Welcome to the Common Time Podcast, a show designed to give music educators practical, inspiring ideas for you and your program. Each week we sit down with world class educators, composers, and conductors to talk about teaching, leadership and building programs that thrive without burning yourself out. So whether you're a band, orchestra, or choir director, our goal is simple to help you grow and stay inspired and remember why you fell in love with teaching music in the first place. This is season 4, and we're diving even deeper. More real conversations, more actionable takeaways, and more voices shaping the future of music education. Let's get into the episode. Our guest today is Eugene Corporon. Welcome, Professor Corporon.
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you today.
We're so excited that you're sharing some time with us today. Professor Corporon really needs no introduction. He is a Regents professor of music, coordinator of wind studies and conductor of the Wind Symphony at the University of North Texas. And that's just a a couple of the things that he's done throughout his career. And without further ado, I'm just going to turn it to John and let's just jump into it.
Yes, hi, David. Thank you, Professor. So I'm just going to start off just by asking, as you step into a retirement after an unbelievable career, do you have any, any moments that kind of rise to the surface first when when you think back and reflect on your time and like either on the podium or beyond or just any thoughts?
Yes, that's a tough one. You know, with retirement, I'm, I've been getting a lot of congratulations and I'm not so sure that it shouldn't be condolences because that's been what my life's been about since I was in junior high school. So thinking about the 57 years that I've been teaching, there's, there's just so many great memories. And, and I'm finding you're right, as you start to think about, well, I'm, you know, I've got 19 more rehearsals here at North Texas. I've got five more concerts before I, before I leave Denton. And you start thinking about, you know, what do you remember most? And it always comes back to the students and the people I've had the opportunity to work with and the people I've had the opportunity to learn from, right. With the death of Robert Reynolds a week ago, all of us have been in this mode of just rethinking that whole experience that each of us along the way have had with him. And that's always been one of the most vivid memories I've had in my junior year in high school when I met him. So. But I, I also think back, we gave a concert last Thursday night and it was really memorable. This whole year has that way. I just happened to have a really great bunch of students this year, like every year. But this seems to be a very special group this year. And so I, I'm thinking about all of the different ways I can make music with them and set them up in our concerts to be heard and design programs around their skills and abilities and, and play things they like to play. So, but it's mostly the students and the wonderful amount of music I've gotten to and work on and work with the composers of those pieces play a lot of music of the living. And consequently, I've I've had the wonderful experience of getting to know so many great composers who make themselves available to all of us, as you guys know, right? But they're so generous with their time and with their willingness to share their ideas and feelings. So it kind of rounds those things, I guess.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you mentioned your students and I, I mean, we know you've shaped literally generations of conductors and educators. And I'm curious when, when former students succeed, what do you hope they carry forward most from their time with you?
Yeah, first, their individuality. I hope that they don't try to look like me on the podium, for instance, or even, you know, think the same way I do. I hope they learn spontaneity. I hope they learn improvisation, I hope they learn how to deal with people in a way that is kind and helpful. And I hope they take away a lot of knowledge about repertoire, about the importance our repertoire and and the idea that if we don't have a repertoire, we don't have an ensemble. And they learn a phrase from me right off the bat, which is you won't find the wind bands future in the orchestra's past. While we play a lot of transcriptions over the years, that's not where our future lies in terms of establishing our. And I guess I picked that up from Robert Reynolds and all of the folks. I don't know if you've been watching, but they've been pictures getting posted. There was a great picture of painter Hunsberger, Batisti, Reynolds. Yeah, I saw that. All of them together. And those were the people I had aired and kept track of starting very early. And what they were playing was a big reason for doing that. Figuring out what if all four of those folks or five of them played a certain piece that I didn't know. I thought I'd better get on this, you know, So it's, I guess those would be the main things.
Yeah. So the a band program at UNT is a global model for for for win band excellence. So what were the earliest intentional decisions that you made that helped create that culture?
Well, I brought certain things with me from from other jobs that I'd had that that seemed to be successful. So some of what we did right off the bat was just based on things that I had done, say at Cincinnati or at Michigan State or at Northern Colorado or at Wisconsin that it seemed to work. But but every situation is different. And when I came here, I was well aware of the fame of the 1:00 Lap band. It's absolutely amazing program, the jazz program and instrumental and I thought to myself, maybe they are doing things a certain way. It helps helps to get the word out about their program. So I, I modeled some of what I was doing after the jazz studies program, just their outreach there. They were recording as well and saw the value in that. And they were playing student compositions and they were they were building art artists and in the groups and understood that they had a huge range of people in the ensemble like I do today. I have some people who I lost the semester after Midwest had to go student teach, darn it, the way they went. And others joined a service band And others are finishing up their graduate degrees and have gotten jobs already as future studio teachers at university. So there's all sorts of reasons why they leave and the flexibility in that is something that's important I think. And being able to keep a program going underneath your your group. We have 7 concert bands here and they're all filled with music majors, so I'm not going to get any sympathy when I say that our tuba teachers retiring this year and his forty students are planning a celebration there. Our euphonium teacher has 3540 students. We have 25 to 30 obois. So I mean, it's crazy. And we always have this kind of growth happening within the studios and within the other groups. And the key to that is having great colleagues like Andrew Traxel and Amy Woody who do the wind orchestra and the wind ensemble in that. And then we have three concert groups that our graduate students do. And we rely heavily on them. They, they work awfully hard. They're interns. They're not just students. And consequently, we we have people who've had great high school careers who join us to do advanced degrees. And I'm really, I think they're doing a great job with those, with the younger players. I don't think the younger players are missing anything by working with them. So it's, it's this team effort to that that we've had to be real careful to develop.
Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm, I'm curious, I've, I've had the pleasure of watching you rehearse various times over my career in your rehearsals. For me, I there's clarity, there's purpose, but there's always musical depth. So I'm curious, has your, has your approach to rehearsal evolved over the five decades and what is that exactly? What would you share with us?
Yeah, The way I used to do it was go until somebody made a mistake and then stop and try to fix it, get to the next mistake and fix it. And it was a real slow way to make progress. It's funny you should ask because Bob Reynolds about four weeks ago had called me and said, I'm typical Bob, I'm writing another book and it's going to be about rehearsing. So would I be willing to contribute some thoughts about that? So I have my notes here that that. Excellent. I'm looking at and actually our regional CBDNA is coming up. We're hosting it here and I are going to do a session on rehearsing and oh and I think Lil Graham is joining us too. And so I've been kind of putting some thoughts together, but I, and I'm not saying this to sell a book, but I wrote a book at 1.1 chapter at a time. It took me 22 years to write it and it was for the teaching Music through performance and band series. Right and. Most of us who formed that collective would each contributed chapter once every two years. And at our anniversary, I think it was 20th anniversary, our publisher, Alec Harris from Gia said, well, what I'm happy to put out a combination or a combined chapters in separate books. And so we all, I think everybody agreed to do that. And so I, I named my book Explorations, Discoveries, Inventions and Designs in the Nowhere and it I, I still feel even after that long period of time that that's really what rehearsals are about for me. I almost enjoy rehearsals more than concerts. I love the the process of exploring a piece of music, of discovering what's in there, of having to create inventions. That's why I talk about improvisation, finding some way to make it work as a composer. Trust us to do that. And we sometimes have to figure out a way to get it to happen. And the idea of borrowing a term from Frank Zappa designs in the Nowhere, that's what he called conducting. And I think that's brilliant because we do all these, you know, in the air that no, that seems to be how we communicate. But you need, and I would say this to anybody watching who's studying music, you need to acquire the technique to bring your ideas to fruition, to make it so. And you can have everything in your head and, and have a great idea and, and then not have the physical ability to on in real time change what you're hearing. And if something as simple as making a quieter or making louder, my student get really mad at me, they'll stop and say trombones play softer and I'll go blow the whistle. No, can't say that. All you have to do is go like this, you know, and they'll play softer. So this idea of being spontaneous in rehearsal and trusting your technique is really important. That's one thing. The reason I say it's improvisation in rehearsal is that you, you never know what's coming at you. They may play it one way beautifully on Tuesday, and when you see him again on Thursdays, somehow they've forgotten everything we were doing on Tuesday. That's not unusual. If that just happens or spring break happens, then you really have a problem when you come back. So being able to improvise a solution technically and to coach well, I mean, I divide it into two things. When you're talking, you're coaching and when you're moving and conducting your your or when you're moving, you're conducting and trying to get it non verbally. And people expect us to be able to inspire groups and to, to access our intuition and to have integrity. By that I mean study so that your intuition is, is supported by, by work. But what I look for when I'm working on a score, I was working on several this morning because we just finished the cycle. So I've got a new cycle starting on Tuesday. And I, I was thinking about it. I look for the patterns that are in the music. You might call them phrases or sections or formal structure. I look for the surprises. When is there a super piano? When does everything stop and then start again really big or, or a key change is really odd or, and I look for the illusions the composers put into the music, the idea of creating something that you can't this kind of magical that you even with analysis, you can't explain how it impacts you in a certain way. So formal structure is really important to me. And of course that's informing the way I'm going to rehearse you. You use the form of the piece that in a logical way to to get clarity and to pass on information. Is this the same as this? If it is, let's rehearse this and then that and have everybody go, oh, that's the same. I only have to practice one of those two. The logic that a composer will use build statement digression, return idea of how forms created. I, I do hear a lot from folks that they talk about clarity in our work here and we work on that very, very directly. And I really believe polarity, clarity, clarity, clarity comes from articulation just as it does in an, in an orchestra from Boeing. And if we're not all articulating the same way, note grouping the same way, we're working against one another. Now, sometimes you're supposed to sometimes different layers or stack ideas and each of the layers has an organization that's different and but you can't get clear if everybody's just kind of playing and not understanding what family they're in. So we we spend a lot of time with that. The other side of it is the sound. I have a poster in the hallway here that's from Sony and it shows the start of Beethoven Fifth Symphony in all different colors. I've had it forever and the poster says full color sound and that's what I'm after all the time. If I can't hear that low flute or that English horn or a bass planet in the upper register or I I start working to find a way to expose the colors and for me it's the idea I I call it a tambrel modifier. It's not the weak tamber, it's the tamber hardest to hear. And composers present us with those problems all the time. And I use a simple approach of any time I'm looking at a dynamic in the range of Forte depending on the tambrel qualifier. So brass, it might say Forte, but it's not going to work. There's, you know, a saw, a muted trumpet, having to get through that or whatever. So trying to figure out how you can adjust the balance is to to allow all of the sounds to be there. And that's really important, I think to me. I don't want to go on too long about this. The one other thing is paying attention. I would advise conductors to consider and musicians their