The concept of mentoring and coaching go back hundreds of years to times where it was necessary to share information from one other, especially with a specific set of trades or skills that were being passed from generation to generation. Being able to have this insight and knowledge allowed for advances not only in civilization, but it creates opportunities in our lives to interact with one another because of the unique knowledge, skills, and abilities that we bring to others. For our guest today, Cheryl Baker demonstrates the importance of being able to pass along this information, especially in the music education field that has seen troubles as a whole in recent decades. Being able to share this knowledge through instruction is one thing, but being able to pass it along to others can create a focus that is needed in our own lives to ensure that we are sharing tips and tricks of how to get through some of the difficult moments that we may experience.

Guest Bio

Cheryl Baker is a veteran teacher of elementary general music. She started her 39th year of teaching in 2023-24. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting/directing and music education and a Master of Music with an emphasis in Orff-Schulwerk. She is passionate about music in schools as well as appropriate new teacher education, and has begun giving webinars to new music teachers during the last 2 years. She owns the Noteworthy Publishing LLC which provides coaching and dynamic, interactive workshops and practical strategies for teaching elementary school music.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/LessonsFromtheMusicRoom

Website: http://lessonsfromthemusicroom.com

• Toastmasters International -Home (https://www.toastmasters.org) - Toastmasters is an international organization that has allowed many of my guests to be on the show through personal and professional connection, combining all kinds of different types of communication and leadership development. Learn more about this organization at the link provided, plus check out the "Find A Club" option where you can locate an in-person or virtual club closest to you and your likings!
• About Cheryl & Lessons From The Music Room Book (https://www.lessonsfromthemusicroom.com/about) - To learn more about Cheryl and to purchase her book, "Lessons From The Music Room" directly from her, check out this link.

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Intro/Outro By: Michael Dugan, Podcast Host: Voice4Chefs

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

This is Speaking From The Heart.

Welcome back to episode number 78 of Speaking from the Heart.

Today we have Cheryl Baker, also another Toastmaster, who's joining us today.

Cheryl is a veteran teacher of elementary general music, and

she lives in the Virginia area.

She started her 39th year of teaching this current school year; the 2023-2024 year.

She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting and directing and music

education, along with a master of music with an emphasis on Orff-Schulwerk.

She's passionate about music in schools as well as appropriate new

teacher education, which we talk quite clearly about the importance of music

education in this episode, and how it brings so many benefits to others.

As a result of this, she has begun giving webinars to new music teachers during

the last two years, and as a result of that, has started her own business

called Noteworthy Publishing, LLC, which provides coaching and dynamic interactive

workshops and practical strategies for teaching elementary school music, which he

has compiled into a book that's entitled Lessons From the Music Room, and we'll

certainly share that link in the episode notes when it comes to that book, but I

think specifically, it isn't just about music that we share within our own lives.

It isn't just about the things that we can do in the general or the specific

sense, but I think that we need to understand the importance of having

those individuals that surround us, that we need to be able to connect with

like-minded people to help not just create community, but to help us sing as a choir

to that next song, to that next ability to play it safe and feel comfortable

in playing it safe and being secure.

But with that, let's go to the episode.

All right.

We're here with Cheryl Baker.

Cheryl, thanks for sharing your heart with us today.

Hey.

No problem.

Thank you so much for being here.

I've been really excited to have you on the show.

I know I've been rattling your cages like, "I need you on the show", so, but I'm

really glad that we finally made it work and you're here, so thank you so much for

taking some time to be part of it, and I already let the audience know about your

background and what you are all about, and I really want to launch into this as

being my first question because I don't think I've had anyone on the show yet that

has a musical background like yourself.

What got you involved with the passion of music and being

able to teach people music?

Can you start us off with giving us a little bit of background

of how you got started with it?

Well, if you go back to the beginning of my life, my mother

and father, grandmother, and most of my cousins and aunts and uncles

are all in music or theater.

Somehow they're musical.

My mom played piano; she was in band.

My dad played the guitar and sang.

My stepmother loves music but doesn't know how to do anything, and my grandmother

played piano for everybody and for all reasons in her little town in Montana, so

I was surrounded by music when we were in the car, going somewhere, we were made to

sing rounds and goofy stuff all the time.

My dad would not let us play the radio so we could sing along with that.

We had to actually sing our own song, so sort of like be a musical

person, and it's like second nature.

I mean, I'm very dramatic as well, so drama and music kind of go

along with my personality as well.

I was really shy as a child, but being in theater really brought out the

crazy weird person that I am today, and therefore, it drove me into the place

where I found that teaching was going to be something that I wanted to do.

I mean, at first I wanted to be an actor/director in the theater, and

then I realized I wasn't getting any parts, and so I said, "Well, maybe

you need to have something that you can do as a job when you get out of

college", so then I picked up the music and I had been doing that ever since.

