentorship. Every single applied lesson is taught by a faculty member, and you really have an opportunity to know and be known by your teacher, I think, which is something that like maybe young people don't always realize is one of the most valuable tools they have is to have someone in their corner who like understands their goals and whose focus is getting them to that next step, whatever that step might be. And, you know, on a in a second, secondary way, I think one of the best things about OCU is just the sheer number of opportunities here for students. You know, we are a small private school and the tuition online looks quite high when you just like look at the ticket price. But the reality is we are very much an equalizing institution. Like students get incredibly generous scholarships to study here. There's a whole fund to send students to competitions and to support them pursuing their goals outside of school. Um, the community support for the students is really remarkable. Last year I had a quartet of uh two buphonium players travel to Spain and we got it fully funded with a combination of support from the university and support from multiple bake sales and community events. And, you know, I know that the opportunities that we offer here and the support that we offer here really are not matched other places. And it's because it's a community of people who genuinely care about the student experience and whose priorities are very much student-oriented. And you can tell when you're here. Like the faculty all want to be incredible performers and musicians and teachers themselves, but it never comes at the cost of the student experience and and making sure that our priority is always supporting students toward their personal goals.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:25

That's well said. Yeah. I am a product of that. You know, I went to OCU, studied um with Michael Anderson, who retired last year. And uh I can attest, you know, I had a lot of great experiences there, and my teacher was very involved in what I was doing. And so I can attest that the of a lot of that. So it's just very special for me, I suppose, to be able to talk about it, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:54

Um, but yeah, let's sort of finish up, I guess, this part before the lightning round. Just yeah, how did you break out of the you know, I see myself one way thing? How do you uh when did you or what and what inspired you to feel like you could tackle all the one way I said it, you know, Jen Olivario? Yeah. One way I said it to Jen is who told you it's okay to do all that stuff. That's one way I said it to her, which is kind of a fun way to frame like like what gave you, you know, what sparked all these different avenues you were interested in.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:26

And yeah. I think that like part of it, I I kind of mentioned this earlier when I talked about applying for that blue coats position, but like having sort of a lol, why not attitude to things? Like, why not? I don't know, give it a try. And I I I feel like you you asked it just now in terms of this, like, who told you it was okay? I almost feel like for me, it's like, well, no one ever told me it wasn't okay. So why not? Like, why not try new things? Why not see if I'm good at this, good at that? Like, I think for me, I would definitely consider myself like an eternal optimist. And maybe a lot of that is just saying yes to things. Like someone says, Hey, do you want to run a tuba conference? And you're like, sure. Hey, do you want to teach drum core? Yeah, all right. Hey, do you want to like travel and perform in this like group? You're like, yeah, okay, cool. Do you want to read lee sheets on Susaphone and play at a bar for three hours every Sunday? Absolutely. Like, I don't know. It's, you know, I there's a saying that I have with my own students, um, like just have the audacity of a straight white man, and and maybe I'm just trying to channel that vibe all the time. Is have the audacity and uh, you know, just like looking at the world like opportunities instead of challenges is is maybe where that comes from.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:54

Nice. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:57

You ready for your lightning round?

SPEAKER_03 1:45:59

Yes, but I'm nervous. I don't need I mean, like, I know the point is that these are lightning round questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:04

Well, it's just like uh well, I re I like this because you know, we we focus so heavily on teaching and pedagogy and and mu so like a lot of this is trying to get outside of that just a little bit of you as a person. Sure. So I'll just read a bunch of them. I might there's 15 of them. I might leave some of them out because AI questions are sometimes very weird, but it's like it's just an AI generated list, and we're just gonna go straight.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:33

Ooh, okay, got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:35

Actually, this one's a question of mine. What's your favorite thing about OKC?

SPEAKER_03 1:46:39

Oh my gosh, the food and the coffee. Much it's like oh, I love Ma Derlao, which is a Laotian restaurant. Um, James Beard nominated, incredibly delicious. Like I don't know, it's indescribably good. And also just like we have so many excellent coffee shops. And I, as you might know, love a fancy little coffee. And I yeah, I I told my husband all the time that we could go to a new restaurant every week for the rest of our lives and still not hit everything here. And it's such a foodie city, and I that's one of my favorite things.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:15

Is your Nespresso like near the top of the coffee that you enjoy having?