skills of awareness, what they see, what they feel, what they hear. Remember what you know and allow yourself to imagine what that sound might mean to yourself or visually even create your own video in your head of what what might you might be hearing. But this idea of, and that's a very green thing, the inner game of music. Those skills he talks about so well in his book. But I I think it's fun to watch advanced players interact at rehearsals. Sometimes we'll stop and I'll hear a chatter and I'll just wait because I know what they're doing. They're doing my job for me. I'll go, you know, I'll go up and you go down, OK. And you watch. They're not being rude. They're you know, if they you can tell what they're working on it pitch or on style or let's tongue here or I mean, so I just wait and that kind of they're paying attention to what they're hearing and finding someone who's playing their same line and making agreements as we go along or stopping and saying, I think he has done that 38th note. Are you doing that yet? I didn't know that Mark. You know, that kind of interaction. So sometimes demanding silence and rehearsal is not good because you're stopping them from from solving. Creativity too. Yeah, and, and ownership, right. We take on ownership of the of the process. I don't look forward to Tuesday's rehearsal because I know how all this stuff sounds. They're not going to know how any of it sounds. What did that group that played so well last Thursday night go? You know, because they don't, they don't have these pieces. It's not like they've studied the excerpts to the chronic dream sequence ever. They've been in high school, you know, they, they just haven't seen it. Or even to Rangers Lincolnshire Posey unless they've auditioned for service fans or something. But the idea that we start over again. And for us, we the last concert was on 7 rehearsals because we had an ice storm and the 7th rehearsal was the dress on the next concert just because of scheduling. I've got 11 too many, but I chose a bigger program because I know I'm going to have more time. So one other thing I wanted to say about these problems. There's several ways that problems get generated. Sometimes there are, we generate them. Sometimes we're not being as clear as we can be, or we've not exactly figured out how we're going to do it, or we're still experiment exploring how we're going to do it. So it slows things down. Sometimes they're player generated, people haven't prepared yet or have and are working on it but haven't gotten there yet. Sometimes the composer creates the problems, you know, by by not thinking through how this phrase is going to be organized. As far as no grouping and phrase, there's a big phrase over everything and walk away from it because it's it's interesting to have to deal with that. They would always, I'm sure, work think about Boeing. But a lot of times when it comes to wins, they don't think about the articulations we have to do. And then sometimes the problems are generated by where you're playing in the space you're in. I've got a concert coming up at Myerson with the Lone Star. And yeah, you have to prepare so differently to play in that room. It just rings and rings and rings. Plant preparing for Midwest. I kept saying play longer at length. We're going to be carpet. There's going to be low ceiling. There's going to be, you know, it's different. And it it's when you get in a space like what we get. We got 50 minutes to hear the sound in the ballroom at Midwest. And I said, you're going to have very short amount of time to make your adjustments and, and once you hear the sound coming back at you or not coming back at you, you're going to, you're going to have to just figure this out. But the idea of we, we play in our hall every other. Well, let's see, mostly on Tuesday, we, we switch with the wind orchestra because we rehearse at the same time. So they're in there on Thursday, we're in there on Tuesday, the week of a concert. You get both days and our rehearsal room is a totally different space. I don't mind that because we have to adjust to the rehearsal room, which is smaller. The brass can't come in or percussion can't come in and play the way they play in the hall. And but that's part of the training for getting used to adjusting to the space you're in, just like any of the bands. If you've ever gone on tour, every nights, one nights at gym, the next night it's a cafeteria the next night. So you really have to, you know, be flexible with all that. So I think rehearsing is, is really a lot of fun. I you know, I, I watch my players go through this process of discovery and all of us now and then more often than not, they'll teach me something in rehearsal. And I've just taken his name. Thanks for teaching me today. You know our player and ask one of those, how did you want the trombones to play that loud at letter B? He's a clue player. I'll go. Thanks for teaching me trombones. I think you're you've you've irritated some folks up here in front, you know, take it the quest. A lot of times the question can be an answer from players. If you listen, are we are we talking that forward at the end? What they're saying is I'm hearing people doing it three ways. Which way do you want? You haven't you haven't really made it clear yet. So I think I'm pretty I'm pretty forensic and in rehearsals. I mean, I really dig in and go pretty deep, but I also paste the rehearsal and that'd be the last thing I'll say about this because there's there's so many other things. But I think you have, we all know you have to keep an eye on the group. And if you're, you may be going down a rabbit hole to fix something and the rehearsal turns into a sectional. And right at that point, the best thing you can do is go back to being a rehearsal and maybe say, maybe we can work on that in a sectional or maybe you guys can get together outside of class. But you get the idea of what we're trying to get here. I'm seeing people in back starting to look very frustrated. So we're going to, we're going to play something now. And I think, I think the pacing of your rehearsal has to be, you have to be in charge of that. I I record every rehearsal and I listen to it at least three times before I go back to the next rehearsal. Not so much to learn the piece, but to hear myself teach and to see how my how effective my teaching is being with my group. Are they picking it up? Am I saying that clearly? Am I the problem? Am I, is there a better way to put this? They still, you know, they're, I know they're working hard to get it, but they're not getting it. So maybe I'm the one creating the barrier. So it helps me listen to how the group is learning and, and give me a, an approach for the next rehearsal. You guys use these things?
