From Dust Storms to Music Education with Dr. Shauna Pickens

Episode 7 of The Vocal Cue, with your host Tawny Ballinger, brings in Texas Tech University School of Music Assistant Professor of Music Education, Dr. Shauna Pickens. 

Dr. Pickens began her career at Texas Tech in the fall of 2023 but she was no stranger to the campus, having received her bachelors and Ph.D. at Texas Tech. Her love for teaching music is evident, whether it be teaching middle schoolers or college level courses. Listen in as we discuss her journey coming full circle from band camp to leading our future music educators.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi, my name is Tawny. Welcome to the Vocal Cue. Today I'm here with Dr. Pickens, and she is a part of the School of Music as an assistant professor in music education. We started the podcast in the summer, and you were the first lady to be in the podcast. That's amazing. Honor. So what made you want to come to the Texas Tech School of Music?

Speaker 0:29

That's kind of a long story, actually. So I I graduated from here twice. So originally as an aspiring undergraduate student, I was drawn to the School of Music because I had come to the Texas Tech Band and Orchestra camp as a young person. My first year was as a sixth grader. So yeah, my first year playing my instrument, and my band director brought us up here for the camp. And I made some connections with some of the faculty here, one of them being the Traumon professor. That was my primary instrument. And so over the years I just kept being drawn to Texas Tech. And so I knew of the wonderful reputation of the School of Music and came here for my undergraduate degree. And then graduated and kept being pulled back in and ended up doing my PhD here as well. And went off and was teaching in another state for a while. And when this position came open, it just felt like home. I just have such a I have such strong feelings for this institution and my colleagues and just really excited to uh be here. Hopefully I didn't jump across a lot of questions with that long story. No, you're good.

Speaker 1 1:43

Okay, so before you went to uh the camp in sixth grade, um did you know what you wanted to do?

Speaker 1:50

I know you were really young, but yeah, no, I wanted to be uh a medical doctor for a long time. And then when I started, um, so I was a band student playing trombone. When I started that, um I really thought my band director was really cool. And I thought that that looks like a fun job, you know, getting to be around the band world all the time. And so once I started in the music world, I was pretty singularly focused on being a musician. Um and but yeah, and then I went back and forth with being a doctor. Um so I guess I just combined the two as a doctor of music education now, not quite the same as what I envisioned.

Speaker 1 2:27

But that's okay, yeah, it's great. Um, did getting your undergrad and PhD here make you want to be a professor in the school of music here?

Speaker 2:34

Yeah, it did. Um I yeah, especially when I was here doing my PhD. Um, just getting to, as a graduate student, seeing the other side of things and working so closely with faculty at that time. Um yeah, I think that was one of those things if if a job here had ever opened, I knew that I would apply and hope that they would want me back.

Speaker 1 2:54

So that's awesome. What was your hardest class?

Speaker 2:57

Oh gosh, in grad school or just in any of them? Oh man. Um I took a couple psychology classes that were it and it was just thinking on a different level that I think as an undergrad I wasn't prepared for those yet. And uh when I took them later, um it made more sense. But yeah, at that time I think I remember those being pretty hard.

Speaker 1 3:18

Yeah, psychology is pretty hard. Yeah. Um, what was your easiest class?

Speaker 3:24

Uh probably just being in the ensembles that I was in. Yeah, just show up and do the thing that I love doing, that was pretty easy. It took a lot of work, but um I guess it felt easy because it was what I wanted to do.

unknown 3:35

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:36

Do you have a favorite ensemble that you performed?

Speaker 3:38

Oh. Um when I was an undergrad, I had a uh trombone quartet, and um, so it was student-led, um, four students um that worked together, and that was a blast because we got to play whatever we wanted to play. Um, we kind of decided when to rehearse and how often to rehearse, and um so I think that was probably my favorite one just because of the ownership that we had in it as students. Um, and then I think the band and orchestra maybe tied uh together as two of my favorites too.

Speaker 1 4:12

That's awesome.

