Hi everybody, and welcome back to Season 3 of the Common Time podcast. We're so glad to have you here to continue bringing our conversations, insights, and inspiration for music educators everywhere. Each week, we'll highlight voices from across the music world and share ideas that you can bring directly into your classroom and to your ensembles. Before we begin our conversation today, however, it's time for our standing ovation, a new segment of our show where we shine a spot on one of our incredible colleagues that is truly making a difference in the field. This week we're recognizing Brandon Fisher from McKinney High School. The nominator chose to remain anonymous, but in any case, Brandon Fisher is quickly and quietly building one of the most incredible 6A band cultures out there today. Brandon and his team of assistants are an absolute dream team who set the example of servant leadership and embody the phrase how you do anything is how you do everything, day in and day out. The students have embraced their directors message and are fully bought in, approaching all the little things with great care and their rehearsal procedures, high energy and blistering pace are absolutely off the charts. The dance parties keep it fun and balanced and when it's time to work, they flip the switch and they work. Kudos to Brandon Fisher and Team McKinney. We know that in our profession it's not often that we get the spotlight, but we think that you deserve one. So to Brandon Fisher and all the hard working music educators out there, this ovation is for you. And if you have someone you'd like to nominate, the link is in the show notes. And now let's turn to our guest. Our guest today is Doctor Tim Lautzenheiser. Welcome, Tim.
Welcome to you. This is great. Thanks for inviting me to do this.
Oh absolutely, we are so excited. So Tim, you really need no introduction as you are well known in the music education world as a teacher, clinician and author, composer, consultant. I could keep going. Perhaps above all though, a trusted friend to anyone that's interested in working with young people, serving young people and helping them develop a desire for excellence. So we are excited to have you with us to kick off our third season of the Common Time podcast. John, why don't you get us started?
Thanks, David. Hi, Tim. It's always good to see you, my friend.
You too.
So I'm just gonna get started. So looking back, Tim, what sparked your passion for connecting leadership and attitude to music education? How did it all start?
I think we all go through it at one time or another. I did all the right things that both of you have done — went to the workshops, learned new conducting techniques, explored new literature. And we were getting better, but there still wasn't that feeling of complete openness. Then it started to flip in my mind: maybe we should have context before content. If students don't feel totally safe and totally comfortable, that has a musical impact too. And it did. That was what triggered it.
Yeah, that is so true. I remember, I think we all think about that in terms of content before context, but we don't always get it right. And it's a process for sure. And you've trained literally tens of thousands of students and directors on leadership. So I'm curious, what do you believe are the non-negotiable traits of a great student leader in the music classroom?
Role modelling. We can all talk. We've read the books, attended the workshops, taken notes. But there's a real difference between talking it and walking it. It's not knowledge — it's wisdom. It's what you do with the knowledge. We all know not to eat sugar, but we eat sugar. Leadership isn't something you do; it's something you are. That part is non-negotiable for me. You can't turn it on and off. It's part of your being.
That makes sense. No, absolutely. I think I love reading leadership books and the first book that I ever read was called Leadership 101 by John Maxwell. A mentor at the time gave it to me, Mark McGahee, you probably know him.
Of course. Yeah.
Mark gave me this book and I was young and I still have it. It's a little blue and white book. I keep it on my desk, but I remember a concept from that is the first person you lead is yourself.
Absolutely. That's really what we're talking about here. We can teach this to the students, but ultimately we have to be the role model. The train doesn't go faster than the engine.
That's exactly right. And that's true in leadership, true in expertise, true in being a good person — true in all things. And David, how did you know Mark? Did you go to school there?
No, Mark was, I taught the Cavaliers starting in 2000 and Mark McGahee was co-caption head and I was teaching in the Dallas Fort Worth at the time as an associate director across town. So I knew Mark, knew of Mark, and Mark had his undergraduate from the University of Oklahoma and I did my masters at Oklahoma. So there were loose connections, but our first real kind of opportunity together was the Cavaliers. And that first summer is when he gave me that book. So it's a great book. I still treasure it.