All the time. All the time. Yeah, should. Should have invested in these. I was going to say we. Should all head stock in that and?
It's great way to I used to make lists. Well, the list is over here and the score is over here. So when I'm listening on tape, I'll go, oh, pitch, flute and English word and I'll just say that stick it on the problem And it's a great feeling. You know, to get there, check it, tear it off, wad it up and throw it on the stand. You know, you end up with a pile of yellow things or not if you don't get to everything right? Feeling born. You think, oh, I just didn't get to that. I'll do it next time. Yeah. But anything that can keep you organized in terms of your.
Yeah. That's awesome. Very such helpful information. Yeah.
So in today's fast a moving educational landscape, what core of values do you believe must remain as non negotiables in the ensemble teaching setting?
In some places, I think ensembles, large ensembles are under attack. And I, I, I don't mean that in a paranoid way, but you know that we're an old model. I've heard that from people in, in university settings, not here at our school, but you hear it now and then and at NASM meetings, you know where. Oh yeah, we're going to go to all chamber music. Wow, that would be great. And I think to myself, well, if I don't have pieces on Dan that have chamber music in them, I'm doing a bad job of picking my programs. You know, we work on chamber music all the time, you know, because a great piece will will not have everybody playing all the time. And so I, I think, I don't think we need to be defensive. I I think in the early years, right after World War 2 when bands were working really hard to Commission pieces and you had the, you had Revelli at Michigan asking for pieces, painter at Northwestern asking, Fred Fennell asking, my gosh, you had Austin Boudreau Commission 150 pieces or something. I mean, they were, they were acknowledging that we needed to build a repertoire and we needed to ask the best composers that we could afford. And sometimes you didn't have to pay him. Even Fred was able to get things written sometimes for free. So is withdrawal just the promise of the Michigan band playing something was enough to interest a a composer in writing. And of course, as as those jobs got handed off to other people who've done wonderful work. So I think we've made a huge amount of progress in terms of getting the finest composers of our day to write for us and to encourage their students to write for us. It's no longer the kiss of death if you write a band piece. It used to be if you write a band piece, your composition career is over. Don't do it. It's better to write an orchestra piece that nobody plays and or it gets played once at a children's concert somewhere and put away then to get a, you know, 100 performances of your work if it's a good piece of work. So I think, I think we need to keep, however, we need to keep selling ourselves in a sense, to our colleagues, to our administrators, to our principals, to our Deans, to, you know, that that what we're doing here is not just providing an unbelievable cultural entertainment at the football game or the basketball game or the volleyball game, which we have to do here. And we we do it well, but we also feel that we can help. We'll be happy to play a commencement if you let us play at one special number or we'll be, you know, if we can get out in public around the campus and, and play things that that have the alumni and the people who are interested in following the program have access to the artistic side of what we do. And thank goodness we have so many fine composers that that's something that's changed immeasurably willing to, to contribute to our repertoire. So I, I just think that we have to keep in mind the music director side of our positions, wherever we, there is a public persona that we have to represent to our administrators and to, to our parents. I, we have our, my students, believe it or not, they have parents too. And they're old. They're old, but they have parents. And one way we found to to really have terrific outreaches through live streaming concerts. It's it's unbelievable how how many places we can get to. I remember when we rant put it up for the first time in the Murchison, our concert hall. I got a note from a parent that said I was so excited to see my daughter Betsy. I didn't know she was still in college. Sorry, on stage and got all my grandpa come here this So now parents, the problem with college students is a lot of their parents live way far away from where they're making music. And they they were used to their parents coming to every concert they gave in high school. And now here they are three states away and the parents would like to be here, but we're playing in the middle of the week or so. The fact that we can reach out to families and have them see their kids making great music has really been helpful. And it's especially helpful for the students to not just hear themselves play, but to see themselves play. Are you, are you convincing? Are you, you know, do you seem involved when you're performing? There is an aspect that it requires that you are that way and that if if you get bored watching yourself play, imagine how the audience feels. You know, So I don't and I don't mean, you know, to be dramatic and things, but just to be in it. And I've always been my group because when they play, I see it. When I watch the video the next day, their intent and their their focus is observable as well as audible. And yeah. And I just think it's a great way to do it. More and more schools are doing it. I mean, think about it. You do a world premiere on Thursday night. By Friday night, 100 people could have watched it. You know, other profession who might consider playing it. It's such a quick way rather than, hey, I heard you played, could you send me a cassette? And a month later you get a cassette. You know of the performance if they can find someone who had had. I mean, the technology is so amazing. We can be there as it happens, or we can, you know, get it the next day if someone sends it, if the composer sends it or other folks make it available. And that's another way to get the word out. Probably the best way. I think one thing I really miss in college teaching is we we don't have music parent groups. You know, when I taught high school, I had more people in the music Parent association than we had in the PTA. So they were a real influential body, the orchestra and band parents with helping us when we needed support with the administration. It was really nice. Or, or with whatever fundraising or uniforms or what, you know, all the things they're willing to do for us. It it's really helpful to have that kind of yeah, support group, I guess, and have access to them still. Yeah, so I'm, I'm thinking about, I'm just kind of looking back and thinking about your, your career. And I from my perspective, I, I think you've, you have balanced elite performance with deep mentorship. So how do you define leadership, if you will, in a musical setting? So how should young conductors begin developing that concept?