SPEAKER_03 1:47:20

You're just trying to get me in trouble with Michael Anderson now.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:23

I'm thinking if he listens to this and he listens all the way here.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:27

Yeah, if he gets all the way to the end, then he'll send me a text. Uh, it'll be the true test. But I I do like to make little fancy coffees for myself at home. But I actually did very much talk to Keith uh yesterday about buying a real espresso machine. I think we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:40

Nice, good for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:41

Yeah, we're gonna try.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:42

That's not something that excites me in the slightest, but you seem very excited about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:46

I'm really excited about it. I've spent way too much time thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:50

All right, question number two baking or knitting. If you had to give one up, which one would you do?

SPEAKER_03 1:48:00

A Sophie's choice. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:06

Yeah, that's an AI question.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:09

Oh my god. Okay, I oh my gosh. I think I think I would have to give up knitting because girls gotta eat. And that's but wow, that is a tough question. Yeah. I think part of it too is like as a recovering perfectionist, if a bake doesn't go well, not a big deal. If I spent six months knitting a sweater and it doesn't fit, that kind of stinks.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:38

Well, if I'm not also, if I'm not wrong, your bio is an accomplished knitter, bunt pan aficionado, an Arlington native. It's like line number one, first descriptor is knitting.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:56

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:58

Um, all right. Number three, what true crime documentary are you watching right now?

SPEAKER_03 1:49:05

Oh my gosh. Okay, so I'm not watching one currently, unless you consider uh Secret Lives of Mormon Wives a crime, because it I absolutely think it's a crime against humanity, but I am watching it. I would say Perfect Neighbor is the next one on my list. It is like uh, I don't know if you've seen anything about it. I believe it was nominated for an Oscar this year, but it's a documentary about a woman who continues to call the police on her neighbors and then like it escalates. And so it's been on my list for a while, but I I just haven't watched it yet. That one that that one's next.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:37

Sweet. Um what's the last thing you baked that genuinely impressed you? Another way to maybe say it's like, what's like your favorite thing you've ever baked?

SPEAKER_03 1:49:51

Yeah. So I'll say I'm on some good stuff right now with my faccia. Like, I have I've been making faccia for a long time. And I've hopped around a bunch of different recipes, but I've landed on one most recently from a cookbook called Sift. And it is a three-day facasha. It is a commitment, but it is incredible. It's so, it's like a four-inch tall facasha. Like you can slice it in half and turn it into sandwich bread. And like, I just feel like I am riding this wave of bread. And that's the wave I want to ride. But I've been like experimenting with my toppings. And the last I made a double batch last time. And the last time I made it, I made one Lagurin style, which is where you actually douse the facacha in salt water and it makes it like crunchy on the outside and it mixes with the oil and like emulsifies. And that one was so good. But my go-to is rosemary red onion. And I like, I just come back to that flavor combo every time. But like the last one I made, I actually read the instructions like one more time all the way through before I did it. And like, believe it or not, it turned out much better. But it was just like the most perfect, pillowy. I finally got the bottom crust like brown with my pizza stone in the oven. Like, like I said, I'm on some new stuff with my Farkasha and I'm like riding that wave.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:16

Yeah. And we don't have to make too fun of a point about it, but it's like, it seems like the act of making progress. You that I feel like that's the thing you seem like you're like, I'm on to something. And it's like I've learned, you know, the beginner and the learning and the curiosity, you know, it's I feel like it doesn't go away. It's just applied to all these different things.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:40

No, and I I am super notorious for like making the same recipe over and over again. And I mean, I like to explore too, but when I found something that I'm like, ooh, this is good, I will come back to it over and over. And like the facacha, it really is like, and I'll tell you like living with frozen facaccia, homemade frozen facaccia that you can heat up every night is just like I don't know why I can't. People who don't eat carbs, I feel so sorry for them. Like, bread is delicious. Are you a carb person? Do you eat carbs? Yeah, of course.

unknown 1:52:15

Okay. Of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:19

Your life is so sad. But like I just remember growing up, my mom would like never have bread. She was so afraid of carbohydrates. And now I'm like, what would a life be without carbohydrates? I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:31

Definitely. Okay. Um this question came from when you were on bold as brass, and you said, my lifelong goal is to the move to the UK so I can be on the great British bake-up.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:49

I still aspire to that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:52

So I'm wondering what round do you think you would go out in, or would you win it?