It's crushed them, yeah.
Absolutely. So then Tim, I'm gonna change directions slightly. So much of your work is centered on attitude and relationships. In an age where students are pulled in so many different directions, how can directors build a culture where students genuinely want to give their best?
We could write anthologies based on each of these questions. We've all been around great musicians where the culture just isn't there — it's like having all the pieces of a puzzle but no mortar to hold the bricks together. First of all, the environment has to be safe. I came from a generation where there was no wiggle room — my way or the highway. The thinking was that the ends justified the means: go through some difficult processes on the journey, and when the audience is standing and throwing roses, it will all be worth it. But it isn't. I came from that stock, and I'm good at it. But then I would hear people say in the hallways, 'I hate his guts — yeah, it was a great concert, but rehearsal on Monday? I dread it.' We should be running to do this. Safety is first, because we're animals — we seek safety. That's Maslow, bottom of the pyramid. Second, it has to be challenging. In today's world, you can't blow sunshine at people; they'll look it up on their phones and call you out before the sentence is finished. And third — this is the one that gets confused — it has to be encouraging. A lot of people confuse that with just throwing out compliments. But students aren't deaf. They know when it sounded bad. You have to be honest. But there is a way to be honest without being dehumanizing, don't you think?
Of course. We talk to our music education students about this all the time. After the ensemble plays, be careful what you say next. If I say "good" every time, it stops meaning anything — it's crying wolf. And your point is spot on: they can hear, and they know it wasn't good. They start to wonder whether you know what you're doing. But on the other side, we've all seen words that just take someone down a notch. You've seen students deflate, and I'm not sure they ever fully recover. As teachers, we carry a huge responsibility. If we don't handle it the right way, the damage is real.
You can't unsay something. You can apologize, say you melted down, say you were having a bad day. But the bullet has been fired. You can try to take it back, but the scar is there. In my generation, the attitude was it'll all iron itself out — "you know I was just kidding." No. I didn't know, in front of seventy-five people, that you were kidding when you told me to either learn to play the horn or sell it. My friends all turned and looked at me. And I am guilty of the same. I'm guilty.
We all are. You mentioned you came from that background, and I did too. I was on the edge of that form of teaching evolving into something different. I've experienced both, and I remember the feeling — trying to reach perfection in a room where you just felt stress. And we're talking about music. It's the strangest thing. We're in a room where the goal is to make something beautiful, and everyone is operating from fear.
It's like you shot it down right there, pal.
And when we talk about safety, there's something we see everywhere now — you never know what someone else is going through, always choose kindness. That's true in our classrooms too. Giving students an opportunity to feel safe, seen, and heard — that happens in the rehearsal process as well, by giving students the ability to listen, provide feedback, be conversational and collaborative. Because it wasn't collaborative when I was growing up.
It was, you know, play, stop, listen to me.
And then mark your part and do it again. You've written several books — The Art of Successful Teaching, The Job of Inspired Teaching — real staples in our field. Thinking about everything you've written, if you could add one more chapter now, in 2025, what would it be about?
Probably the importance of time. They say we're all created equal — not in my ear training class. When you're sitting beside someone with perfect pitch, dictation takes on a very different meaning. The rest of us are over there humming "Here Comes the Bride" trying to figure it out, while the person beside us is calling out intervals like colors. So we're not all created equal — with one exception: time. Twenty-four hours a day, for everyone. The great teachers are the ones who make the best use of it. They don't waste time. That's why our words matter so much. In Hollywood, you can retake it. In real life, you can't. You can say we'll do it again, but you cannot do it again for the time you already spent. If it comes down to being right or being kind, go with kind — because you can always go back and be right, but once you've been unkind, that card is played. When we deny students that safety, they build up an immunity. "Good" stops meaning anything — it becomes like water or salt or air. Critiquing in a kind way is an art form. Ultimately, what we do on the podium is assess people's performance — so you have to critique it. But it is a far more complicated art form than it appears.