Speaker 4:13

Yeah. Um what classes do you teach? What classes do I teach? I teach um the brass methods course for um future music educators, so for our music education majors. Um I also teach an advanced brass course, um, which is an elective that they can take if they want a little bit more experience on some of those brass instruments. I teach the instructional technology for music education majors, um, and they take that typically about a year before they student teach. And then I have a graduate seminar course that I lead with one of my colleagues.

Speaker 1 4:45

So that's great. Yeah. Um could you uh explain to me what exactly low SES is?

Speaker 4:53

Low SES, so it stands for low socioeconomic status. Um so that's typically a combination of things um that kind of are combined into that. So income, um, perhaps education level, um, things like that. So that's all combined into um the low socioeconomic status is is um how they define it. Um and so communities, schools are kind of unfortunately labeled in some ways um being low SES, high SES, mid SES, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 5:27

Okay.

unknown 5:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1 5:28

Are you still actively going to middle schools to do the low SES and rural communities stuff?

Speaker 5:34

Um not yet. So um I am trying to, now that I'm I'm back here, um, making more connections and being out in the schools. Um but as far as my research goes into that, um, you know, those perceptions, I haven't gotten that off the ground just yet. But I'm hoping to, the study that I did the first time was looking at low SES schools in urban settings. Um, and then um before I came back to Texas, I was teaching where a lot of our teachers would go out and they would teach in fairly rural settings. And so I kind of learned some new things about um the similarities and differences between those two different environments, and so wanting to get in on the rural side, especially given the communities around Lubbock, too, we have a lot of opportunity to work with teachers that teach in rural environments. Um so yeah, it's something that I hope to get going pretty soon.

Speaker 1 6:24

So for the urban part, um if you had to pick, where in Texas would you go to teach middle schoolers?

Speaker 6:32

So I um I would probably go back to where I was before. So I taught in um the Austin area. So in Flugerville, yes, good job. Um so just north of Austin. It was a great, it was a great environment and uh really great school district and um wonderful community, wonderful students. So I would probably go back to that area. Um I grew up in San Antonio, and so um I could consider uh going back to that area to teach to us, but my family's still in that area too, so yeah, a bit of a draw.

Speaker 1 7:03

You were a director for 10 years, right?

Speaker 7:06

Almost 10, yeah.

Speaker 1 7:07

Okay, how was that?

Speaker 7:08

It was great. Great. It was uh I did middle school the whole time um and I know that people think that that could be crazy, a crazy time because kids are, you know, middle school years are can be tumultuous. Um but I absolutely loved it. I found that um working with that age group was um incredibly rewarding and entertaining, and every day was different, and um and I loved that. So yeah, it was great.

Speaker 1 7:36

Middle schoolers are very expressive. They are very expressive. Yeah. What was the feeling you felt whenever you went you transitioned from middle school to a college?

Speaker 7:46

Um, like the the teaching of those two aspect. So it's it was kind of a challenging transition. The great part was um, you know, when I left my job teaching middle school, I was a graduate student for a bit. So I was able to kind of ease into being a TA and um being a graduate student that was working with our college students, and so that made the transition a little easier. Um, and I I, you know, the beautiful part about my job now is I get to teach a lot of the same concepts that I was teaching before. It's now just on a higher level. Now that I've eased into that transition, it's hard for me to remember how hard it was, but I think there are some many similarities. Um, and then I think there are massive differences between the two age groups. But the the part that I like to think is, you know, our middle school students, that age, they're going through transitions, right? And really try to figure out who they are. Um, college students are kind of in a similar transition, right? Just I'm coming from being a young person and now I'm in charge of my own life. And so there's that kind of similar thing, even though they're on different levels of um of what students are going through during those time periods.

Speaker 1 8:55

Okay. What was your first thought when you came to Lubbock?

Speaker 8:59

It's really flat. Yes. Yes, really flat. Um, I remember my first dust storm. Do you remember your first dust storm? Yeah. Um, so I yeah, it was really flat, really dusty. Um, I knew some people that had done their um college degrees here, and so the advice that I got for this dustiness was um don't wear chapstick when you're outside and uh walk with your mouth closed. So, and I I remember those things to this day. That was many years ago they told me that. But yeah, the dust is pretty intense. Why don't you wear chapstick? Because the dust will stick to your lips. That's what they told me. It's really good advice, so it keeps your lips from being gritty, I suppose. Yeah.

