Scott Rush: Building Cultures of Trust, Servant Leadership, and the "Teaching Inventory"

Marianne White: Welcome to Take Notes, a music education podcast where we discuss all things music with a series of special guests. I'm Brian. And I'm Chris. Together, we share stories, inspirational ideas, practical advice, and have a lot of fun in the process. Thanks for joining in. Well, hey there. ⁓ Chris, I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to kind of start our show off a little differently. Do you know why? No, tell me why. I wanna take a moment and talk about fan mail. Fan mail? Fan mail. And I thought that there are two pieces of mail that I have received that I really wanted to share. Great. To kick off our show. And so this first one, was a response that I got to a clinic that I did and ⁓ asking about how relevant was the session to your own teaching. And they said it was interesting. I learned new information and all that. And then ⁓ they were asked to list strengths of the presentation. And this was sent to me in an email and I'd like to share it with everybody. Brian Balmages is an idiot. He's a pompous Martinet who can barely compose and has in all caps, no business, and finish all caps, teaching. Says a lot about every program that hires him. And then they said, would you be interested in hearing this presenter at a future conference? And it says no in all caps with an arrow pointing back to Brian Balmages is an idiot. That must've made you feel really good. You know, was pretty interesting to read that, right? And ⁓ so I think part of our conversation today will be about imposter syndrome, right? And about talking about how no matter where you are in your career, there are always going to be people around you that can lift you up or pull you down. ⁓ Like this other fan male that I got. Which said, and this was other, this is another really exciting, I did a really powerful clinic in Ohio and ⁓ thought it went really well. And this particular fan male standing in front of sensitive and impresionable children does give you the opportunity to change their lives, but not always for the better. Especially when you tell them things that... ⁓ They're ruining your music and your self-esteem, which I was really, ⁓ I said that? That's interesting. ⁓ In addition to wasting your time. So I, apparently I was having a really bad day. I've heard from many of the students that you crushed their spirit and they didn't appreciate your insults, especially when they were trying their best. You may want to reconsider working with children. Brian, I think you're missing the premise of our podcast, which is about Positivity and motivation and. Right, but see, here's the point of all this, right? And in this particular, ⁓ both of these sessions were great, right? And both of these sessions, I had so many positive outcomes and so many positive experiences. This one in Ohio, actually, one of the things that was so amazing about it was that, This was in an area where they did not ever have middle school honor bands. So the vast majority of these students had never been in an honor band. And so this was my chance to kind of give them that first experience. ⁓ To clarify, right? To clarify this awful experience that I gave them, right? the big joke that I was giving with them. said to them at one point, said, guys, you're making me feel really insecure and giving me low self-esteem because I flew all the way here from Baltimore and nobody's watching me at all. And I feel like I don't, that was my, that was the thing, right? And so the reason I bring all this up is because I think there's a lot of us out there that ⁓ are doing it. a really good job and we're doing the best that we can and we're giving a lot to the program and it's very easy sometimes for people to come along and try to detract from that. And I'm all about having a positive podcast and I'd like to think that I'm a pretty positive person, Chris, so get over it, But I do think this thing that a lot of our teachers feel has to do a little bit with this. imposter syndrome of am I really good at what I do? Or how do we handle those kinds of things when we feel like there are doubters or how do we just continue to have a positive outlook on everything? I don't think those two letters are necessarily pushing an imposter syndrome. I would look at those two letters and wonder what was, how did they receive the information? I would look at it critically for myself. Like, what did I say that maybe was construed a different way than I intended? But also what does it say about the people that are writing these? Like what? How do they receive it that way? I think when I think about imposter syndrome, I think of like, why is somebody asking me to write a piece of music? You I don't deserve this opportunity. Why am I doing this? That's where we're we're doubting that we're in a position that we belong in. And I think what you're looking at is critical reviews. And I think it's important to look at those. And I think it's important to maybe evaluate or try to understand where they're coming from. But I wouldn't take, I don't know. I think that's, are kind of two different things that are going on there. I think it would make me feel bad if I got an email like that. I would definitely wonder like, what did I say? Did I say something that was taken the wrong way? But at the same time, you can't please everybody all the time too. And it was just misunderstood or whatever. So I think there's a couple of things with that. I think it's nice of you to share these messages with us. I think that says something very highly about you. that you're not afraid to. said, when I actually shared this with everybody out there on socials, one of the overriding comments was people saying that I should frame it and put it on my wall. Like a lot of people were saying, especially the one about Brian Balmages is an idiot. You should frame that and put it on your wall. I haven't done that, by the way. Well, let me ask you, like how did that actually make you feel when you read that? I know it's funny now. It's a good at it in humorous way. No, it's a great question because I think I went through several stages of grief. No, no, I think when I was going through it, I think there's kind of two versions of myself. There was the older version who thought that, I'm just great all the time, right? And then there's the, what I'd like to think is the more updated version of myself that is a little bit more reflective and things like that. So I got that first letter and my first instinct was, Okay, this person's an idiot too and takes one to know one. But no, thought like, ⁓ God, why? Actually, my first impression was they use the word Martinet. Like who uses that word, right? And so I discounted some of it immediately just because of that word. But I think my first experience was like, okay, clearly this is somebody who has this either individual grudge with me or just somebody who feels like they, were never given this one opportunity. Like they wanted to teach at the local university or they wanted to present a clinic and they didn't get it. And then I got it. And maybe I was a little too humorous for them or a little too whatever. So that was the first thing. But, and I will say, then I went back and I got a little bit more thoughtful about it. Again, not negative on myself, but I thought to myself the exact thing that you asked, which was, right, was there something that I said Did I get too, I don't know, too light in the clinic? Did I get too non-technical? Did I get too technical? Or did I take it in an area that was a little bit outside of my expertise? Like when I do clinics at Midwest, people will say, ⁓ you should do a clinic on tone and technique. there's 8 billion people out there that can give a better clinic on that than me. That's not. where my strength is. So where am I the best version of myself? And so I think those were the things that I was thinking about. And with the other one, I think I kind of did a little bit of searching on that thinking to myself, okay, like everybody knows that I'm a very playful passive aggressiveness on the podium when I conduct and kids really kind of buy into it and they have a great time with it. But I also, Like we've had with our episode with Dr. Tim, you gotta read the room, right? And you gotta know when you're... And so I did kind of get a little reflective on that too. I said, were there places where maybe I was a little too passive aggressive? Were there places that I didn't do this? Or was there someone in the room that I didn't notice that was taking things a little bit out of context? Those are all things that I think I was just looking at and evaluating for sure. So to me, that speaks much higher of the kind of person you are than those people saw in those clinics, that you were able to take