SPEAKER_03 1:52:57

Oh God. You know what? Here's the thing. Like, I love that show. They always have like some episode in the middle where they have to make things with gelatin, and I just know that is not my bag.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:11

Is that the episode? That's the round.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:13

I think so. I think so. And it's like, you know, I yeah, I think if there was some like really fiddly thing I had to do that involved like jello, that's probably the round I would go out on because I don't want to make it and I don't want to eat it. Everything else I would probably practice a lot. And that one, I'd be like, oh, I'll wing it, whatever. We'll see. I I would love to imagine that I'm the kind of person who could win it, but I don't think that I'm aesthetic enough in my finishing.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:42

Well, something to work towards.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:44

Yes, yes, very much. I'll absolutely I'll put this pitch out there. I want to make more birthday cakes. So if people need an an aesthetic birthday cake in the Oklahoma City area, let me know because I'm I'm out there honing my skills.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:57

Well, yeah, and we will get a way to contact you at the end of this episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:01

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:04

Um the next question is what's the most uh so you already mentioned Kevin Stees, Steves, Stees? Stees Stees Stees S-T-E-E-S, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:54:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:16

It's AI thought it was Kevin Steves.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:19

Oh God, I hope I didn't misspell that somewhere. I will have to look, but it is Stees, S-T-E-E-S at J M U.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:26

I bet it's the boldest brass podcast. I pulled a transcript. I I found a transcript and pulled it, so it just may be misunderstood. Anyway, what's the most underrated thing that he taught you?

SPEAKER_03 1:54:38

Oh my gosh. I I don't know if any of it's underrated.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:44

Okay, so again, that's a dumb question. Let's say what is, and you already spoke to this, but like, what's a thing that he told you that's like still guiding you to this day?

SPEAKER_03 1:54:55

Man. I mean, I I already mentioned that thing about student feedback, but that was a lot more recent. I mean, he gave me that advice like you know, 10 years ago. But I would say when I was in college, he he really like asked me all the time, like, what would you what would it sound like if you really reached your full potential, you know? And I I think about that all the time. Like he was one of those teachers who just believed in me so much and really made me believe in myself in a way that I I mean, like I was a cocky high school kid, but I don't know that I believed in myself the way he made me believe in myself in terms of of like addressing weaknesses, you know what I mean? Like I was confident in what I did well, and then I was really good at hiding what I was not doing well. And he like he made me believe that working on the stuff I was bad at was worth it, you know. Yeah, that's amazing. An incredible teacher, yeah. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:53

You toured China for three weeks.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:58

What was your favorite meal?

SPEAKER_03 1:56:00

Oh, easy. Uh green onion pancakes and like pork. It was uh we had it in um Harbin, which is a town close to the Russian border, if I'm not mistaken. Oh no, um, wait, I'm getting my towns mixed up. Is that right? Harbin? Oh gosh. We I there's I've never been there. No, I know. This is terrible. I'm trying to remember. I think I'm getting Dalian and Harbin mixed up because it was our last two stops, and one is like coastal, and then one is next to Russia. But there was one place where we were there for a whole week, and we ordered the first night we were there, we ordered green onion pancakes and this like pork stew, and it was so good that I ordered it every single other night that weekend.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:45

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:46

Have you ever had green onion pancakes?

SPEAKER_01 1:56:48

I don't even know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:50

They are so they use kind of the same concept as like laminated dough in French pastry, where they make a mixture of flour and water, and then they spread it out and they brush it with oil, and then they roll it up like a burrito, spiral it, and re-roll it again. So it has all of these layers of dough separated by oil. And when you fry it up, it becomes like really flaky. And they they um sprinkle green onions in there too before they do that final roll. And so it's like all of these little green onions sandwiched between like really, really thin dough with oil, and they are just so good. And you can buy them frozen in the grocery store in America, but they like fresh green onion pancakes are just like next level, and they're so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:34

Nice. But sounds like strongly recommended I've never even heard of this, so I'll have to do some research.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:39

Oh my gosh. Yes. They're not hard to make either, like if you are curious.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:44

Um, here's a skill of mine. Or sorry, a skill of mine is a question of mine. What's a skill you've always wanted to learn, but don't have the time for?