Yes, it's very delicate. What something means to one person doesn't mean the same thing to another. When someone says "I treat all my students the same" — well, they're certainly not all the same. If we don't adjust and tailor our words, we miss. That's why when someone says "I think I've got it now," I actually think about it the other way: I know less now than I did in my first year of teaching. Because back then, I thought I knew it all.
And I'm like, you know nothing.
You have to flip the script. I thought I knew everything, and then you realize how expansive it is and how little you actually know. I remember walking into my doctoral comprehensive exams after years of memorizing everything. I sit down, the first committee member asks a question, and I'm silently saying all the wrong words. Same thing was true the first day I walked into a real classroom. I remember it vividly — Griffin Middle School in The Colony, Texas, Dick Clardy sitting in the back of the room. I give the most beautiful downbeat of my entire life. The sound comes back at me, and I think: now what? It's amazing how much you don't know. But that's not a bad thing. I tell my students all the time: you're going in there, and you will be overwhelmed in every possible way. If you're not, you probably don't know very much. Go in, ask questions, be honest, learn, and be kind.
At the end of the day, it's just band. We're all impostors — let's be honest. If we don't admit that we're vulnerable, how can they? How can they grow if they think we know it all? Humility is part of setting a high standard.
It's interesting. I sit in Revelli's chair every day, and I often text my dear friend David. I'm like, OK — he is doing backflips right now. "What are you doing to my band, John?" But just as a side note — could you imagine teaching the way he did back then?
No. Very good — and very successful. But times ebb and flow. Pretty interesting.
There have been some articles floating around online recently about Bob Reynolds, and they've been fantastic. What stood out in the comments was the sense of a welcome change — that he was inviting, collaborative, kind, just a different personality, and students responded immediately. Bob took over decades ago. And yet it has taken us a long time to make the classroom being a genuinely safe and human space a central focus. There's a child across from us who we have to inspire. It's also impossible to judge the past by today's standards — I respect Dr. Revelli immensely, in every possible way. But times are different. And I'll say this: thirty years from now, whatever format has replaced the podcast, I often think about how my students will talk about me. I hope it's positive. I hope it's about encouraging artistry and all the things that matter. But at the end of the day, does it even matter? I was talking to Professor Reynolds a couple of years ago, and he asked me: "John, when I'm on my deathbed..."
"Do you think it's going to matter how many times I've conducted the Hindemith Symphony?" Coming from him, that was a pointed statement. It's haunting. Because it's about the people you interact with, the relationships you form. At the end of the day, whether you've conducted Symphonic Metamorphosis eighty-five times or never, what does it matter? Dr. Revelli became a good friend in his later years. Everybody was scared of him, and I thought, OK, I'm going to learn as much as I can from this man. One night we were talking and I said, "Dr. Revelli, you had the reputation of being very stern." And those eyes cracked at me. I said, "Do you think you'd get away with that today?" He said, "Oh, Tim, I thought you were smarter than that." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I'd be in jail." So he knew. He knew exactly what he was doing.
What a fascinating art form we're in — and really, it's the art of teaching, which has absolutely evolved. To shift slightly: you often speak about how music is more than notes on a page, that it's a vehicle for shaping lives. Can you share a story where you saw music transform a student or a community in an unexpected way?
You guys probably have better stories than I do. But think about a really good high school band program. Maybe eight to ten students will go on to be professional musicians — and that might be generous. Maybe twenty-five or thirty will become music teachers and band directors. What about everyone else? The bulk of the students are going to become doctors, lawyers, everything else. So when we talk about music changing lives, we tend to think musically. But for the majority, it's the culture that changes their lives. The habits developed in band — discipline, commitment, cooperation, all the so-called soft skills — carry over into everything. They say all the band kids are the smartest kids in school. That's not quite right. Once they join band is when their academic grades go up. It's the habits they apply to everything else. All of a sudden they're reading the whole book instead of just the parts they like. That's where music changes lives. And I think about students who went on to do great things — who, in their first semester of college, I thought chose the wrong profession. Instant gratification was not on the horizon. But they figured it out. Did you two start out at the top of your class?