such poorly written and hurtful words and turning them into something that really helped you shape it and frame yourself in growing from it. I will say that, I think they were very well written. mean, the word Martinette is a good, well written Vocabulary aside, I just think it takes a certain, I don't know what it takes to send something like that to somebody in such a mean-spirited way. But I do Yeah, and I think that shows the social media thing. We talk about that all the time, that's true. Keyboard warrior. It's so easy for people to have that knee-jerk reaction. Both of us had kids that have played soccer, and the coaches always say there's a 24-hour rule. If something happens and you don't like a call, or you're frustrated with a coach, or you don't like how much playing time your kid got, you have to wait 24 hours before you write anything, before you make a phone call, before you do anything. ⁓ And I think if we had a 24 hour rule on social, could you imagine if we had a 24 hour rule on social media? Well, I mean, it's a good lesson for people to always remember that words really do hurt and that it can be really meaningful and powerful when you just shoot something off like that or whatever. But again, it's how you receive it too. I think that's also something that we have to learn to deal with that we do teach kids. And when you receive something, it's what are you going to do with it? You could have that reaction of just like, yeah, whatever this person's an idiot too. That's one way to do it. And then you move on with life. But also like, you know, is there something there that I do need to explore? Did I say something? I've definitely said the wrong thing or made the wrong joke and have come to regret that. like, ⁓ man, I really shouldn't have said that and not blown that off. But that's kind of the learning process. And I think that speaks to the quality of the person that you are and how we all receive those things. But to tie that to the imposter syndrome comment you're talking about too, cause I think, I do think that's a real. It is a real thing for all of us, not just in music. think anybody that has achieved success in any form, and I'm not saying you're the, people are the best of the best to get this. I think at every level of success, we question our own value. And that comes down to our, I think one thing we all share is self-confidence issues. I think that's one of that self, you know, that self-crushing doubt that we have. I think we, I know like when I finish a piece, I'm always like. That's it, I'm never gonna be able to write anything good again. The tank is empty, I've got no more ideas. Why did they ask me to write this in the first place? That's that self-crushing doubt that we kind of share. And I think at various degrees, we build that up again, that we have a little bit of success. Okay, well, maybe I can do this. And I think it's important, we can't eliminate it. And maybe in some weird way, it's good to have that self-doubt or that imposter kind of feeling because it forces us to examine what we're doing. And maybe we build a little bit of confidence each time. And I think it's something that was never talked about for a long time. And I think that people suffer in silence. So I think it's a thing that I really think it's great that you're bringing it up to talk about these vulnerable moments. That's what teachers do every day with students and putting it out there is how we learn and grow and become better. And ⁓ I think the other reason that I really bring this up is because we have a lot of listeners who may get comments. For sure. about their bands, about their orchestras, about all these different things. And it's really easy to internalize that, right? It is. And it's very easy to think all of a sudden, hey, wait a minute, my orchestra had no business being up there. They were like, why did you bring them? Why did you do this? Not knowing where your program was and how far you've brought that program and what your demographics are like and how many kids are able to take private lessons. Like all those different things, they don't know. They don't know who you are. They don't know who those kids are and they don't know what those kids have given and what you've given of yourself to get them to that point. And so I like to share that just because I want everybody to know that while I, again, I certainly think that I have more to do and more to go, but I, at the same time, I feel like I've enjoyed some success in my life. And yet despite that, it's been very easy for people to point at any little thing. in my teaching, in my composing, in my public speaking. And it's very easy for people to very quickly point out any deficiency that I either have or they perceive that I have, or maybe I don't have, but they're trying to pull me down just because it's easier than trying to rise, right? And so it's just a note to all the teachers out there to let you know that if you are getting that You're in great company, right? You're in great company and we see you, we hear you, we are cheering for you all the way and don't let other people drag you down when all you've been doing is trying to lift these kids up, right? I agree and what we always try to do, we have a community of trust. I think that's what it is. And I think it's what a podcast like this is for, is to help build that community and to Let people know that you're not alone in these challenges that you do face. And like you said, it's a point A to point B. There's people that send that note or that parent that like laughs at a performance because it didn't go great. They don't know where you started and where you came to. All the triumphs that you have to get to the point that you're at. But you know, we do have as a community is we do have each other and it is great. And I would encourage everybody out there, say something nice to another director when you're visiting their school, say something nice to lift them up. And if you do get some of this kind of fan mail, like Brian's talking about, You know what, share it with each other because we can work with each other and help each other and build that trusting community amongst one another. And I think that's just as powerful and important as sitting there alone, reading that email or that nasty note and internalizing it. think learning from it and moving on it. ⁓ is this transition time? No, I just want to thank you so much for saying such a heartfelt, wonderful thing. really meant a lot. And very gracious for you for sharing that with us. Loser. No, I was trying to be like, I hate you. ⁓ my gosh. Hey Chris, guess what? Guess what? Hey what? ⁓ We have a guest today and guess what? Is it gonna focus a little bit on trusting communities? Our guest is not an idiot. ⁓ okay. So that's my transition, how's that? It's transitionary. You kind of foreshadowed my transition, but it was before I was there, so we kind of had a muddled transition. Yeah, you tend to like give us a heads up when the transition is coming. I did, I was like, Hey Chris, that was not a transition. But I was like, Hey Chris, guess what? That's a transition, a difference. But I actually will bring it back to the serious moment for a second. Cause I do think it's really great that you shared that and that we talked about that topic today. Cause it is important. People do, teachers, we all get criticism and sometimes we don't know what to do with it. And I think it is easier just to keep it inside. And I do think it's important to share with one another, with a trusted friend or with our community and to, I don't know, process it in a different way than just letting it burn. And for all of us that have suffered from imposter syndrome, you know what? I do think there are positives to that. It keeps you like being ways, looking for ways to reenergize yourself and ways to just build that back up. So thanks for bringing that topic up. I think it was important banter. And now we have a guest coming. Who's not an idiot. Who, yes, there you go. So let's get to it. Okay, our guest today is well known as a conductor, clinician, and adjudicator. He served as director of bands at the very well known Wando High School in South Carolina. While there, the symphonic band performed at the Midwest Clinic, was a recipient of the Suddler Flag of Honor by the John Philip Sousa Foundation. That was not given by John Philip Sousa himself though, by the way, Chris, in case you were wondering. ⁓ I was curious. and the marching band was a two-time Bands of America Grand National Finalist. Other than that, the band was not very good. ⁓ And ⁓ he's a recipient of the Edwin Franco Goldman Award from ASBDA. He was awarded the Bandworld Legion of Honor and is an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association. And then ⁓ I guess for me, one of the great things that I had first