Speaker 1 9:41

Okay. Um, what is one of your favorite Tech-Stech traditions that we have? Oh, that's a good question. I really love the Carol of Lights. Me too.

Speaker 9:50

Yeah. Did you go? I didn't, and I'm really upset that I didn't go, but I did watch it on TV. And I did cry a couple times. Um, I tend to cry when I get really excited and um emotional and connected to things. Um, but yeah, I I watched it. Did you go?

Speaker 1 10:06

No, unfortunately not. I wanted to, but I didn't end up going. I went in December of 2022. Okay. Did you go that year? I didn't. No, okay.

Speaker 10:14

It's been a number of years since I've been. So the trombone choir plays at Carol of Lights. And so as an undergraduate student, when I was in that ensemble, I got to play at all of the Carol of Lights, and I just um the moment when they turned the lights on, um, the trombone choir would always play a certain piece, and so we would hit a certain m moment in that piece, and the lights would come on, and I always got chills. And so that's kind of one of those memories that I I hold really dear now. Um, and I don't know why I haven't been back. I really don't. Like since I graduated from my undergraduate, I haven't actually been there for Carol Lights, but it is one of my favorite memories.

Speaker 1 10:49

Um, in December of 2022, they added fireworks. Yeah. Yes. And then they also had them in December of 2023, and then they also had the drone. The drone was really cool on TV. Yeah, it was very cool. Yeah. I really liked that one. It was pretty cool. Yeah. Um, can you tell me about any of your research projects that you are involved in or that you've started or anything?

Speaker 11:13

Sure. So some previous research that I've done it was kind of in connection with the teaching experience that I had. So I taught in a community that was considered low SES. Um, and there are a lot of perceptions around that, um, sometimes negative perceptions about what that experience might be like as a teacher. Um, so I kind of wanted to dig into um looking at why people have those kind of oftentimes misconceptions about what it's like to teach in a community that's defined as low socioeconomic. And so I did some research projects on just undergraduates' perceptions of what might be challenging to teach in a community like that, and compared that to what teachers that are actually in those communities were experiencing. So that's that's a project that I did when I was finishing my PhD, and something that I hope to continue, especially now post-pandemic, kind of looking at maybe those struggles have changed and maybe those even perceptions have changed about what schools might be like in those environments. A new project that I'm hopefully getting started working on is going to involve some eye tracking. Um, and so I want to use eye tracking devices and software to examine what people are looking at when they're teaching, specifically if they're teaching a large ensemble class. Are they looking at their music? Are they looking at the students, hopefully? Um, and then comparing that with you know our undergraduate students who aren't quite out there doing it all the time yet, and doing that comparison between them and people who are experienced teachers. Um, so that's a project that I'm hoping to get started really soon. I hope we'll kind of expand into a variety of things that I can look at using eye tracking, and I'm very fascinated by what our what we're thinking about and what we're looking at while we're teaching because there's so much going on while instruction is happening. Um, and when we're working with young people, we need to also be aware of what they're doing while that's happening. And so just having that you know, devices that we can look at and at least see from from the teacher's side what they're seeing, and then maybe going into why that's happening and how we can help our students look in the right places.

Speaker 1 13:24

That's cool. Um so are you planning on creating a device to do that, or is there already technology meant for that?

Speaker 13:32

Yeah, so there's um there's a lot of technology out there that's um already been created for eye tracking. A lot of eye tracking programs are utilized by people that are in marketing. Um they want to look and see what are you looking at if you're looking at a poster or um a page of ads, you know. Um, so it exists, and um, very few people are doing it in the field of music education right now. So there are some people that have looked into, you know, what's being looked at one-on-one. Um, and this would kind of be a way to look at in a larger setting to where there's more people in the room and not just, you know, I'm teaching you how to play the trombone and I'm looking at certain things that you're doing, um, but looking at everybody in the room, and yeah, so I'm excited to get that going. Now I just have to figure out which software and hardware I want to use.