I did well, but I was fortunate. I studied trumpet in the Dallas–Fort Worth area from sixth grade through twelfth grade with John Haynie — my original teacher moved away and arranged for me to study with his own teacher, Professor Haynie. John Haynie was incredible. He was like a grandfather to me. I took lessons at his home, became a strong player, and really developed as a musician. But here's the thing — I was in a private school that didn't have a band. I just studied with Professor Haynie. That was it. So I wasn't playing in an ensemble, wasn't exposed to competition — none of that was part of my world. I eventually transferred to public school in the tenth grade because I wanted to be in a band. My director was Jim McDaniel — old school, in every sense. At that point in his career, he was doing jazz shows on the field. He handed me the first part, and I was capable enough to play it — except there was a jazz solo in the middle. I handed the part back and told him it was too challenging. What I didn't understand was that it was a tutti solo — all the trumpets were playing it together. He put me on third part and said, "OK, son, here you go." I played third part all year. But I still had to learn that solo and ended up being one of five or six who actually played it. I'd never thought of myself in terms of class ranking — that wasn't how I grew up in music. I'd never even taken an audition. I could prepare the pieces, but the competitive framework was completely foreign to me. That's a memory I haven't thought about in a long time.
If you hadn't been in that environment with those people, would you have been who you are today?
No, not at all.
Notice what you talked about first. "I went to his house. He was like my grandfather." You didn't say he played sixteen notes at two-eighteen. It was about the relationship. And you would have done anything in the world for that man — walked on hot coals. There it is. Trust.
Same with Jim McDaniel. He later became director of Fine Arts across town and gave me my first job. After my first UIL — we finished on stage, went to sight-reading, walked out of the room with sweepstakes — I felt like my stock was high. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Congratulations, David. Now you're going to have to learn to relax." I said, "Jim, I'm just doing what you did." He was a wonderful mentor. Having both Jim and John Haynie in my life — compress those two individuals together and you get a version of who I am today. The way I teach is built directly on what they taught me.
We replicate our teachers. We don't teach ourselves — we're taught how to teach. And that's what we pass on.
Speaking of which — in a funny way, my wife noticed something. We had my cooperating teacher, Cindy Lansford, on the podcast a couple of seasons ago. And Cindy was also your—
Cooperating teacher, Yeah.
Some heavyweights in this conversation. She and Bill Watson — I would walk over hot coals for Cindy Lansford. Absolutely.
It turns out Cindy does this thing with her finger under her nose, and my wife said, "I never understood why you do that until I saw Cindy do it on the podcast." I had no idea I'd picked it up. It's funny how we absorb those small things. But truly — there's no one better in my opinion at middle school band and at building culture. She kicked my butt six ways to Sunday, and I have never been more grateful for a kick.
And Amanda Drinkwater — I've talked with her out in The Colony, and there is no better teacher, in my opinion. Genius. But this is such an important point: what are your students who go on to teach going to carry forward? How are they going to teach, based on how you teach them? That's a golden nugget. We replicate.
Directors often struggle with balancing high standards in a competitive world while also maintaining their personal well-being. Do you have advice for an educator working toward sustained excellence without burning out?
There's no single answer, because balance is different for everybody. John, you just took hundreds of kids to Europe — that wasn't a vacation. Every time the phone rang, you were leaping out of bed wondering if you could get them all home. Balance looks different for everyone. I'm on the road two hundred days a year, sometimes two-fifty. My wife and I went to first grade together — she knows everything about me, but she's also very self-sufficient. Our balance works differently than it would for a couple that's more codependent, and neither is right or wrong. Balance is like intonation: you're working on it all the time. You don't just notch the horn and lock the slide. When people say they're burned out, I always ask: burned out on what? You can't burn out on music. Maybe you're burned out on your schedule, your priorities, the age group you're teaching. Maybe you're going down a road that stopped being paved. That's worth examining. It's not black and white — it's all shades of grey.