learned about him was when his career kind of as an author exploded when he released Habits of a Successful Band Director, which is now in its 20th anniversary, ⁓ 20 years, that's crazy. Welcome Scott Rush. Yay, welcome Scott. I'm honored to be here. Thank you so much for the very, very kind invitation. Absolutely, we're thrilled to have you here. And ⁓ I think one of the things that Chris and I love to do a little bit to get started with things is to find out a little bit about... everybody's story, right? You began and I kind of curious how you got to Wando, how you built Wando, how you moved beyond Wando, just who is Scott Rush? I think Brian's been Wandoing about that. I've been Wandoing about that a lot. That's great. I Wando how you got there. You're fired. ⁓ my gosh. That's my contribution, Scott. That's fantastic. So actually I probably should back up a little bit before that in that. when I was younger, all I really good point. We don't want to rush into anything. That's what we want to make sure. I'm sorry. ahead. what you did there. It's a bad habit to rush, Okay, all right. Let's get back on. So when I was in high school, what I really wanted to do was be a band director. And I had some mentors who said, no, you really should do the performance route. so I to University of South Carolina, then I went to New England Conservatory. And, did the performance thing and I started teaching horn at Kennesaw state university. And while I was there, I was, you know, asked to build a horn studio. And, ⁓ so I went to Lassiter high school and Pope high school in Cobb county, Georgia, Alfred Watkins and Gary Gribble. And, ⁓ like I saw exactly what, you know, what was possible in terms of high school. Even when I was at NEC, I remember having a. conversation with a colleague and I said, you know, all I've ever really wanted to do is to be a band director. And so I completely changed course, ⁓ even though I was teaching hornet on the university level. And I went to one of my administrators who ironically also was at Union Conservatory, Mike Walters, and I said, you know, this is going to be a complete change for you. It's going to come from left field, but I really just want to pursue being a band director. ⁓ So I took a pay cut to become a band director and my first job was in Newbury, South Carolina. And I followed a lady, Lorraine Paris, who had been there for 47 years, which is amazing because first of all, there weren't female band directors then that were in jobs for 47 years. And so she transformed the community. And so I got to teach with her when I first started teaching as a band writer. I did middle school. in the morning and I to high school in the afternoon. And I was there for seven years. And then when Wando ⁓ came open, ⁓ friend of mine told me that he was leaving to go get a master's degree at University of Michigan. asked me to apply for the job. And it was one of those jobs where it's like, there's so much potential here at Wando High School that I really can't not take this job. And when I went into the program, there were 98 students. And ⁓ when I left, there were about 280 students. And ⁓ the journey itself was just amazing. The person who was there before me had done a really, really good job with ⁓ getting the students to a musical level. And that was really pretty good. And ⁓ even though I knew there was still tons of room for growth, the real growth opportunity was culture. was the ability to get in there and build a culture and create relationships and build trust relationships. And it was actually easier to get the students to fall in love with music and music making because of the seeds that had been planted before me. ⁓ But to do it in an environment where this idea of not just servant leadership, but I really believe that you can't, that you have to make music in an environment where everybody feels like they can be vulnerable. And ⁓ we were able to do that. So. I was there for 15 years and there were just a number of people who all contributed to that experience to make it wonderful. And we grew virtually every year. And so it was, it was really some of the best years of my life. Scott, I have a question about some of that. You talk about the culture's change. Like how do you go from, I'm looking at, I'm thinking about this 98 up to 280. That's an enormous change. And. I think that in what we do as music educators, our goal is always to have that inclusive environment. What was it about the culture that you were trying to instill and how did you go about that? Well, I think the person who was there before me just had a different philosophy about leadership than I did. And one of the things that we did, I I think there were several, I'll give you a couple of examples. So one of the things that I did when I went in was I did something called freshman interviews. So if you were new to the program or you're a freshman in the program, every Wednesday afternoon, there were always three aims up on the left-hand corner of the board. And so we took about 20 minutes per student. And when they came in the door, the very first thing that I would say to them is, if we're going to spend the next four years together, I truly want to get to know you. And then it actually put pressure on me as the director to truly get to know them. And we also did some all about me assignments and some other things like that. I do think that the level of music making continued to grow and I think that kept people. But I always believe that it also starts with trust relationships. And I don't actually believe that culture and content, like I believe that they fit together. And I also believe that in my experience, I never picked one over the other. So like if somebody said, well, oh, come on, tell me which one's more important. I think they're both important. And I think part of our job is to get students to fall in love with music and music making and to help them resonate with music now and throughout their lifetime. I also think that part of our responsibility is to help them be the best version to themselves and to help them be the best people. Part of our responsibility is what does excellence mean? And is high expectations a form of love? I believe that. And I think so. All those things, culturally and musically, kind of colliding is what I think. So we had a ⁓ nine-year period where we had an over 98 % retention rate in the program, which was good. And then, of course, we were growing above that. And so I really think it was just kind of a combination of all those things happening together. And then, like I said, it takes a village of people to do that too. So my colleagues who were there were just fantastic. When I first got there, it was... myself and Sean McGrew who did percussion, sort of part-time. He actually went away and came back and we had grown to a certain level. So we were able to hire him full-time at that point. So then there were two of us. We continued to grow as we continued to grow. Then Lainey Radicke, who's still at Wando, we were able to hire her. It was all based on just the growth of the program and numbers. continued. When Sean left, Jeff Handel came on board. And let me say this too. mean, I was just at Wando yesterday. ⁓ Bobby Lambert and Laney Radickey and Matthew Kielby, folks are at Wando right now. They're doing an amazing job. And that's not even mentioning some of the people. Like over time, as we got more and more successful, we were able to add people to the marching band staff, like Michael Gray, Tim Cole. ⁓ So the growth and the numbers actually helped all those things kind of synergistically come together. ⁓ But those folks are continuing to do just amazing work. And they're also dear friends. I love that. ⁓ The growth mindset of all of that. And I also love the fact that you're talking about how you didn't just walk into this program that had seven band directors and all the things. ⁓ You walked into a program with 98 students total. And it was you and a percussion person. And ⁓ you really... kind of manifested this growth almost. And one of the things that I know, even in your book, you discussed a little bit about is this roadmap that teachers can use to manifest that. And you've already talked about these freshmen meetings, right? Talking with the freshmen about that. Is there anything else in there without giving the whole book away, obviously, but is there anything else in there that you would want to share with folks, of teachers that are looking at creating this transformative rehearsal room culture where people just want to be in it. They want to stay and they want to come. Well, I think there's two parts to that. First of all, my experience has always been that for students to stay, there has to be a sense of accomplishment. Now, where students need to feel a sense of accomplishment. And that can be something as