Speaker 1 14:20

That's gonna be really fun.

Speaker 14:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 14:22

So is it is it gonna be like glasses or like a camera?

Speaker 14:28

Yeah, good question. So the way that I want to do it would be glasses, so wearable eye trackers, which have evolved tremendously from when they first came out. They they do look more like just regular glasses now, which is a great thing because if you do this with students and you've got glasses on that look like really crazy futuristic things, they're going to be distracted. And the hope is that now that the glasses are looking more like real frames, um, it looks more normal to wear. But yeah, they have a variety of things, and so it's pretty neat. Um, the glasses are set in a way, and they have cameras up here, so the cameras are looking directly at your pupils, and then there's also cameras that are going this way, so it's recording what you're seeing.

Speaker 1 15:08

That's cool.

Speaker 15:08

Yeah, it's pretty neat.

Speaker 1 15:09

That is cool. So are you gonna buy, are you gonna buy them or are you gonna make your own?

Speaker 15:14

Well, I won't be making my own. Um so um the College of Communications actually has um some that they use for their research, um, and I've met with them a few times to kind of see if what they have would work for my research. Um so my hope is to work alongside them for my first couple studies to get used to the devices and what's possible, and then um potentially purchase the the glasses and all of that at some point to have for the music education area.

Speaker 1 15:42

So I did not know that the College of Communications had the glasses. Yeah. You learn something new every day. There you go. Um, so going back to teaching, um, when a student is struggling in your class, how do you go about helping them?

Speaker 15:58

Yeah, that's a great question. It depends on the student and it depends on the struggle. Um, I like to sit down with my students and kind of figure out what might be happening outside of that class that's causing um the concerns. So for me, you know, and this going back to even my my time teaching, I taught middle school for a number of years and building those relationships and knowing my students is the most important thing for me to be able to help them be successful. Because if I know my students, then I can see the struggle happening. Um, if I don't know them as well as I need to, then I might not even notice that they're struggling, right? So I like to sit down and and help them kind of figure out where this is stemming from, if I can, sending them to the people that could help them if there are bigger issues. But ultimately, if if it's just a struggle with content, um, you know, I I set aside time to sit down and help them fill in gaps of knowledge that maybe something's not clicking, uh maybe they just need to hear it in a different way. Um so really just creating those relationships and finding the time to sit down and help someone individually is the way that I like to begin that process of helping them be successful.

Speaker 1 17:08

Um does music make life better?

Speaker 17:10

Of course, yes. All kinds of music make life better, yeah.

Speaker 1 17:13

I agree.

Speaker 17:14

Do you have a favorite music genre? Oh my gosh, no. Um I like all of them, and it's it's weird. I you know, I feel like I should say like classical, you know, traditional classical music. Um but I listen to everything. I listen to country music, I listen to hip hop, I listen to popular music, I all of it, jazz, you know. So it depends on my mood. Okay. Yeah. During the summer, I listen to country music. I'm not really sure why that's a summertime genre for me. Um, but yeah, that's that's my summertime genre. And then of course around Christmas time at the Christmas music station. Yeah. So yeah, it kind of varies. Do you have a favorite uh singer? A favorite singer. I don't know if I do. I like a lot of people. I really like Sia's voice. Are you familiar with Sia? Okay. I think she has a really interesting voice, so I like to listen to her. Um I like Adele's music um and she has a beautiful voice. Yeah, there are lots. Yeah, I don't know if I have a favorite.

Speaker 1 18:17

Um, okay. So out of Adele and Sia. Oh gosh. Who's your favorite? Between those two. Yes. I might have to say Sia. Okay, what's your favorite song by her?

Speaker 18:30

Oh no, okay. So here's the this is a problem that I have. I am terrible about song titles.

Speaker 1 18:35

I am too.

Speaker 18:36

Like, I could sing the whole song and I won't be able to tell you what the title of the song is. I don't know why that is, but I was just listening to Sia yesterday. What was this? I can't I can't think of any. Do you know any of Sia's songs?