Something that that I, I think about when you're first year teacher, second year teacher, new job, there's another first year teacher, even if you've been five years old, it's easier. You have to earn respect. You can't demand it. And you have to be a good model of work ethic, you know, and preparation, all the things you want your students to do. You have to be an example of thing that I believe. And so they, they can tell when we're not prepared. They can tell when we haven't made our mind up yet. And I don't mean you have to have everything decided because it is a, it is kind of a cumulative experience, especially if you're doing new music or it's new to you and new to them, but doing your homework ahead of time to the point that you can lead it. Maybe not lead it the way it's going to happen when the concert comes, but at least you can, you can be the person out in front moving through the process and helping them find their way. But I, I'd say preparation is really an important part of that. And, and don't be afraid to let your belief system be, be out there. I mean, sometimes I know I'm a good example is going to be a piece I'm going to put on the stand next Tuesday, which is a piece I've always wanted to do, haven't done. And I'm looking up at a picture in my office here of Frederick Fennell, Bob Reynolds, Bill Nicholson, I at Ernst Krennick's house in Palm Springs commissioning dream sequence 12 tone word. It's, it's maybe not as crazy as Apotheosis of this Earth by HUSA, but it's, it's going to be a hard sell. It's not all melody and and Latin drumming. So I'm going to have to they'll get from me. I think at the very first rehearsal that I really believe in the piece or I wouldn't have put it on the list for the for the and but I'm going to have to win them over to the piece by the way I rehearse it. And it's almost always like I feel like the composers in the room. So I try to treat the piece with the respect that I treat the person. And and sometimes I'll just stop and say, Can you believe how well written this piece by Mike Doherty is or this piece by Frank D Kelly is or this piece by John Mackey? Look at all the work they put into this or, you know, we just Cindy Mctee or Joan Tower or, you know, all the time they took to think about how this was all going to go together. So we at least need to get to a point where we're doing justice to all of their work before we even can make it a decision about the quality or the importance of the piece. And we become the advocate, you know, for the composer where their only hope is the answer, right. I remember David Holsinger lived in our area for a while here in Texas. And he was talking about his how he feels, You know, when he finishes the piece, he said, I handed over to you conductors and to the ensemble. He said, I put it on your stand. And what I'm putting on that stand is a piece of my soul and my heart. I really have invested in this and you may not, you may think that's so, but when you hear it, or you may wonder, but that's the responsibility you're taking on is to do your best to, to realize what they in their head, you know and imagined and, and their creative spirit that brought it into being. So I always take, I, I thought that was a really interesting thing for me to say. And I always take that responsibility very seriously. And sometimes I'm out there alone. You know, some places are easier to tell to, to a group than others. And, and it just takes a while for them to come to it and, and believe in it. I think a lot of published teachers would say, you know, they face this with a piece. And they hand it out and the kids are frowning and not sure about it. And then by the end of the experience, you can't get the parts out of their hands. So can we play it again? I really like. That's my favorite piece. So they go, all of our players go through a real transition with the music. There are those pieces of Bam hit you right away, you know, but but there are also those that you have to kind of invest in to to find the value. Right? Yeah.
So then, a looking ahead to the next generation of band directors and conductors, what excites you the most about where the profession's going?