simple as, as they grow, you know, the teacher asking a question like, that better than it was last week? Is it better than it was six months ago? Are we growing as a program ⁓ musically? ⁓ Because I believe that there has to be literacy and capacity built while you're building culture. In other words, musical literacy and musical capacity as you build culture collectively. You can tell a teacher, for instance, you could say, if you do a student-centered environment, which I believe in, and you ask a guided question to students, which I also believe in, it's really important. But if you don't build the literacy and the capacity, when you ask a guided question, you're not going to get a very literate answer back. And so if the students need to feel a sense of accomplishment, then we're collectively building these, ⁓ you you've got technique and skill and you've got artistry and musicianship and those things all come together, they collide. And then in addition to that, you have doing in an environment where students feel like they can commingle musical ideas. So if you ask a guided question and you want them to respond to each other musically, they have to do that under a literate umbrella, where you've built musical capacity. So I think all of that kind of collectively comes together. And then the thing you were talking about too, Brian, is from a teacher perspective. And I don't know why it took me to my fifth year of teaching to figure this out, but there was a. member of the Boston Symphony who took a lesson with, and he helped me create something that later turned into what I call the Teaching in Detroit Database, which involves all the components of playing, which are things like timing, tuning, tone, technique, balance, blend articulation, second hand mix phrasing, musicianship, accuracy, clarity, precision, all those things. then the other thing- It's almost like you've said that once before, or is this your first time? I have said it. What was that fourth thing again? I don't know. Yeah, okay, go ahead. And then also the other things that were responsible for teaching, like in the other things responsible teaching could be everything from, you know, if you teach beginners, which side of the case is up to ⁓ student leadership, you know, or ⁓ just the idea of, you know, concert etiquette, what are those things? And so the teaching me or a database was a spreadsheet that I created where the left-hand side was basically what to teach and the right-hand side was how to teach it. And then I spent a lot of my time, not only just figuring out, you know, how do we teach these things, but I would ask the students, how did we teach it? How did you learn it? Or give me an example of how we do it. And then if I had gaps, because I certainly had gaps in my teaching mentor database, I would, you know, when we brought in outside clinicians to work with the band and, we brought in some amazing people to come in and do symphonic camps, you know, I was in the back taking notes like crazy. mean, the students thought I was bringing these people in to create this know, mountaintop experience for them, which I was. But every time I brought in a guest conductor, I grew and learned from the process, mean, immensely. And so, you know, I think all of that kind of collectively helps with the, not only the classroom environment, but the growth and the retention as well. I think the idea of always growing is something that I know all the best teachers that I know and all the best teacher friends that I know. That's our big secret is that we love to learn. I've said this before on the show. I love to learn new things. And I think all good teachers just love getting new knowledge. And that is kind of the secret, bringing somebody in. And this may be something for our listeners. I think there's a fear out there of opening your doors to outside voices. And I don't know if that's an insecurity. I'm sure it's an insecurity or maybe it's a protectiveness. But when you open the doors and let somebody else in, Not only do the kids learn and grow and develop from that, but we as teachers, I know I always have. And I would do the same thing, Scott. I'd sit in the back of the room and just take a bunch of notes and I would apply those new things to my wheelhouse of things, my bag of tricks when I needed them. But there's a bunch of things you're saying that I really like. I'm gonna go back to a couple of things, like the guided questions and thinking about elevating their performance and getting elevated answers with guided questions. And the idea of student performance elevating along with the culture. I think having that growth mindset and instilling that in students, yes, it's great if they're nice kids and they're welcome and they get along well and they understand that they're welcome. But pushing that bar a little higher each time, I think is maybe an element that some programs are missing. They get the idea of inclusion, they get the idea of support, but it's a careful balance to how high do you push that level and have them meet those expectations. I feel like, and you can tell me your opinion on it, we push them to a point where it's just about uncomfortable. A little more than they think they can do so that it's a little bit uncomfortable because current kids have a hard time being uncomfortable. And I think we as teachers have a duty to make them be a little bit uncomfortable and live with that and then try to figure that out. ⁓ How do you feel Hey Chris, I think our wives would argue that we do that in our relationships, but I don't think that was what the question was, so. Are about having high expectations or pushing things just a little bit uncomfortable? Well, high expectations, I managed to marry her. that was pretty, that's about as high as I could go there. Everything else is negative on me. So she lowered her expectations. Exactly. back to the question, but also when you were answering Chris's question, the other thing that I wanted to point out before I forgot was the one thing that you said, which was, that you would ask them every time, is that better than last week? Or did we make progress from last week? And we hear stories all the time about directors that put so much weight on that adjudicated grade level, right? Did I get a one or I didn't get a one and suddenly the whole program is let down and I'm not good enough or my group is not. And what I love is by asking these questions, hey, was that better than last week? you're providing these kids with an entire year worth of positive feedback about how they're getting better. So maybe they get a two, right? And that's, it's still a two is fine, right? But what I love is that that's one day out of a hundred plus days where all the other hundred days we're talking about. And you know what? Some days I suppose the answer was no, it wasn't better. Okay, well let's try better next week. that's. But the vast majority of this is positive feedback. And I would think that that has a lot to do with the retention aspect too. Yeah, want to other thing to that. When I would ask the question about, you know, was it better than it was last week or better than it was, the next question then is, tell me why it was better. Because here again, that's based on literacy. it's not just about creating, because first of all, if you give false praise to students, they can see right through it. They just, that's just how they just can see right through it. So if you ask them, you know, was it better? they say, yes, it was. Tell me specifically why. And one of the things that I always used to encourage them, I would say things are not good or bad. They just are, you know, so tell me, you know, why that was better. And here again, if they would use those components of applying and what we'd call components of playing as a literate answer, then they can tell you specifically why that was better. You know, the other thing is. So there are these three buckets that we, and matter of fact, the habit series is kind of built on these three buckets too. And it's rhythm, vocabulary, oral literacy, and the components of playing. So if you're building capacity in all three buckets, then this earlier, this idea of having high expectations is a form of love. I actually believe that we can create this environment where we can say, yes, I believe there's more in the tank. The other thing that I think we can do too, is we can just say in this program, this is how we do things. And that's not just ⁓ excellence and doing, you know, trying to be the best versions of ourselves. It can be something as simple as, you know, there's no consequence for this, but in this program, when we take a trip, when we get off the bus, there's an expectation that you say thank you to the bus driver. Or if you, you know, at marching bean camp and their parents are feeding, you know, the