Speaker 1 18:48

There's Chandelier.

Speaker 18:50

I do like that one. Uh you don't like that one.

Speaker 1 18:52

No, I do like that one. I can't remember any of the other ones off the top of my head. Like Yeah. Um does being a music education professor constantly inspire you to listen to more music?

Speaker 19:07

You know, to be honest, I think being a professor in the music area, sometimes having silence is probably what I feel more because there's music happening constantly, and I love that about my job, and I love that about what I get to do working with students. But yeah, sometimes it's those moments of like just quiet. Those are good.

Speaker 1 19:27

Peace and quiet.

Speaker 19:28

Yeah, peace and quiet. But but no, I do I find that um my students introduce me to new music all the time, which I love, um, which is probably why I have such eclectic taste for different things. But yeah, I I would say that in some ways I listen to more music because I'm around music students all the time. Um yeah.

Speaker 1 19:49

Awesome. Does music help you stay focused?

Speaker 19:52

Music actually distracts me when I'm yeah. So I know a lot of people listen to music when they read or study or or work because my brain starts to analyze what I'm hearing. If I'm trying to work on anything else while I'm listening to music, I get distracted. So yeah, that's where the peace and quiet I think comes in. Because if I'm if I'm hearing a piece that I know, um I'll sing along in my head and I can't write an email or you know, read something that I need to be reading. But yeah, I wish that I could.

Speaker 1 20:20

Kind of the same on that one because whenever I'm like trying to read an email or read a book, I can't listen to music. At the same time, I'm like, do I want to read or do I want to listen to the song?

Speaker 20:29

Exactly.

Speaker 1 20:30

Like, which one do I want to do?

Speaker 20:31

Yeah. I have a hard time. I I don't know how people do it. I had I I grew up with people that would listen to music constantly, they would sleep listening to music, and I can't do that. My brain needs to focus on it while also focusing on whatever else is going on. So yeah, it's impossible.

Speaker 1 20:47

I feel I feel like there's times where you can listen to music, but there's also times where you don't need to listen to music because I know people that listen to music all day, and I'm just like, I don't know, I get tired of it. Yeah, like I wanna I want quiet. I like the quiet.

Speaker 21:02

Right.

Speaker 1 21:02

Yeah, me too. Um, are you involved in any organizations?

Speaker 21:06

I'm a member of some national organizations for music education, um, the Texas Music Educators Association, um, and then uh also our National Association for Music Education. And I'm I'm actively involved as a chair um for our National Association for Music Education, Texas Division. Um, I'm the collegiate chair with that. Yeah, so I'm kind of getting plugged back into Texas, um, being back here for just a semester now, so um enjoying that. But yeah.

Speaker 1 21:38

So, how did you become the collegiate chair?

Speaker 21:41

I was nominated by one of my colleagues who was the past president of that organization. And I was actually the collegiate chair when I was here working on my PhD before as well. So they had an opening and they knew that I had done it before, and so it was kind of a nice transition for me to help them kind of fill that need and also do something that I enjoyed. Doing. And it's neat because I can connect with college students, not just at Texas Tech, but college students across the state with and get them connected to our national organization and our state division of that. So it's a neat opportunity for me.

Speaker 1 22:15

And I saw somewhere online that you work alongside the exec board, do you?

Speaker 22:20

With that organization? Yes. So there's a group of chairs for this organization that are kind of responsible for various aspects of the organization. And then the executive board then kind of governs everything. So we do we work closely together and you know meet about once a month and kind of talk about issues that are happening in Texas education and things that we can do in service to the profession. So yeah.

Speaker 1 22:47

Awesome. So I saw you've been involved in authoring some articles. Can you tell me about those?