I still do theater things because I direct musicals and stuff with my

kids and my students, but that's what kind of drove me into being a teacher.

My mom was a teacher.

My dad was a teacher.

My stepmom is a teacher.

They just don't teach music.

My mom taught business classes.

My dad taught math and social studies to middle school people.

I deal with the little ones because they're cooler and they

don't have as many problems.

They always seem to not have many problems and I even think

back to even some of my musical classes growing up and being able

to experience the different rhythms and sounds and musical instruments.

It's not something that I was really wanting to do and I stayed away from

that as much as I could, but I still remember those as being kind of a

eye-opening experience to, "Wow.

When you hit something or you strum something or you do some sort of

action to the instrument, it creates a completely different tone",

but I noticed that you went on.

You got your Bachelor in Fine Arts, and then you got your Master's in Music.

Can you tell us a little bit about after you went through high school, graduating

and going through college, what was that like to kind of practice with people that

were just as interested in music as you?

Well, in high school I was in band and I played saxophone;

bari saxophone actually, and then I also picked up alto saxophone.

I played tenor in middle school, and we got to do so many cool things in band, so

that was really fun, and I was in church choir, so I had a lot of music background.

When I got to college, I was a theater major, but I also did the music

education courses and being around.

Oh, let me just say music education is way more fun than being a music major

because they have a little bit of an ego sometimes, and the people, and I was

sort of the outlier in that conversation, or in that group, so I was a theater

person peeking into music rather than a music person peeking into drama, so

I loved being in musicals and that's really, if I thought it over again,

if I was going to go back into school and do it all over again, I would get

a degree in musical theater, because then it would still be drama and it

would be music, because I'm so music.

I mean, I did a solo for solo and ensemble once when I was a senior

in high school, on my very sax, I played alto sax music, right, and the

adjudicator said, "So you're going into music, right?", and I was like,

"Yeah, no, I'm going into drama.", and he was like, "Why?", and I was like,

"You know, because, nah; that's why."

My band teacher said, "Don't go into music", and that made me question my

choice, because I had told him, I said, "I want to be a band teacher when I grow up.

I think that'd be fun", and look at me now .I'm in elementary music

and I've been there for years, like ever since I started practically.

The first two years I did K 12, which was elementary music, middle

school and high school, and then the rest of the time, elementary school.

Do you think that there's a big difference between teaching

elementary school music or middle school music, and even high school music?

What are the differences?

Well, the middle school and high school music classes are more geared

toward performance in a specific genre, right, so you've got band, you've got

orchestra, you've got chorus, you've got guitar, you may have a mariachi group.

They have all kinds of stuff that you can do.

They even have theory classes nowadays, some from the A&P classes and stuff

like that, but general music in elementary school, it's like everything.

It's all a little bit of this, a little bit of that, so we're teaching the whole

child, and because I'm an Orff methodology follower, we're starting with what they

can say, moving it into the rhythm, then moving it into the singing part,

then moving it into harmony and playing on instruments and creating those big

huge compositions that they naturally go, and then we add in some dance and

folk dances and just general music.

You've got to be an expert at a lot of different things,

which is exactly who I am.

They say jack of all trades, master of none.

I don't say that I'm a master of none, but I know a lot about a lot of things,

but not everything about everything.

I can play the piano, I can play guitar, I can sing, I can do percussion

and know how to lead a dance, but I learned that while I was teaching,

so I didn't know that before.

I think that being able to have that generalization allows you

to have a little bit of everything, but at the same time, as you're doing

that for kids of that age, which you're looking at probably first grade through

maybe fifth grade elementary, correct?

Kindergarten through sixth grade.

Kindergarten through sixth grade, that-

In my district right now, Fairfax County, we do K 6.

Other places in Virginia do K 5.

Some don't even do K at all.

When I was in California, went first through sixth grade, and then in

Nevada it was K 5, so it just depends.

So many people think that sixth grade belongs in the middle school, so.

I have seen some in even Pennsylvania where I live that have

different sort of makeups as well, but I generally see it K through five as well,

so even then, having that generalities and even starting young, I've always

heard, like it's so important, especially to start young, so you kind of have that

other side of your brain, not the literal side, not thinking about and processing

things or having those critical arguments.

A lot of those things can be developed from even music for that matter, having

that side of your brain where you have that creativity; that artistic quality.

Cheryl, you were mentioning about California, which is interesting because

as I was scrolling through your website, I noticed that you have lived abroad,

and I don't think I even knew this.

You lived in Great Britain.

You also lived in Chile.

Was that because of your music background or was that because of something else?

I'm kind of curious of what led you overseas in the first place, and then

had you come back to the United States, which, thank you for coming back, but I'm

interested as to why you were over there.