food line or whatever that when you walk by, say, thank you, you know, we really appreciate this. I think it all, it all comes together. Like it, it's kind of, you know, it kind of, it's like the question is, is how you stack and rack the chairs and stands and how you play a musical phrase. Do those two things go together? And it's like, if excellence is excellence, you can make a case for the fact that they do. Because ultimately you won't parents to say, I want my child to belong to that, you know, or my child to belong to that program. And here again, it's because you created this culture and this environment, this built on excellence, that's also built on love. Scott, the whole premise of how you carry yourself and how you treat others, it is part of what we're teaching in music. A lot of times we do talk about, we're not just teaching notes and rhythms, we're teaching responsibilities. One of my catchphrases from teaching over the years is, I'm teaching your kids through music. Music is the vehicle, but I'm teaching kids, not necessarily just music. And I got a lot of feedback from parents that they love and appreciate that. Back to school night, that's what I would put on the board. Every back to school night, the first thing is I will not be teaching your kids to the concert. They're gonna be teaching your kids through me. We'll have a concert, the music is gonna be great, you're gonna be very happy, but I'm gonna teach your kids to be nice people, to be responsible, to put their folders away, to pick up after themselves, to do this, to do that, to thank people. I used to take note of that during football games. And when my kids, we would have off third quarter and the kids can socialize and go get a snack and all that kind of stuff. And I would make a really important point to them that- People are watching you during that time. I really wanna catch you doing something nice, doing something kind. And I did get notes from parents and other visitors that noticed how those kids behaved. To me, that was equally as important as how they carry themselves in a performance of a piece of music. I like that you're wrapping the culture and behaviors in with the performance and always thinking that there's a higher level that you can continue to achieve and having the kids be a part of that conversation and being part of that evaluation. Are you better today? not just musically, but in all of the things that you're doing and that there's more room in that bucket. I like that. And that speaks very, I can connect with that very easily. know. I think everything you said is just really dumb. Sorry, sorry. I missed the point. Yeah, my bad. I'll tell you one other thing too. So, you know, when I first got there and we had, you know, ⁓ under a hundred students, you know, it was a typical scenario where numbers. in programs and ensembles a lot of times, you know, it's almost like a pyramid where you have more freshmen than sophomores, more sophomores than juniors, and your senior class is your smallest class. And one of the goals that we had was we said, how can we turn our pyramid into a square? And we started it by telling the student leadership, we called it taking care of the customers. And the customers were the new students who came into the program. And that's, was just to catch fate, you know, phrase that we use. We're going to take care of the customers. Well, that's not just personally. I mean, it can be, and it should be personally, you know, like you can do section activities and all kinds of things like that. But it's also, are you willing to give them help with their music? Are you willing to almost give a private lesson, you know, to ensure that they're going to be successful? So, like I said, all this fits together and, know, I think we have the greatest job on the planet. I mean, we get the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of young people through music, and we get to help them fall in love with music, and we get to help them be the best versions of themselves. We get to be a champion for their success. As one of my mentors, Ben Zander, says, our job is to awaken possibility in students. I just don't think, it's the greatest profession on the planet. Like, I truly believe that. So I have to ask, since you brought it up, was it like, Ben Zander, a lot of folks should know that name. mean, certainly a legend in ⁓ musicality, in ⁓ some of his incredible resources that he's written. What was it like to ⁓ work with him? what capacity did you work? I'm assuming it had to do with NEC for sure. Yeah, it did. So I will say this. This is just an interesting overall concept. Like I believe we're a product of our experiences and we can only give away what we have. So when we have these experiences, we certainly bring those experiences into the classroom. And that can be listening to recordings. It can be going to concerts. It can be who you surround yourself with. It can be bringing in outside people. When I was at New England Conservatory, know, obviously ⁓ Frank Battisti was a a big part of that experience. I'll tell you a little bit about that in just a minute. Ben Zander, I took as many classes from Ben Zander as I could. He also was the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, which was the top freelance orchestra in town. And I played in that orchestra for two years. every orchestra rehearsal was a lesson in music and music making. And in his classes, they were very unique. You literally might go into a class one day and sit down and he would just pull out a cello and play Bach cello suites. Or he might play from the piano from the well-tempered clavier. Like they were just very kind of, you know, and I don't know if you know, ⁓ you know, his book, art of possibility, but he talks about giving everybody the A and this, he lived this out. We would go into his class and we'd meet with him at the beginning of class and he would say, everybody's going to get an A, you just have to tell me what you're going to do to get the A. And then we had to present to him a proposal. So like for instance, one that I remember doing, an assignment that I did was on the Mozart Third Horn Concerto. And it involved a lot of different aspects of who the piece was written for and going back through and looking at the original manuscripts. And he would push you on. It was always like a project-based thing. I did something on stop torn one time, but there were always things that had to do with ⁓ our world, but he pushed us to do that. So being in his classroom was just magical and ⁓ also playing in the orchestra was magical as well. Frank Battisti, it was kind of interesting. ⁓ Frank Battisti, He's like 94 years old. He's still writing books. He and I wrote a book together a couple of years ago and it was just so fantastic. You know, we called him Mr. B. His wind ensemble experiences started with chamber music. So every concert was like a quintet and then an octet and then, you know, harmony music instrumentation. And, you know, we definitely did, you know, Strauss Serenade, you know, the Grand Partita, the Stravinsky octet, you name it. We did all the chamber pieces and they just kind of grew out of there. And you might play one or two major wind ensemble works in those concerts. here again, it was a mountain top experience. So if we're a product of our experiences, we can only give away what we have as teachers. We have to continue to grow and learn. And we get to do that through recordings and actually connecting with people. Can I say one thing about Frank Battisti? He and I were doing a gig together in DC at the Kennedy Center and he was 90, right? ⁓ And I found out that he was going back to school to get a degree in history because he has always wanted to be a history teacher. And he was probably only going to do it for a year or two, but... ⁓ He was actually taking classes with these undergrads and of course they would look at like who's this old guy? It's like a man you have no idea who that is sitting next to you but I think it's a great example of how we are always learning and ⁓ That was amazing. his his mind is still just continuing. It's just amazing He's an amazing person. That's very cool Scott you I'm thinking about all these peoples and these are these peoples these people and these icons that you're talking about and leadership and how that plays a role in recruitment, retention and all of this. And I know that you have, ⁓ you're all about servant leadership. And I think that maybe I'm familiar with it, but I think maybe some of our audience members would benefit from learning a little bit about what does that mean? What does that look like? Can you explain a little bit about some servant leadership for us? Yeah, so I, and this actually kind of goes back to the very first question you asked about Wando and One of the things that was really