My Music History

I have had music in my life since I was born. My mom has both a grand piano and an old upright organ in the living room. The sounds of her practicing, accompanying soloists and playing through the wedding music repertoire for soon to be wed couples were always in my house. I tried to take piano lessons with my mom but for some reason it didn't work out so well. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that my piano teacher could also ground me! My mom also pushed me to sing in choir at church. I sang from k-12 at church and continued singing in choirs and musicals in high school.

When 4th grade came around I knew I was going to play either saxophone or percussion in band. My band director told me otherwise and that I was destined to play French Horn. He was right and I love playing horn! The other great part about joining band was that all of my neighborhood friends joined band with me. We would practice together in each others garages and we all stayed great friends even through high school and college. Now we are all in each others weddings!

My first private lesson teacher Mr. Donald Johnson was very strict and straight forward with me about practicing. He would say 'If you don't practice, I feel as if I'm stealing money from your parents. I don't want to be stealin' your parents money!' He was a big influence in my playing early on. At the end of 8th grade Mr. Johnson had to let everyone in his studio go because of his calling to become a baptist minister. He is still playing his horn but not teaching.

My band director from 4th grade til 8th grade was Mr. Wesley Russell. To this day I have not had a better band director. His motivational and teaching skills made band the most fun and challenging part of the school day. He was great with parents and administration. Now that I have had a little bit of teaching experience I realize how good he was and how much I still have to learn.

My high school director Mr. Kevin Carroll was different than my previous teachers. I learned very quick that Mr. Carroll was more of a 'buddy' with his students than I was used to. It is weird but before high school I didn't know what I wanted to do with my professional career but being around Mr. Carroll I started to think about how Mr. Russell would handle some of these situations. I began thinking that there are things in school to learn and do and also what 'not to do'. I don't want to sound like I'm only being negative about my high school band experience but there were multiple instances that made me decide to go into music education. I wanted to combine the discipline of Mr. Russell and the fun of making music personal of Mr. Carroll into my own classroom.

In high school I really enjoyed doing marching band. So much in fact that I wanted to really geek out and join a group where everyone was as serious about being good as I was. So during the fall of my junior year I auditioned and made the horn line for the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle corps. I had no idea that this move would completely change my life.

I began with the Cavaliers the summer of 2001. I graduated from high school in 2002. I attended the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign for my undergraduate in Instrumental Music Education the fall of 2002. I played in some of the best groups on campus including the Marching Illini, Symphonic Band, Wind Symphony, British Brass Band, and basketball band. During my junior year at U of I 'Varsity Men's Glee Club' was on the list of possible courses to take as a 'performing' ensemble. I sang in that choir for 5 semesters and really enjoyed being in a choral setting a few times a week even though I was an instrumental person. I graduated U of I in May of 2007.

It was when I was in the Cavaliers that I learned that there were so many other teaching techniques than the ones that were taught to me at Illinois. I was around some of the highest level teachers from great music schools around the country. These were invaluable experiences and made me much more marketable once I was done at Illinois and looking for my first teaching job.

My first teaching job was at James B. Conant High School in Hoffman Estates IL. I taught all levels of band during the 2007-2008 school year. I only have one year of teaching experience but it was a great year. I taught along with Peter Weber at Conant. Peter was also a Cavalier during the mid1990s. We shared a lot of the same teaching philosophies and the students really bought into the change that Pete and I brought to the rehearsal and ensemble sound philosophies. We team teached all 4 band ensembles that we had. It was so great for either of us to be on the podium and the other to float around the back of the ensemble or grab their instrument and play in the band. We made great improvements in their ensemble sound in just the one year of being at Conant.

I did not resign my contract due to personal reasons. I knew I had to immediately begin looking for another job. That was when I got a call from one of people from that very first group of neighborhood band friends. She called me and asked me if I knew anybody that wanted to begin their master's at NIU. I jumped at the opportunity and here I am the Graduate Assistant of the Athletic Bands at NIU. This is my second semester of full time classes and grad asst. duties here.