I'm gonna there's two things. Some one thing doesn't excite me and what most of everything does, OK, I think, and I'm gonna sound like an old man here. I think you have to be careful with social media and with taking on a persona of expertise, you know, so that you get noticed before you've done the work. It's the work that provides the expert that qualifies you. And I, you know, sometimes people get to the, to the camera too soon and start lecturing on all sorts of things, musical things without having really built any credibility in their work. At the same time, I think social media can be super helpful to people trying to get their name out there and, and get noticed and all of those things. But you, you have to be really careful that you come across the right way. So that's one thing I, I just composers and conductors alike, some people spend an awful lot of time talking about composing and, and we're waiting, but we're waiting for something really great to be there. But I think I, I think understanding at public school. Let me start with that. Be careful that the only reason you go into public school teaching is to do marching band. And if you're in the in a core and you love it and and you want your whole life to be that they age out at a certain age, There's there's there's no way you can do that. So I'd say be sure you're developing the artistry side of your work and musicianship side of your work with your ability to do it. A phenomenal show. I think what happened in in the marching band field is that they've gone more and more towards Broadway and we we've even seen, you know, blast and we've seen shows go to Broadway. It's amazing. Musical theater is what's happening on the field now. The old days of forming a stick figure and making the legs move, you know, or a tractor in the front thing went up and down or cuckoo clock. Those are all, by the way, I have charts of those shows if you, if anybody want, you have, you have all those kind of very static things now. It's unbelievable. Color staging, musical performance, everything is elevated. And it's a great thing to want to do that. But I also think you, you shouldn't ignore the concert side of your, of your work and that at some point in your year, you have to turn from doing a brilliant job on the field to doing it as, as equally brilliant work with your concert groups. It's only going to help your marching band sound better. And playing, you know, playing great music outside is only going to help your concert groups sound better. So this, this balance I think is really important. When I, I only taught public school for two years, When I did, I was the orchestra conductor, the band conductor, the jazz ensemble leader, the chamber music person, the drumline coordinator, that there was one person that did instrumental music and it was me. There was one person that did choral music. It was Bob Boucher. In California. There were no teams of people working. You wrote the shows, you did the charts, you did. I mean, you had to do it all. No one had figured out where it was going to go yet. So we were the models for us were college marching bands. And now the models are core style bands and and they're tremendously artistic and doing great work. But I think that music educators got to balance their career with both areas of expertise. It's really important. And for young college teachers, wherever you go, you're going to be asked to do many things. Your your first college job will probably be a collection of lots of different things. And the specialization that say we do came after years of of honing in on a specialization. My first college job I taught the percussion ensemble, percussion methods, 2 concert bands of the jazz ensemble, woodwind, chamber music, 20 clarinet students and that. And that was every semester. So, you know, and it was busy and it was going to school, working on my master's degree in the evenings. So you'll, you'll and players still go out well. Oh, you play the clarinet. Well, you can do clarinet students do the second band. How about music Ed? You have that background. And you know, there's a lot of times universities that don't have oncologists, that don't have a lot of faculty ask their faculty to, to take on many different areas of expertise. So anything you can do in your preparation in college to broaden your abilities and have more than one thing to do, I as opposed to I'm just going to conduct a concert band. That's that's going to be my career eventually maybe. But right now we're going to ask you to do lots more things because there's only seven of those on this college faculty or ten of those for the full time. But I think balance would be my biggest suggestion. And don't forget your artistic self. Don't don't forget how it feels to play your instrument. You're going to ask other people to play well. It's important that you can play well. And I think sometimes in college it's easy to try and not play. Playing is bad for my playing. There's kind of, there can be A and you know, everybody I know on our faculty who and who I went to school with played in everything. I mean, we, we demanded to play in everything and rather than let's see what I can get out of. And I, I think you really need, you have a very short time in college to build your chops. Four years, that's it. Maybe you go 5. And if you don't go on to do a masters in performance or on your instrument, that's not a lot of time to to build the musicianship you need to rely on for the next 57 years of your career. So you, yeah, you have to really take advantage of the people that are in school that you're around, that are great musicians and also the teachers that you'd have contact with and really pay attention and ask questions. You know, go to concerts, go hear the orchestra, go hear the jazz ensemble, go hear the choir sing. Anything that puts you in touch with a variety of ways that music gets made will all benefit you later in your in your work. Right.
You, you covered some of this, but I don't maybe we can expand it a little bit. If you could offer one guiding principle to educators that are just entering the field, something that sustains both excellence but also humanity, what would that look like for you?
Well, first and foremost, remember the people you're working with are humans. And there's a, there's this, you know, when we're working with somebody with a group and they're not sounding as the way we want them to sound, you know, in the space that we're between you and them, they're offering pretty openly their heart and their soul. And you can ruin that if you're not careful. Fear, anger, sarcasm, those kinds of things really don't draw the best work out of people. It might make it lighter in the room, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're feeling that the value of music. Tim Galway, the author of the Inner Game of Tennis and those all of them inner game books, Inner game of skiing and golf. When I was working with Barry Green and we were working on the Inner game videos and, and lectures we were giving together, there was an interview that we had of Tim Galway And he said I, he said I, I had piano lessons when I was a kid and he said I dropped out pretty early. And he said it always made me think that, and this was brilliant, that the teaching of music should be more musical and that it just, it just broke into my brain, you know, that that the other, the other thing about it that I think is really important is something Jamie Ebersolt said once. He said, if you have you heard the the saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. And I was, he was lecturing. Everybody kind of nodded. And he said, well, a teacher's job is to lead them to the water and make them thirsty. And I thought that was another really good piece of advice. Yeah. In other