Speaker 22:54

Yeah. So when I was working on my degree, one of my former professors and mentors, um, Dr. Jan Killian, we did some research together looking into instrument preferences for students. Kind of uh just to give some backstory on that, as a trombone player, I grew up being oftentimes the only female in my section. Um, trombone tends to be kind of a male-dominated instrument, or definitely in the past it was more male-dominated and it's getting better in being a little bit more um inclusive in that way. But I I never really thought about it at the time. It was just kind of that was my life. And then when I started in the college realm and kind of going professionally into music, realizing there were fewer women in that field, I wanted to look at why. And um so there had been, there have been studies done for um over 50 years about kind of gender stereotyping with instrument selection. Um, you know, why do we assume that these instruments are specific to males and why are these specific to females? So I read some articles about that when I was um starting my degree, and I was really fascinated by things that they had found. But they were they had been written in the 70s. And so, you know, my thought was has it changed? You know, and what's changed and how can we continue to change it? So I started looking into that, and uh we did a couple studies that kind of examined um if we change some variables, will students select things differently? So one study in particular we did was looking at um if the people that are demonstrating the instruments are male or female, um, does that impact the way that students choose? So the the idea would be is if if I'm a you know eight-year-old girl and I see women playing all of the instruments, is will I still imagine a stereotype and choose instruments that are kind of stereotype to girls picking them? And vice versa, same thing with the males. And you know, we we really found that there wasn't much difference depending on what gender they saw demonstrating the instruments, which is a it can be frustrating in research to find that there is no significant difference in between something, but sometimes that is shows us okay, we're not looking at the right thing yet. But that was really fascinating. So we did that study and had that published, um, and then did uh another couple of things looking into older students and their preferences, and then now that they've been in that realm playing these instruments, would they change, you know, and when they change, or if they wanted to change, are they more likely to pick something that kind of goes against those stereotypes? So I find it really fascinating, um, and I'm happy to see that these kind of gender lines have blurred um more as the years have gone on, and I think we still have work to do, but you know, it I think it all comes down to representation, and you know, the hope is that students can look and see someone that looks like them playing that instrument, and then there's no reason to shy away from any of them.

Speaker 1 25:52

Agreed. Yeah. Um, do you still play an instrument to this day?

Speaker 25:55

I do. I do still play trombone. I don't play as often as I'd like to, so I'm trying to play more. Um, but yeah, I I still love it. Um when I was teaching middle school, I taught all of our beginning brass instruments, and so that's kind of like I can play all of the brass instruments, um, and definitely still most comfortable on the one I've played the longest, which would be the trombone, but yes, I do still play. Do you play anything?

Speaker 1 26:20

No. Um in middle school I played the viola though.

Speaker 26:23

Did you? Yes. And you don't play anymore?

Speaker 1 26:25

No.

Speaker 26:25

Do you want to? Uh I do miss it to be honest, yeah.

Speaker 1 26:29

Um I also played the piano for like five years. Yeah, I loved playing the piano.

Speaker 26:36

You can still play that too. You should.

Speaker 1 26:40

Yeah. I mean, I don't have a piano at my house, but I'd love to get one.

Speaker 26:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1 26:44

Um Do you have multiple instruments at your house?

Speaker 26:47

I do, yep. And my husband's also a musician and he plays the horn, so we have lots of horns and parts and trombones and parts, and yeah. Sometimes they're in my office at work, and sometimes they're at home. And we also have guitars, so there's a lot going on. Do you like playing the guitar? I'm learning actually. I um I'm getting really into there's this new movement in music education, um, not new, it's been around for a long time, but it's really being embraced across the country more now. Um, they call it modern band, and it's essentially teaching popular music in public schools. Um, we don't do that a lot in Texas, um, with the exception of some pockets, but it's growing as a um as an opportunity for our students across the country. And I went to a conference this summer that really inspired me, and it was all about you know, playing popular music and learning these instruments and how easy it can be to get a guitar into a kid's hands. And um so I played bass guitar when I was in middle school, and then I did not play bass guitar for a really long time, and so I picked it up this summer, and my love for that instrument came back, and uh, so my husband actually got me a bass guitar for Christmas, and now that's what's happening in the house when when there's free time, so pretty excited to to get back to it. And he plays acoustic guitar. Um, I'm not quite ready for that yet, but start with the bass guitar. You'll get there, yeah. Maybe someday.