SPEAKER_02 1:57:55

Ooh.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:04

Man, that's a great question. You know what? I mean, maybe this is me like hoping my husband listens all the way to the end and hears this. I want to be good at latte art. Like, that just seems like such a flex. I don't know. I I like and I if you ask me if I've always wanted to be good at that, I'm not sure that that's something that I've like always aspired to. But like a lot of the other things I've aspired to be, to learn how to do, I've like learned how to do. Like I took a sewing class two years ago at the art museum in OKC, and now I sew stuff because I learned how to use my machine. Like, I don't know. I I think if there's things I want to learn how to do, I maybe like unfortunately dive a little too deep right away and learn how to do them because I'm just curious. But I don't know how to make latte art. Not I've never made anything that remotely resembles a leaf or anything like that. And that that would be like so cool to have people come over to your house and be like, oh, do you want me to make a little teddy bear out of foam? Oh, let me let me make a whale for you. I don't know. That just thin that'd be so cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:04

Yeah, that would be cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:06

Mine is basketball.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:08

Oh, I've I'm terrible at basketball, but I've also never wanted to be good.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:12

So yeah, it's like uh I would love to be able, like if I had the skill to go play, I have no desire to play a pickup game, but I would love the skill to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:22

Yeah. Oh, you know what? I maybe bowling. I am an atrociously bad bowler.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:28

That could be a good cool skill to have.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:30

It is, yes, and my husband is really good. So it's like it's embarrassing because I have to put the bumpers up. Yeah, I have to put the bumpers up when I play. But but if you asked, like when you asked, it was like that you've wanted to be good at, and I'm like, well, I don't know if I've ever really wanted to be able to be fair. But I I would, it would be so cool to be like a bowling shark. Actually, two of my students right now bowl or in bowling leagues. And I'm like, Nice. Yeah, I should, I shouldn't I should bowl.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:01

Uh couple more. Is that cool?

SPEAKER_03 2:00:04

Okay, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:07

I don't this is I don't I don't even remember this question. I I look right ahead, and the question is it pulled it from your bold as brass transcript. I have a dog and a cat. You just talked about how you had a dog and a cat. Like, that's it. That's all it said. And the A AI said, if your dog and your cat had a disagreement, who's usually right? That's like that's the question it came up with.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:37

So my dog is Frankie and my cat is Mimi. And like, here's the thing Mimi gets really upset with Frankie over nothing. So, like, I don't think Frankie, I don't think Mimi is right in any argument, but she will win. So, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so Frankie is right, but Mimi will win. That's the answer.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:01

Okay, that's fair. I mean, cats are cats, you know, they're they don't back down.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:06

And she is the alpha in that space.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:09

Fair enough, fair enough. Um, okay, here's a little bit of a uh maybe music-related one. This question is Philip Sparks' music of the spheres gave you the best musical moment of your life at 19. Yes. Uh I'm not gonna read the question. I'm just gonna ask why was it such a great moment for you?

SPEAKER_03 2:01:34

So the JMU brass band was playing that piece at the North American Brass Band Association championships. And I remember like hitting the last like three minutes of that piece where the chords just like ring like crazy and getting those full body shivers you get when music just like really does the job it's supposed to do. And like I absolutely still think about that as the most memorable, significant performance of my life. Like, and the the feeling that I had leaving that stage, it was just like I couldn't have done a better job. We could not have performed better that day. Like everyone was just honed in in this incredible way. And I I honestly like I the only other times I've experienced that are on the audience side with like Blue Coat's finals runs, you know. Like I've gotten chills at those before too, but I wasn't on the field with them. So but I yeah, the that music of the spheres, Philip Spark. If you've never listened to it, it's just like an incredible piece of music. And it I still I do genuinely still think about that performance because it like it just viscerally, physically, like I remember that feeling of like I don't know. Do you get chills when you listen to music sometimes?

SPEAKER_01 2:02:59

Sure, sure. I actually have a very similar brass band experience.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:03

Oh yes, what piece was it?