Yeah. Makes sense. Well. I think that may be the answer. That could be that someone else's being at the band room X number of hours works for them and it works with their family dynamic. It works for who they are compared to someone else who just can't do that without feeling overwhelmed.
That's good. No, maybe that's you're right. You're right, David.
Yeah. So then I guess the challenge is how do those people work together, you know, when they're in situations where they're all trying to achieve this high level of excellence?
We just finished pre-season camp yesterday at Michigan, and I'll admit — I'm a little tired today. But I asked myself: tired of what? I'm not tired of rehearsing music. I'm not tired of my students. I'm not tired of my colleagues. I'm tired of sitting behind a computer doing spreadsheets, tired of the administrative weight. But I'll tell you — even when I'm tired, when I stand in front of those students and we make music together, bring it on. There is nothing better professionally for me. Nothing.
Exactly. It's not the whole puzzle you're tired of — it's one piece of the puzzle. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If the burnout is really about some administrative burden, fix that specific thing. And on the question of how people with different working styles work together on a staff — it's our likenesses that bring us together, but it's our differences that keep us together. If we were all exactly alike, maybe everybody would want to play — I don't know — saxophone.
Something Dodd's instrument, by the way, right?
Of course. But you want to celebrate those differences. As the saying goes: if you and your spouse agree on everything, one of you is unnecessary.
That's fantastic.
I've never heard that before, but I love it.
It's like feedback on an amplifier — you want those differences, because they make you grow. I didn't figure that out right away. Honestly, I still have trouble with it sometimes.
To shift slightly — from what my former colleague Professor Haithcock calls the "Eagle Vision" perspective: given what you've seen across generations, what excites you most about the future of music education? And where do you see the most significant challenges ahead?
I always thought someday we'd figure it out and every kid would be in music every day. At almost eighty years old, we're still fighting the same fight. Maybe we always will. When all the brain research came out, I'll confess — I rolled my eyes a little. Music for the sake of music. But for a lot of people, that research matters, and the more we understand how the mind works and how essential creativity is, that's where music education will go. Why does Beethoven last while other things don't survive four printings? If there's an answer to how we all work together, it's going to come from the arts — they're the only common denominator. We're the only animal on the planet that kills each other just for the sake of it. If we're going to find peace — within ourselves, on this planet — it has to come from art. Your kids went to Europe, met all different cultures, and came home different people, didn't they?
They did. We all did, for sure.
And that argument works after every rehearsal, every concert. Everyone is different afterward. I'm different. They're different.
We grow, we expand. And when people say "but it doesn't last" — it does. Because even when you come down from that high, you never go quite as far down as before. Each time, you start a little higher. I remember the very first band piece I ever played. I was in Manitowoc, Wisconsin — my teacher was Mrs. Neustetter. I played trumpet back then and it was the Foxwood Overture by Anne McGinty. I can still hear it. That was a formative moment. I remember the first piece I played after I switched to tuba. My first conducting recital. These things stay with you. Because what you remember is that you love music. Of the four hundred students in the marching band right now, only three percent are studying music professionally. The other ninety-seven percent are doing other things — and they're there because they love it. So it's my job to inspire them every day. As Michael Haithcock says: our students have two natural resources — their time and their talent. Maximize both, and imagine what can be done. Waste either one, and that's malpractice.
Malpractice. Yes. Talking with you two is like talking into a mirror. This is wonderful.
Tim, if you had just one message to leave with every music educator listening to this episode, what would it be?
We have to develop trust. If you go around a room and ask what's the most important thing about teaching — about anything — you get communication, cooperation, and so on. But all of those build on trust. People will listen to this podcast, and it will have nothing to do with what we actually said. It will have everything to do with their interpretation — their attitude filter. We don't see the world as it is; we see the world as we are. Some people will hear this and think, "Wow." Others will say, "What a waste of time." Same words.
The lens of who we are shapes everything.
At the end of the day, perception is reality.
The subconscious treats everything as truth.