Speaker 1 28:10

Um, so you talked about the conferences. Um you've taken some of your research to conferences, right?

Speaker 28:18

Yeah.

Speaker 1 28:19

Okay, which conference was your favorite?

Speaker 28:22

There are there have been a couple really great ones. The the national ones that we do um through the National Association for Music Education are really great. They have research-specific um portions of those conferences. Um there was one that we did in Washington, DC, a number of years ago that was really wonderful. I met some amazing people there that and was just really inspired by other people's research. So I I guess that one would be my favorite. I really enjoyed that one.

Speaker 1 28:46

Is that one the most fun? Was it the most fun?

Speaker 28:49

It probably was the most fun. Yeah.

Speaker 1 28:51

Awesome. Awesome. Um, what continuously inspires you? My students. Okay. Um how do you know that you're succeeding with uh teaching teaching your students?

Speaker 29:06

Yeah. I think because I get to teach people who want to teach, um, if I can see them building their passion for teaching and I can see them having moments where they are having successes while teaching, um, that's when I know that I've been successful, if that makes sense. So um, you know, sometimes it happens in the form of peer teaching where they teach each other and they practice skills, right? And having those moments where they realize that something that they just did worked, those are really rewarding moments. I also get to go out and do some student-teacher observations. Um, so when our students are out in the field and that last semester before they graduate, um when I see them working with kids and having those um those moments where they're just enjoying that process of working with the kids and seeing the those young people grow in their musical skills, that's when I know that I've done I've done okay and I've prepared them for their future careers. So yeah.

Speaker 1 30:03

Awesome. Um so whenever you um watch your students teach like little kids, um, how do you know that they're doing a good job and like getting it fully across to the little kids?

Speaker 30:16

Um you can see the engagement in the students. Um so if they're in front of a group and those students are engaged with what they're doing, then yeah, then that's working. Something that they're doing is working, right? And then, you know, in the in the band world, if they're teaching a skill and then they have their students try it and it sounds like it's pretty close, like those are those are moments where like they they did the right thing, they took the right steps and they gave the students the right information that it worked. Um, you know, I think this is a beautiful part about getting to teach music is we we find out fairly quickly if what we taught was learned appropriately, right? Um sometimes if we're teaching other subjects, it's harder to know right away if if what we just did sticks. But with our with our music students, if I teach them a new thing and um you know they can't do it, then I didn't teach it right, right? So that's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 31:09

Um you can hear it and see it, well, you can hear it through their instrument and see it through their face, can't you? Yeah, definitely. Okay. Okay. Which one's the easier to be able to tell me being able to hear it rather than seeing it on their face?

Speaker 31:24

Yeah, I would say that that's the easier way to know actively if what we're teaching they can put into practice. But the recognition sometimes you get in a faster response of like, I just said this, and then they light up and like that just made sense to me. Um so sometimes that's the more immediate. So it really depends on on what it is that we're talking about. If it's something that they can actively like immediately put into practice, then we can go to the the hearing of that skill. But if we're just having a conversation and teaching something different in that way, and you know, you see that alertness, that's those are great moments.

Speaker 1 31:59

Um in your classes, since you said that you teach like brass classes and stuff, do your students bring their instruments to your class or do you just have them sit down and then y'all study like the instruments and stuff?

Speaker 32:12

They actively play the instruments. Um, and so for for those classes, we have instruments um through the the school that they use, and they are taught the way that I would teach my young people. Um so a lot of the way that I design that course is um it's exploratory, right? So they I I want them to be able to experience what their students will experience through that process, and then we kind of combine that with conversations from the teacher side, so they feel it as a student, and then they we have like, okay, well, this is what I did. Did you notice that I did it this way? You know, how would you do it differently? That kind of thing.

Speaker 1 32:47

Um, so going back to whenever you're um an undergrad and a PhD, how is a transition from being a student to being a professor?

Speaker 32:56

Yeah. Um you know, a lot of times people talk about um, have you heard of the imposter syndrome?

Speaker 1 33:04

No, but I've heard of imposter.