SPEAKER_01 2:03:04

It was Breath of Souls by Paul Lovett Cooper.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:07

Um, but very similar experience. And uh same thing. Like we hit these chords at the end, you know, test pieces there. Yes. And like, yeah, it was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. I'm barely hanging on afterwards. I was like, I couldn't talk for like eight minutes.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:24

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I started crying right away. Well, that's not me.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:29

I was I was about to start losing it if I if I did.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:32

I just let myself lose it.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:34

So well, I'm very tough, so I can't I can't. I can't let my emotions be seen.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:40

No.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:43

This has been a super enjoyable conversation. I'm glad that uh I just got to chat with you and pick your brain, get to know you a little bit better. I've really enjoyed the times we've gotten to spend some time together. So I appreciate you giving me some of your time. Uh, I'm sure those that are listening are are also feeling like they just enjoyed hearing from you. And so if anybody wanted to reach out to you and let you know what they thought or if they had questions, or if they have birthday cake inquiries.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:11

Oh, birthday cake inquiries.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:12

What would be the best way for someone to get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_03 2:04:16

Um, so I I use Instagram pretty actively at Genevieve Clarkson. Uh G-E-N-E-V I-E-V-E Clarkson. And then I use TikTok less actively, but I do use it. I'm I'll be honest, I'm horrible at answering messages on there. But I would say Instagram probably is the best way or or via email. Um, you can find me on my website, genevievclarkson.com, and my email address is up there. And yeah, questions, hopes, dreams, aspirations, birthday cake inquiries, all welcome.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:49

Wonderful. I think that's good. I think this is really, really nice. I appreciate it. I appreciate you uh just being so open and sharing and inspiring me, and I'm sure our listeners. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:02

Thanks, Ryan. This is great. I I equally really enjoyed getting a chat with you, even though I feel like I talked a long time.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:10

It is your podcast episode.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:12

Well, yeah. I love that I'm like, I'm so much more succinct now that I teach drone core and that I talk for six minutes at a time.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:18

But it's like No, it's funny. I when I first started podcasting, um, you know, I've gone through various evolutions, right? Of like, what is my role in this situation? And when I first started, I was it was very conversational. I did not prep. I didn't send questions. It was like, let's just start talking. I I mean, whatever you think about his podcast, I know he's a very polarizing figure, but Joe Rogan's style of podcasting, where it's this open-ended three-hour conversation, was like kind of my entry point into podcasting. So that's kind of the picture I had in my head for a while. And so I would I would talk. And like I also had sort of like a when I first started, I was like, I wanna like, it's like I want to get my ideas in there. You know what I mean? I was it's just like I I was not yet sort of fully like settled into like who I am and and all of that. Anyway, so I would talk more than I should, we'll put it that way. And I there's a you can find it. There's a YouTube or like an Apple Podcast review that was like conversations are interesting, but like wish the host wouldn't talk so much or something like that.

unknown 2:06:28

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:29

And I think about that I don't think about it regularly, but when I'm doing podcast interviews, it like pops into my head like at least once per that I'm like, I need to ask my question quickly and get out of the way.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:42

So oh my god, yeah, the the audacity of of anonymous internet reviews.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:52

Oh my gosh, my YouTube channel, there's a couple of people who are like they consistently comment, and then my favorite YouTube comment by far, it's like oh my gosh, I wish I could remember it off the top of my head. It was like one percent like information, 99% yapping.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:15

Like, you know what? That should be the first line of your bio. Yeah. That absolutely honestly, that should be the first line of your bio. I think that's so funny. I feel like a bad review as the first line of your bio is hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:28

Yeah, I'm not afraid. I I love it. I I love it so much.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:32

Um I like I my favorite thing is maybe I should have said this, but like one of my most favorite things is like when the blue coats post videos online and some all these random like bando commandos comment, like, um, you try and stagger breathing. And I love going and being like, oh my god, I've never considered that. Let me get right to it. Like, yeah, and then they're like, Thanks. Oh, she teaches there. And it's like, I just love seeing them devolve in the comments where I'm like, Thanks for the feedback.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:59

And like Yeah, it's I sometimes like someone will comment and they'll be like, This is not the way to do it, whatever it is, right? And then I was like, please, like what explain, like, let me know. And I've gotten into dialogue with people before, and uh, I think it's kind of fun, actually, personally, to like Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:21

I mean, like, I I you know, I I definitely have fears still of like posting online sometimes because of how like trolly people can get. But I think maybe one of my next like aspirations is to be less afraid of posting about it and like engaging with trolls in a way that, like, okay, tell me what I need to be doing differently then. Like, I I don't know. It's just it takes so much confidence, though. And I don't know that I can come to that confidence every day.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:49

Fair enough. Well, anyway, I thank you for your time. This was this was super cool. I also want to thank Brandon Yokum for his work on mastering this episode of the podcast. You can check out Brandon at Epiphany Recording Studio.com. And I think most of all, I would just like to thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it, and we will see you in the next one.