The trust concept — I wish we could hammer that home even more. We've covered a lot of ground today, but this may be the most important thread.
I have a book on my desk called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. I read it years ago — before I got to Kansas — and used it as the foundation for our leadership training. For those watching: there's a pyramid in this book, and the bottom layer — the foundation — is the absence of trust. Everything else is built on that. It's a business book, about boards and organizations. But at that time, I rethought the way I was approaching my ensemble: I'm stepping in front of this group and I'm the CEO, building something. Yes, we're going to play music — but ultimately I have to empower this machine to run well. That book was transformative. The idea that trust is developed through vulnerability changed the impact I had on those students. Our ability to work together in a collaborative spirit just changed. I hadn't found that in music-specific resources; I had to search for it elsewhere. But it applies directly to the classroom. Trust is the foundation. We have to start there — which is exactly where we started this conversation.
Which came first — the chicken or the egg? A lot of people would say the most important thing is knowledge. But think of it like a salt shaker: if you can't get the lid off, it doesn't matter how much salt is inside. The lid is trust. If I don't trust you, I'm going to hold back — just a little, for self-preservation. It's instinctive. Here's the greatest band director lie in the world: "If you're going to make a mistake, make it a loud one." And then you get torn apart in front of your friends for miscounting. So now you think I'm going to risk that cymbal crash at a moment I'm not certain about? I'll set them down first. The old adage says it's ten percent what you say and ninety percent how you say it. But the how has to be grounded in trust. You can be the smartest, most knowledgeable person in the room — if people don't want to listen to you, it's all for nothing. You've all had great professors in college who couldn't teach. Yes?
Oh yeah, I hope I'm not one of them.
You're not. Kids love you. Three hundred kids going to Europe? That alone is worth a dissertation.
This conversation has been wonderful and personally meaningful. Here's where we ask a couple of questions of all our guests. Do you have a soapbox topic, Tim — that one thing you'll get on the soapbox about?
People don't get better by being made to feel worse. If we criticize in private and praise in public, we'll generally be all right. People repeat behaviors that get them attention — positive or negative. Every student teacher worries about classroom discipline. But if yelling gets attention, that's the currency they'll bring you. So the approach matters. That's my soapbox. Not whether Hindemith is worth it or whether Lincolnshire Posy is worth it — we know they're worth it. It's the process of getting there that I care about. Take care of each other.
That's a good one. For our next question — a little lighter — we like to ask guests about books. Is there one that's inspired you, or one you'd recommend to our listeners? It doesn't have to be music-related.
I love Wayne Dyer because he's so grounded. He wrote a fiction book that isn't one of his most well-known — it's called Gifts from Eykis. It's about a woman who comes from another planet much like Earth, except they pay doctors to keep them healthy. When you get sick, you stop paying. Everything is the inverse of how we do things. It's written as fiction, but it's grounded in principles of living and working together: don't waste time worrying, don't spend energy on negative behavior that hurts yourself and others, because our personalities are contagious. Nobody ever recommends it, but you can find it on Amazon. Gifts from Eykis.
We're going to add it to the list. We'll check that out.
Yeah, you'll like it. Good for teachers.
All right, so Tim, our final question for the day and arguably the most important. What's your favorite time signature?
Well, I'm a rocker — I play a lot of jazz. It's pretty hard to top two and four. When you lay that down just right...
That's right. That's fantastic. We've not really had anybody thus far attach that answer to jazz. You're the first.
Once you get in that pocket, your whole life changes. It becomes a beautiful place all around you.
Tim, thank you so much for being with us today. We are truly grateful for your time and for everything you've shared.
I thank you guys. Good to see you all keep doing it.
That's it for today's episode of Common Time. Thank you for spending time with us, and we hope today's conversation gives you something useful to take back to your students and your program. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss what's coming. And if you know another director who might benefit from this, please share it with them. Don't forget — you can nominate a music educator for our Standing Ovation segment. The link is in the show notes. Thanks again for joining us. As always, keep making music and keep making a difference.