Speaker 33:06

Okay. So the imposter syndrome is um kind of where you find yourself in a situation where you don't think you belong. It typically related to work, right? Um, so a lot of times, um, and it's pretty prevalent um in well a number of professions, but it happens a lot in higher education. So when you go and you're a professor of something, because you of all the training that you did and all of these people that were your mentors, now suddenly you're in on that level. A lot of times people find themselves like, well, I I don't know if I belong here yet. And so I think transitioning from being a graduate student into being the professor um takes a little bit of time to really trust that you belong there. I think that transition, um, while I'm proud that I've made that transition, it can it is pretty challenging for some people. And um, you know, I went through ups and downs where I thought, like, what am do I really know? Do I really have enough information to train these people to go do this profession? And um, you know, trusting your training and trusting your mentors that gave you these opportunities that they they know that you are in fact the person that can do this. Yeah, I think that's the transition was hard, but um worth it for sure.

Speaker 1 34:21

Sounds very worth it. Yeah. What feeling did you feel where you figured out that this is what you wanted to do?

Speaker 34:30

I think when I when I get to see my students go out um and work with young people and have the types of experiences that I had when I was teaching in the public schools, that's those are the moments where I realize that I made the right choice to train future educators. Um I think a lot of us that are um especially I I don't know if it feels like a lot of music education professors really enjoyed their jobs when they were teaching in public schools. Um and so sometimes we might question, you know, did we make the right choice? You know, we miss that. We miss the you know certain moments of of those jobs working with students. Um but yeah, getting to see my students go out and have like going to their concerts and seeing the connections they're making with their students and um seeing those students look up to my former students, right? And and like those are really valuable moments, and those are when you know this is a pretty special thing that I get to do.

Speaker 1 35:34

You mentioned concerts. What's your have you been in a lot of concerts?

Speaker 35:37

Have I been to a lot of concerts? I've been to a lot of concerts in my time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 35:41

Which one was your favorite?

Speaker 35:43

Oh my gosh. Um you want like in in my professional life concerts or just any concert I've ever been to? Yeah. So when I was younger, I went to a Billy Joel Elton John concert, which was fantastic. And I think at the time I I wasn't really interested because I think I was probably at 12-ish, and I knew their music because it was very popular when I was around that age. Um, but I I didn't know that I would care about the concert. It was an amazing concert. Another great concert. I I got to see Elton John on his most recent or this last tour that he is finishing, maybe just finished. I can't remember. So that was cool to full circle for me, my first concert, and then the most recent one that I've been to. Um yeah, those are pretty special. I've also seen Chicago in concert. Are you familiar with okay? It's kind of an older group, but their music's really cool. My mom would be so upset at that I don't know exactly the dates, but it's 60s, 70s, but they're still touring. These guys are like they're pretty old. But the music's great. You would probably recognize some of their music.

Speaker 1 36:48

Possibly. I do listen to a lot of music.

Speaker 36:50

Okay, you you and then you definitely would recognize some of their music.

Speaker 1 36:53

Um is Elton John the last concert you went to?

Speaker 36:57

The last kind of like popular concert. Yes. But I've been to several concerts since I've been here too of our School of Music concerts. What was the last concert you went to?

Speaker 1 37:08

What was he? Behind the tables. Park McCollum. Who's that?

Speaker 37:13

Should I know who that is?

Speaker 1 37:14

No, it's okay. He's a young country music star. He came to Cook's Garage last year. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 37:21

I bet I've heard him because that's my summer music, you know, the country, so I'm sure I've heard him.

Speaker 1 37:25

He's very good. Okay, I'll check his.

Speaker 37:30

Okay.

Speaker 1 37:31

What concert? Culture Wall. Also country. I don't really know what he is, but I love his music. Okay. Yeah, it's at Buddy Holly.

Speaker 37:39

Oh, that's a beautiful venue. I've never been. You haven't? No. Oh, you're gonna love it. It's stunning. I'm very excited. Yeah, it's really stunning.

Speaker 1 37:48

Alright, that's gonna be all for today, guys. Thank you so much for watching, and thank you for being here. It was a pleasure. Bye! Bye.