interesting at the very, very beginning was the shift that had to take place culturally towards servant leadership. The one thing I'll say about that as well is that it takes a while to build that into the culture. In words, it didn't just happen like this, but helping students be the best versions of themselves ⁓ and doing it from the bottom up as opposed to the top, a top down leadership. ⁓ And, you know, there are various levels. ⁓ to servant leadership because you almost have to be willing in the classroom to realize that, for lack of a better way of saying this, sometimes their frontal lobes just haven't developed yet. And so for some students, just getting them to the cooperation level is a win, right? That's a true win. And then for other students, getting them to where they're actually creating what I call creating a moonshot. You know, they're actually thinking of ways to make everybody better. ⁓ But, you know, I believe that every student has gold on the inside and our job is to help them find that gold. Some students have more believability than others, so they actually make great leaders in terms of, but I believe that everybody can lead. So under the servant leadership model, even though when I was at Wando, you know, we had a methodology for creating our student leadership and for for picking our student leadership, we really wanted that the goal was to help everybody be the best version of themselves and help them figure out what that meant. So if you are a freshman, but you wanted to help, I'll just make this up, load the truck for marching band, we didn't say, no, you're not on leadership, go away. ⁓ It was, we wanna have everybody be the best version of themselves and we're lock arms with each other. All of it's based on trust relationships and ⁓ with each other and with the teacher, to be honest. You know, when you were mentioning the frontal lobe development thing, I want to take a moment and praise myself because I was so ready to name a section when we were talking about slow frontal lobe development. And then I realized that the restraint during that split second, I realized there was no way out of that hole that I was about to dig. And I let it go. And so let's just make note of that if we can timestamp this. I'm very the moment that Brian showed restraint in a public setting, that'd be great. Very proud of you. Thank you. ⁓ I'd love to dig into a little bit of the technical side of things, right? I love everything that we're talking about. I want to talk a little bit about making a band just sound good, like getting the group to sound good. And I think a lot of teachers struggle with this balance of fundamentals, versus preparing for concerts. How do we balance the two? I don't have a lot of rehearsal time. I don't have any time to spend on fundamentals. And so I know that you have thoughts on how to maximize that fundamentals time, whatever it may be, without spending too much time. Can you maybe just give some suggestions on ways you would approach that for the teachers that are struggling with that balance? Yeah, so I think first of all, fundamentals time should be very organic. And what I mean by that, it should never be mindless repetition. ⁓ It should always be very organic based on, first of all, the very first sounds that you make to the day should be beautiful. They should be of beauty, right? So we're making music from moment one. And there are certain things that ⁓ need to happen so that we can transfer whatever it is that we're doing during fundamentals time into the music that we're playing. And ultimately what that does is it cuts down on the amount of time actually needed to prepare for a performance. It actually saves time in the long run because they're just transferring what they learned during fundamentals time into what it is that you're doing. But here again, this is based on building capacity and literacy. So if it's mindless repetition, if you're like, you know, I always say And this is true with, with method books. You know, I say it's not the exercise, it's the teaching behind the exercise and it's the teacher behind the teaching of the exercise. And so at the end of the day with fundamentals, you are trying to build capacity in such a way that it transfers into making beautiful music. the end of the day, it's always a means to an end, which is artistic. What ends up happening sometimes though is music educators don't have a starting point. for what does that actually mean? So sometimes they just like play exercises. Now an extreme answer of that is, know, situations where we've seen where it's like, we played the scale or we played the corral. then we have the rest of the time, you know, we've got to jump into the music that we're preparing for our performance because we only have this amount of rehearsal time when- And if I can just throw in there too, when they're playing the scale or the corral, usually they're not starting together, they're not in tune, they're not moving notes together, and they're not releasing together, and they wonder why that translates, because that transfers too, right? If we keep doing that over and over again, we get good at what we practice, and so we wonder why we can't, we have to tune so many chords in rehearsal. So I just wanted to add that into the scale, which we're gonna air quote that forever now, the scale. Well, and I'll tell you, so, you know, I mentioned this earlier, this, these three buckets, this rhythm, vocabulary, oral literacy, and the components of playing. If you, even if you just play just a basic Remington exercise, you know, it's kind of what you just said, you know, we need to breathe together. need to play together. We need to make a good tone. We need, it needs to be balanced. It needs to be blended. And you're, it's not a matter of the teacher. You know, just saying one after the other, well, that wasn't right. That wasn't right. That wasn't right. It's built capacity and literacy with the students. So they're making adjustments on their own. They're using their ears, they're tuning, they're blending. They're creating a sense of balance. If you think about this idea of like rhythm vocabulary, well, you can do that independently. can do it where ⁓ we sight read something every day in class. When I was at Wanda, every single day we sight read something. And when we. sight read something, we had time to reflect on that. So I'd asked them to give their perspectives on what they heard. In addition to that, think a lot of times teachers, they're very comfortable in the technique and skill area. We're really pretty good at shorter, longer, louder, softer, in tune, out of tune. We get pretty good at the technique and skill. But what about words like beauty and shape and interpretation and nuance and expression and emotion, or asking a question like, should we be saying something musically here? What is this piece speaking to you? ⁓ How does this make you feel? know, Persichetti is the one who said music is either singing or dancing. you, even in a piece of sight reading, are you trying to say something musically? So. Sight reading example, you know, that's obviously rhythm vocabulary. Aural literacy, we used to love to do soulfish, right? We would sing these soulfish patterns because we wanted students to be able to see what they hear and hear what they see. And when they get better at that skill, their ability to see what they hear and hear what they see, when they read, when they sight read, when you hand out a piece of music, they can just play through it. And then the components of playing, you know, are all those things that we mentioned before, including those words having to do with musicianship and artistry, really being able to, how do I say this? The joy is in the musical exploration. I guess that's the right way to say it. other words, getting them to a point where they realize that there's not one way to interpret a piece of music and that the exploration is maybe we could do this tomorrow a different way musically than we did today. The place that you want to get to with students is their ability to commingle musical ideas. respond to each other and then explore together. I think one of things you're pointing out, which is good, is the mindless repetition and purposeful intent with what you're doing. I think that when directors run through an exercise of the scale or the chorale, they're literally checked out with it. And I do think that a lot of teachers feel comfortable with time, tone, tuning technique in that little square that it fits in. I think teachers are less comfortable with artistry expression and letting go of the reins. and allowing for that kind of interpretation. So there's a couple of things that I completely agree with with all this, the mindless going through of warmup routines and exercises and fundamentals. It has to be connected. You