Well, the story goes, I was living in Las Vegas at Clark County

School District and my school, they started doing some dumb things to me.

They decided that I needed to have two 30 member kindergartens

at the same time; on my stage.

One day, I had a class that came in the first class.

I had two kindergartners back to back classes.

One was 60 members and one was 30 members, right, and so one kid, they're

all doing exactly what they should be, which is amazing for kindergarten in the

first place, one kid leans forward, the other lean kids back, and they both bang

their heads together and they're crying.

"Wahhhhh", and I'm like, "Oh my God.", then you have to deal with that, and

then, the next class is that somebody had an accident and went to the bathroom on

the floor, and by the time they left, I sat in the little chair and just cried.

I'm like, "Oh my gosh.

This is too hard to do.

These are too hard", and so I said to my husband, "I think

I need a break from education.

Can we go somewhere in the world?", because he used to work for Morrison

Knudsen, and they had places all over the world, so I said, "I need a break from

education, or I'm going to get in trouble.

I'm going to say something, do something, that I shouldn't do, so I need a mental

break from there.", so I said, "Can we go someplace in the world that speaks

English?", and that was Great Britain, so then we thought we were going to

stay over there for up to four years, and it ended up being one year, not

even a whole year, so then we came back and then we were in Vegas again for

a little while, and then we got the opportunity to go to Santiago, Chile,

and I didn't need a break, but we decided just to go because they really thought

it would be cool, and I said, "Hey.

We can learn Spanish.

That'll be great", and that's where I wrote my book.

I started writing my book while I was there, because when you don't

work, and it's in the mid part of your career, you're like, "Whoa.

What do I do with myself all day long?", and I couldn't work because I didn't

have a work visa in Chile anyway, so I did volunteer at a school for the blind;

Helen Keller School for the Blind.

We had our Bechtel wives group.

We did a little afterschool thing, and once they found out that I did music,

they were like, "Ooh, we're just going to make our lesson all around you", and

I was like, "Okay", so I would bring my guitar and what they would sing, but they

spoke Spanish and we spoke English, so it was an English activity after school

for them, but that's why we went to Great Britain and then I came back and I was

fine, and then another opportunity came.

Now I'm the person in my family that travels the world.

I've been to Europe several times.

I've been to India a couple of times.

It's where my husband is from.

It's like somebody says, "You want to move somewhere or travel somewhere?"

I'm like, "Yeah, sure, whatever.

I'm up for that."

Do you think that those traveling experiences had an influence on your

music and even the delivery of your music?

I think it gives you a better understanding of culture throughout

the world and who people are and how they interact with each other.

I have a lot more empathy for foreign people coming into the United States,

having gone through the naturalization process with Narayanan, with my husband,

and he came from India and became a naturalized citizen after we got

married and learning about his music, and then learning about what was cool

in Great Britain, learning a little bit about what they did in Santiago.

I'm just very interested in cultural music all over the place and any

culture that's in, you know, we have a mixture of kids in our schools here in

Virginia because it's so metropolitan.

We've got people from everywhere.

My school, in fact, is a Korean immersion school.

We have a program where there's one class per grade that is a half

day Korean instruction and half day English instruction, so we

do a big deal on Lunar New Year.

Yeah, well; yeah, definitely.

You probably spend a lot of time on that as a result.

Cheryl, I want to pivot a bit because I know that we were talking a little

bit before the show about you starting Noteworthy Publishing LLC, your

business, so obviously you're a well established music education teacher

in school districts and teaching kids.

What led you to wanting to start a business that was centered around

that, and maybe at this point too, would be also a great opportunity

to talk about your book Lessons From The Music Room, which I know also has

been something that has been a project of yours that you have published.

Well, yeah.

I published in 2016, I believe, and I wrote it in 2015, finished it in 2016.

I had been a mentor teacher for many teachers over time, and I remember

very, very vividly what it was like to start being a music teacher when I first

started because I didn't have the full background in music, so I know the pain

and the trials and tribulations of a brand new teacher very, very well, and

so when I became the mentor teacher, then I; I'm saying the same thing over

and over again, stuff that I've learned, and so then when I got to Santiago, I

said, "Well, let me write this down.

I've been talking about this for forever.

I'm going to write down all my very best advice, everything that

I think of", and it was funny because I just started writing.

I just opened up a Word document and started writing something and then

it was like 10 pages and I'm like, "Well, maybe I need an outline.

That would be good.

I think that would be good.", so then I started writing in the chapters and

pretty soon I had over a hundred pages of writing, and then it went on from there.

The business came from the book basically, because you have to have a

business to sell something, and so now it's intellectual property and it's a

how to guide for the beginning music teacher; that's the subtitle of the book.