words. That's fantastic. Right. In a way you, you can't teach anybody anything really. I mean, I believe people teach themselves, but with great guidance. And I, I always offer this. Who taught you how to ride a bike? You did. Somebody ran alongside of you for a while instead, held you up and but at one point they let go of you and you've balanced it and learned to ride it. Who taught you how to drive? You did walk you did, but there's somebody there holding your hands when you're a little baby and making sure you don't fall and hit your head. So that's kind of our role. I think teachers role is to be there as a guide, a facilitator, A supportive person and think the best of people. I I assume people want to get better, especially in music. I mean, if, if, if you're not passionate about doing it, you're not going to be very happy doing it because it's a lot of work. And the best advice I could give somebody is if you're not passionate about your discipline, find one that you are passionate about because there's, there's a lot of work involved in anything. You decide to do that or you want to do good work and I think remaining teachable. Keep learning. Go to music educator conferences, listen to the lectures, take notes, seek help from colleagues who seem to have great programs. If you hear you take a job in a high school district and you hear the one of the junior high schools that's just an incredible band, go down and watch that teacher teach once a week. If you're near a great university situation, go to a rehearsal now and then because it's on my mind. Here's when Bob Reynolds came to Long Beach, it was before I got there, a little after he got there. But when he came to Cal State Long Beach, Jeff Reynolds was playing trombone in the Wind Ensemble Symphonic Band, who left Long Beach 2 years later to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic and was there for 35 years as their base trombonist. Jeff Bob was very young and Jeff kind of almost his age. And Jeff said joint, you know, we're really excited working with you here and everything and we're having a great time and and he said, we think he said, we think you, you ought to go take lessons. And Bob three, he said, he said, now I could have gotten mad at that, he said, but he was right. And and so it said, Jeff, who should I take lessons from? Jeff said, well, Zubin Mehta, he's conducting the LA field, go, go take lessons from him. So Bob wrote Zubin Mehta got to maybe a tenth secretary or somebody asking if he could come and study with Zubin Mehta because Long Beach was maybe an hour from where they play where they rehearsed. And he got a nice letter back from the secretary saying Maestro Mator does not teach lessons, but if you'd like to come to rehearsals, we could arrange that for you. So Reynolds every Friday for the rest of the time he was at Long Beach, went to LA and sat in on the Los Angeles film. And he took the scores of whatever they were working on and said, you'll have to be quiet and you have to sit in the back. And, and he just went to rehearsals and observed. And he, he learned a lot doing that. And, and I don't know how it is for you, but if I'm at a conference and I see, yeah, Indiana Wind Ensemble is going to be playing at this conference, I want to know where they're rehearsing. Where, where is there a dress rehearsal? I want to hear that. Or the Eastman Wind Ensemble or you know, I remember they that Eastman came to San Diego for our teachers conference one year and I found, I found where they were going to rehearse for two different rehearsals and just went in and just ate it up. It was so great to see that group work together or New England with Frank or you name it. There's so many, you know, LSU and so many great programs we're so blessed with now in the college world. And just just an hour rehearsal with somebody watching them deal with all the things you deal with and how they come at it, it can be so valuable. Allstate bands, what a great place to be worth. And don't miss the first rehearsal. It's another thing I tell my students, we're going to go to 1, go to the first rehearsal because that's where they become an ensemble. And how people do that, how Mallory Thompson gets that done in 30 minutes or Mike Hathcock gets it done in 30 minutes, or Alan McMurray or anybody you know who's doing those things. That's where you're saying an ability to take 120 people and turn them in the right direction and make them an ensemble and go in a very short amount of time because there's never a lot of time at those things. And quite often they haven't even seen the music. So you're starting from zero. And so, yeah, I think if you don't have any other way to get better, observing great conductors who come to your part of the world. Of course, the other thing is what's being done so well these days are the conducting workshops and collegiums that various schools are having all over America. I think wind bands, Dal Winband profession in general does a way better job of teaching conducting than the orchestral world. But most of the people who teach at those things are so open, are willing to give everything they have away and help people. There's no secret. And you, you can find one at a university near you or within your state. That's probably first rate in every state that in in the United States. Yeah, absolutely.
This is incredible to hear your perspective on all of these topics we appreciate very much. So, Professor, now is the time where we ask all of our guests a couple standing questions. And so I'll take the first one. Do you have a, do you have a soapbox topic? And it can be about music, about life, about golf, of anything. Do you have any any soapbox topics?
Yeah, I'm a very dull person. I mean, I'm I'm, I have no hobbies. Everybody's saying to me, what are you going to be doing when you retire? Paddleball. Do you golf? How about fishing? And I'm ashamed of myself. I've it's yet to be determined. So one of the things I'd say is find something else to do besides music in your life. I mean, be, develop some hobbies or, or you may find yourself having to do that later in life. But I, I think, yeah, I, I'm pretty positive about, about our profession and about the people in it. And I, I think just being, giving yourself time to be away from it as well, you know, with whatever, even if it's just catch up on your favorite TV series or have a dog and have several dogs. I have several dogs. They take, they take my time when I'm home. And I, I think that there's nothing that angers me, you know, or, or, or gets me going about, about our profession and about teaching because I, I just have such respect for people who decide to teach. And I've watched teachers, you know, even younger, teaching younger kids take their own money and go buy art materials for their classes and weekly spend $100 a week to have the supplies they need to teach kindergarten. And music teachers who are, you know, putting their own money on the line to buy a piece so that they have something to play. I mean, I, I guess I would say I would hope that our society would at some point begin to value teachers as fully professional people that are every bit as important as your doctor, your, your dentist, your, you know, plumber. I'm just just understanding what a calling teaching is and, and what it takes to really be committed as a teacher, both both financially and emotionally and intellectually. I think we just need to keep working to build the reputation of teachers and important thinking of them as fully professional. Couldn't agree more there. Could say, couldn't agree with that more. So my question is, Professor Corporon,
is there a particular book or books that have inspired your inspired you in your journey? And there could be a lot of them, but pick one or two. Dad, what would it be?