have to connect it to the literature because we want to get to that place of expression, or more importantly, we want kids to get to that space of connection with the music and expression through the music. And I 100 % agree, because I've gotten pushback from teachers that they just don't want to give up that rehearsal time to work on this fundamentals. And that's the same thing I preach is you've got to have variety, you've got to have purpose, and you will get dividends paid numerously when you get to your literature, if you do this the right way. You're going to get your kids to connect with the music quicker. You're going to spend time instead of focusing on teaching rhythms and getting stuck in that bottom level of understanding of just getting the timing and just getting that bottom stuff. You'll spend more time in that expression with that artistry and those other components that you're talking about. That's what makes people excited about music. That's what people, where people let go of themselves and become immersed in the emotion of what it is. So as Brian pointed out, the teachers finding that balance between fundamentals and literature, it is so important for us to be able to isolate those skills, to be able to repeat those skills with purpose. And like you said, Scott, connected to the music because it's going to make that experience, which is the goal, way more meaningful. And you'll get there a lot quicker. But I totally agree. There's so many times, and I've done it. I say when I do clinics and talk to people, any mistake there is in teaching, I've done it. I've done the B flat scale over and over while I take attendance. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's the scale. It is the scale. shall not be named. Marianne, delete that. Oh my God. I've done that. know, that's where we learn through our experience. And I think that's where we share with others. This is the other thing that teachers do is we share with each other. We share the secrets. It's not like you mentioned going to Lassiter, you Alfred Walken said, man, I've seen these bands and I've seen these programs. And just as a witness, people share and that's the environment and community that we're a part of. Because I think we all want to see each other succeed and you could be keeping it all to yourself. And yes, that's only my program and I've only got the magic sauce to make this. No, man, let's do this all together. Let's let all these kids do it because ultimately inside we want. all of the kids to connect with music, not just my little school or not just my network of people. And I appreciate that you're bringing that up with this whole conversation. Even the balance elements, right? Even the balance elements in the warm up. how many times are we addressing balance in a piece of music without addressing the balance with the group? So that's a huge thing. Well, I'll tell you this too. So sometimes people say, okay, well then where does the rest repetition come in? And, you the research says that students, like they need repetition on certain things. Where the rest repetition comes in for me are the systems and processes. In other words, they can expect certain systems and processes for you, you know, that you're going to do in your classroom. But within the system of, within the system and process of the fundamentals time, that's the part that's very organic. So you can actually achieve both. Right? You can achieve both. 20 years ago is when you wrote Habits of a Successful Band Director, right? And that kind of launched your career as an author. But in that, you were talking, part of the thing that you were after was this reflection of the current trends and changes within the music education landscape. So the question, of course, is it's been 20 years since you stated current trends and changes. within the music education landscape, I'm curious how over these past 20 years, you've seen that landscape change further, but also remain the same, that the constants that are throughout and maybe advice to teachers who are navigating this, what I would say is a pretty rapidly changing landscape, but not always for the worse, right? It's just changing a lot. And so I'd love to hear your thoughts on all Oh, that's a great question. Well, let me say a couple of things. Did you hear that, Chris? I asked a great question. Yeah, I heard that. I'll be taking that. Brian said a good question. That's two things. Brian should restraint and asked a great question. This is like a platinum album podcast. is a day. Pretty sure Scott had an answer though. So Tim Lotsenheiser is the one who actually convinced me to write the very first book, Habits of Successful Band Director. And it was one of these weird things where he and I just had a conversation and he said, you should write a book. And I didn't think he was serious. I just thought it was making me feel good. And cause you know, Tim does that. And about six months later, he said, where's that manuscript? And I was like, what are you talking about? He said, I thought we talked about you writing a book. And he said, I'll make sure it gets published. And he was actually working with a company called Focus on Excellence, the people who did the breathing gym. He was working with them at the time and so he got me connected with them and we came out with the very first book, Habits of Successful Band Director and six months into the process, including some success at the Midwest Clinic, Tim came back to me and he said, I think you should consider connecting with GIA publications. They're a bigger distributor, bigger publisher that, know, and so Alec Harris called me and we made that connection. That's how actually the first book started. And it was really interesting, you know, in that first book, it's fun to go back and read it now, because there were things like, I talked about like CDs and cassette players and phone trees for parents and just all these things that we just don't do anymore, right? We don't do those things anymore. And everything that's done, you know, we have, you know, apps like CutTime app or the Band app, or, you know, we communicate different ways. You know, we have obviously. you know, assessment programs like make music cloud. we, you know, we we just, we just do things differently than we did 20 years ago. But I think the biggest transformation to me over the last 20 years, and this is the way I describe it. And I would say that a certain percentage of my teaching was this way. And I evolved near the end towards this other way, which is there was a time when we were creating. what I would call dutiful musicians, where they would do anything we asked them to do, but there was still a lot of information coming from the podium out. In other words, there were still arrows, a lot of arrows coming from the podium out. And it was kind of an old model of, you know, like how to rehearse, as opposed to turning our classrooms into a music making lab or a music education lab. And so, What I realized over time, and if this whole thing is built on trust relationships and students need to feel like they can be themselves and be vulnerable, that what ended up happening was we made this shift to this idea of, it's kind what we were talking about earlier, we can ask a guided question based on literacy and get them involved in the process. And where we are now is, I think, an incredible place. Now, I will mention this, this is just a little side note to what you asked, but I will mention this. Since COVID, I have noticed that we have to shorten the amount of time that it takes when we do certain, like we want to rehearse something, maybe we rehearse it now for six minutes. And then we go to something different. In other words, our pacing and rehearsal has to be much quicker and we can't get bogged down too much. And that includes getting bogged down with guided questions, especially if you haven't built the literacy capacity. But I think one of the biggest things that we've evolved in the process is what's actually happening in the classroom. And it's becoming much more student centered where they have a voice, they feel safe to ask questions, they have safe to extract. I remember there was a particular rehearsal and a young man said, do you like the way I played the solo yesterday or the way I played the solo today? And the answer was it yesterday or today, right? The answer was, well, let's talk about that. And we involved other people in the discussion of his question. Early in my career, they may not have felt safe to ask the question, to be honest with you. And as the process changed and it became more student-centered over time, and these are the things that I actually, when I go out and I do professional development sessions now, I talk about, you know, what are ways that we can make the classroom more student-centered? And