I'm looking at about 200 books here. What would I? Where would I? There are a couple I would recommend James Jordan's The Musician's Soul. An incredible book. It's a good book deal with how Coral he's a choral conductor, but how to how to work with people in a positive and meaningful way. I I'd also recommend Bruno Vaulter's book of music and music making. There's another person who was who was a very genuine human with, with the groups he worked with as a conductor. I, I, I like for somebody who's not sure about their listening, there's a great book by Aaron Copland called What to Listen for in Music. And there's they were from his Harvard lectures, the chapters and talks for lay people, how to listen, what to listen for, melody, harmony, rhythm, texture. But he lays it all out so very clearly. And it's a really good way to kind of set up your listening and make sure you're listening in multiple levels of activity that are going on. We don't just hone in on write notes or or rhythm. Sure, one more. Let me think it one more. Gosh, there's so many. I can't remember the author. There's a book called the silent pulse. I can't remember. I can see it here. But anyway, which deals with the connection through rhythm and this the idea of of a pulse. We all have a pulse, our hearts beating and, and it's even been proven that our hearts group people together making music. Their heart syncs up with the music and with each other, the heartbeat. So I mean, there's, there's a natural connection in music that that through pulse and pulsation that really is important. And working with Evelyn Glenny over the years, she counts on that so much because she can't hear. She hears sounds, but she doesn't hear the way we hear. She's profoundly deaf, right? Not completely deaf. And I saw her when she was here playing with us before a TMEA convention. She invited kids from the deaf school here in town to come to the concert, and it seemed like a crazy thing to do. But she had them sit in the front row and put their hands on the stage. And she was hating what? What? When she came, I said, well, what? What are the accommodations you need? She says, I need to be where I can see you and you can see me watch my hands on the marimba or on the drums. And she played barefooted so that she feels the vibrations coming through the stage. And she was right on with us and we were with her. We never had a problem sinking. And, and she was so clear. She conducted me and then I conducted the group. And by the way, she set up things and but it got me thinking about that whole thing about feeling the vibrations of the music along with hearing the melody or, or hearing vertically or hearing horizontally or hearing diagonally right, feeling the pulse, making that connection. The author's name is, is George Leonard. Yeah. You're talking about, yeah. That's it, yeah. So yeah. All right, professor. So
I'm going to take the the final question. We, by the way, we, we can't thank you enough for your time today and just hearing all of these incredible perspectives over an unbelievable career, this question might be the most important of the day. OK, So what is your favorite time signature?
Well this has changed. The older I've gotten, the more like 4-4 I've got. Yes. I said to Mike Doherty last year, I said, you know, I had made a rule that after I turned 70 I was gonna do no more mixed meter. That's it. I'm done. Fair. I'm gonna Do you know 1234 or 123? None of this. 1212312121237. Yeah, of course. He hands me a score full of that, you know. Of course. Favorite times? Yeah, I think the one with the circle and the line through it. Three time where there is no time. Free time. Yeah, free time. Speaking of Lincoln Triposa, you're gonna say. Lord Melbourne, you can never be wrong. You just the way you you want to do it. How you feel it? How you feel it? That's fantastic.
Well, we here at the common Time podcast obviously think 4/4 is a great answer. So, but professor, it has been such a wonderful just sitting here and listening to you in, in all the perspectives that you've you provided. And we're just, we're thankful. We're thankful for you. And we just want to, you know, honor you for your just everything you've given to all of us that are listening and all of the students and performers that are out there that are that are your students, you're we're kind of all part of that, even though we may not have been at school with you.
Well, I've, I've, I've got this perspective, I'll share with you last thing I'll share with you here. And, and it's this because right now I'm hearing a lot of people saying thank you. And, and I feel kind of this way, taking credit for the work of my past ensembles feels like having someone compliment you on a new car you just bought. You didn't build it, You just had the good fortune to be in a position to invest in it. And it's, it's, it's hard to accept the idea that this, well, it's just not true. One person doesn't make this happen. It, it's the collective spirit. That's, that's part of what we do. And that's one of the reasons we love to do it, because it's about people and, and working with enthusiastic people. I, I'm going to miss being around young people every day. You know, we're on the way up and through their careers. And that's, that's going to be one of the biggest changes because you, you draw energy from that and you, you get, you get help, you know, with, with when you think I'm not tired and you look at everybody and man, they're not tired. Let's go. And so the idea that, that, that, that their spirits have supported me all these years, it really is a collective profession. And I think, I think we're fortunate to be working with young musicians who are still positive about what they're doing, you know, and looking to their careers and, and facilitating that in any way you can is a, is a great way to spend your, your life's energy, so to speak. I really appreciate you having me on and anybody who's been listening I I hope you're having a great year and finding interesting things to play and do with your music.
And that's a wrap on today's episode. Thanks for spending part of your day with us on the Common Time Podcast. If today's conversation gave you something to think about or something to try with your students, we'd love for you to share this episode with a colleague. And you can also follow us on social media for episode clips, behind the scenes content, and updates to our upcoming guests. And if you haven't already, please be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep making music and keep making a difference.