I think, you know, we've kind of gone away from the old model and we were kind of living in this game. And then of course, obviously technology has affected just what actually happens in the classroom on a daily basis too. I would think that your answer to that kid's question would have changed too, depending on your time in the career. You might've simply said yesterday was better than today. That's right. That's right. It's an evolution of kids. It's an evolution. I think we're always in an evolutionary state where we're always moving forward. And it's interesting CDs and records come up on this show a lot because I think we all think about that moving forward. And another thing you've said a few times, which I agree with is being the best versions of ourselves. And we think about that. We talked about this a number of times, or like I personally, I'm trying to be better today than I was yesterday. What am I doing differently? Where am I in my career when I was teaching versus what I'm doing now? And I want to be better this year than I was last year. What can I learn? It's that evolution. And I agree with you that over the course of time, As a community, we've become more inclusive, less one-way directive and inviting of that conversation. And I think that's a real credit to teachers. And I think it's a credit for those who we surround ourselves with and making the students part of that voice. Having student voice, again, I'll go back to it. It's a scary thing for teachers. Another teacher knee-jerk reaction is to be directorial and to be a dictatorship. And you listen to me. It's a really confident and comfortable teacher to open the door and ask questions and to actually, I've had, I've said to kids many times like, know what, you're right. I liked the way that you did that. Let's go with that instead of what I said. Yeah. That shows confidence. Well, and if you build the capacity, mean, you literally, mean, this is a upper level skill. You can, you can say, you know, we've done three different interpretations of this passage. Which one do you like and why? Let's talk about it. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. No, I think when I was doing, I just got back from Arizona Allstate and ⁓ they, they played, obviously you've got wonderful musicians, but ⁓ one of the things that I tried to do right up front was set that expectation of musicality, which is something that we've talked about a lot in this particular podcast where within five minutes I stopped and I just said, no, no, no, no, you've got to follow me on that phrase. And you've got to, we've really got to ⁓ make sure that we are realizing the, the, the full. Whatever, fortunately I was more articulate there than I was here. But just really working on the concept of phrasing and really understanding where the peak of the phrase is and where is it going and coming from. And it took a couple comments, but within an hour or so, they were already starting to internalize that and they were already starting to offer their own stories, right? Their own musicality. They were starting to listen to each other more. And it just came one of those magical weekends where you just, anything you were able to do. And I think really where I was able to get them to, which is where I think we all want to be, is in the concert. We're able to, hey, we're in the hall. It sounds a little bit different with a full audience. We can stretch this phrase a little bit more than we had been stretching it ever before. And they'll allow you to do that. And so all of those things that you're talking about, those components of playing, the expression, the musicianship. All of those things, I think, kind of came together there. And of course, you and I have worked together a lot more recently with this new merger, not merger, but this new collaboration that we're having between GIA and Make Music. And it's been really exciting. And one thing you always come back to is that powerful connection between music literacy, expression, and emotion in performance. And I think that's something that we're trying to do not only with that collaboration, but individually, whenever we go out and you're working with musicians, you're just trying to bridge that gap between those things. And ⁓ it's a really powerful thing for sure. Well, and I'll mention this, obviously, we don't always have the luxury when we work with an honor group. We don't always, we aren't always able to get to that place. But one of the things that can happen a lot of times is sometimes you can just stop conducting and literally just stop conducting and let them express something. And boy, as a conductor, that's truly being vulnerable. And you don't necessarily do it in, I mean, you could, but we don't necessarily do it in performance. But you certainly can create a moment where ⁓ you just basically hand it off to them, the music making process to them and let them express. I remember we had one time at Wando, there was a discussion, I won't tell you the whole story of it. It was about the intuitive response to music. And We went back to this piece that was a slow, pretty piece. And I started conducting and within the first four bars, they were expressing things that they had not expressed prior. And so I literally just stopped conducting and went over and sat on a table. I remember sitting there listening and employee thinking, I could do this all day long. And then I also remember going, I'm not doing anything. I could do this all day long. Wait, I'm not conducting. Now I will tell you just for the end of that particular story. with that particular piece of music. There was ⁓ a fermata on the next to last measure that required a release. So I did jump up and I gave him a release and I gave him the last downbeat of the last measure. But instead of giving the release to end the piece, I just put my hands down slowly and they entered from sound into silence on their own. And when you can have moments like that, it really is cool. It's really special. You're muted, Chris. Wow, what a rookie move. What a rookie move. We are totally not pulling that out of the podcast. Like that is gold. Well, if I have to call for something, I hit the mute button so that I'm not like, know, interrupting. But what I was gonna say, Scott, is that that's a really great testament when we give up, again, that idea of giving control to students and letting them have a voice in the decision-making. Where I sit to editorially, method books and all that kind of stuff. We're always, one of the things I'm always, thinking about is how much do we mark the music? How many articulations do we put? How many dynamics do we put? I've gone to a phase of less is more. The more we mark, the less we allow interpretation. We have to put key things in, fermatas, like you're saying. You're gonna conduct that fermata because they need that. There are key things, but when I do clinics now, I also talk to the kids about how do you wanna shape that phrase? Brian, you mentioned phrasing. Because we're not marking every nuance and every microphrase and every microdynamic. I actually try to engage with students and let them have that part of that decision making. Now, sometimes we have to direct traffic and change some of that. But I think that one of the big takeaways from our podcast today is it's a two-way street and it's a trust situation between teachers with teachers with students, students with each other and building that community and working together for the end result, which is connecting with each other and connecting with music. So I think it's a really great message. Yeah. Connection. Well, Scott, thank you a lot for your time today. We don't want to keep you any longer. This has been a really great conversation. I think that we're all talking about very important things in music. And I think that teachers can take away a lot of immediate lessons from this about bringing guests in, giving up some control, involve your students, all that trust factor and focusing on fundamentals, applying it to music. I could go on and list all of the things, but I think this was a really amazing conversation. I want to thank you for spending this afternoon with us. Well, again, thank you guys so much for the kind invitation. It was an honor to be with you. Oh, we appreciate it. And in the great words of Chris Unyut, I just want to say that. Oh, I see. I see what you did there. You left it in silence. Thank you. right. Yay. Thanks a lot, Scott. And thanks a lot. Thanks not a lot, Brian. Want to get in touch with us? Email us at takenotesatmakemusic.com. Take Notes is sponsored by Alfred Music and Make Music. Our executive producer is Marianne White. Our theme music was written by Brian Balmages and produced by Fred Flowerday. Be sure to like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening. See you next time.