It's meant for beginning music teachers and specifically general

music teachers, but there are wonderful ideas for any teacher of any level.

There's a chapter on how to get kids to do what you want them to do, getting to know

the kids' behaviors and why they do it.

There's a whole chapter just on how to deal with your administrators.

Everybody has to deal with them.

You always have to go in with a solution, not just, "I have a problem

and you should fix it", because they'll just say, "I don't care", you know?

It just came from my desire to help somebody else and make it easier for them.

I have a new website that I just updated and there's forms

that you can just download.

It's like a Word document and say, "Okay, well this'll start for a letter I can

send home to parents and I'll just change the details and it's all done for me.",

so I spent my entire weekends, my first few years of teaching, trying to figure

out what I was going to teach and hoping that the kids would like it, because

you don't know if it's going to fly, if it's going to work, and then you get into

the classroom and if you haven't planned enough, then you're sunk and everything is

a mess, and you feel like a failure, and we are losing teachers in droves because

it's so hard to do, and here's the other thing that I kind of going to my soapbox

now I'm standing on my soapbox going-

No, please do, because I was actually going to bring this up

as a subject too, because I think that we are losing teachers left

and right, and I can only imagine what it's like in the music field

itself, so please, I'm really curious.

What do you think needs to change?

What I think needs to change is when at the college

level, they need to have classes.

First of all music programs, they assume that you want to be a professional

musician and have a primary instrument and you're going to go out there and be

a professional musician, not be teaching, or you're going to be a band teacher, or

you're going to be an orchestra teacher, you're going to be a chorus teacher.

They're all about performance.

They're not about teaching.

They give you very little classes.

I've started some research.

I haven't gotten very far yet, because I got way late on a couple other projects,

but I started looking at colleges in this area, just in Virginia of how many

classes do they have in general music?

They have two, three, plus student teaching.

That's it.

They don't give you anything about behavior management.

They don't give you anything about how to organize your stuff.

They don't tell you about how to deal with the kids; the special ed kids.

They don't know how to deal with traumatized kids that we have

nowadays based COVID craziness that was happening all these times.

They don't give you any of that.

Now, maybe they just can't because it's a four year degree,

but maybe they need to have one.

I had a student teacher last spring, and she didn't even know

how to teach people how to sing.

Wow.

And she went in there and said, "I want to be an

elementary general music teacher."

Wow.

That's what she declared at the college, and there were classes apparently

that were available, but not to her, because of how she had been told that she

had to create her degree, so they had some classes, but she wasn't able to take them.

She's coming in with as best she can, and then they're leaving it all

up to the master teacher when they do their practicum or their student

teaching, or whatever they call it nowadays, to give them everything else

that they didn't get, and it's hard.

You can't tell them everything and you can't really give them everything.

It comes down to learning on the job, and that's what I remember the

most, so what needs to change is they need to give you world instruments.

They need to give you strategies and help about that and real

experiences in the classroom, even just watching craziness happen.

Go to a title one school and see what the kids are like.

Go to an upper class school and see what the kids are like, because they're

different, and there's bigger problems.

I worked at a title one school and the little kids were lovely

and the big kids were crazy.

I drove home nearly crying every night going, "I don't know why I can't connect

with these kids, why they won't follow the directions, why they won't stop talking."

My sixth graders never listened to me the whole year.

I mean, it was just like a fight the whole time, and I'm an experienced teacher.

I got a lot of things in my toolbox that I know how to deal with.

I started remaking myself, going, "Okay, I'm just going to be the most

exciting teacher in the whole world", and they're like, "This is exhausting.

I cannot keep this up."

Well, and I think too that there are teachers that are willing to adapt

and grow, but it's a two-way street, and I've had some guests on the show and we've

talked about this concept too, where not only is it about you, what you need to do

to kind of get to that point, but there has to be some leeway with somebody or

even a group of people, in your situation, bunch of kids that are willing to do

that and be open to that instruction and adult learning, which I do through my

business myself, and what kids learn, are completely different things, and I'm

even talking about the kids coming out of college and they are supposed to be

adults now teaching in this environment.

They need to also be willing to kind of pursue some of that of their own, not

necessarily always leaning on that advice of what somebody has provided, but being

able to say, "If this is where I want to go, what are the things I need to

do?", and I think your book that you've provided is one of those great resources.

Wouldn't you think that it would be helpful if we just had that

sort of mentorship, or kind of that guidance, along the way

from somebody that has done it?

Absolutely.

I mean, there's so many music teachers, elementary music teachers.

You're the only music person in the building.

You have all the kids that you teach.

If you're coming from a small school, you have 400, 500 kids or something.

You're the one that teaches all of them.

You have no one to talk to.

You're a little island out there all by yourself, so who do you go to to say,

"Hey, what do you think about this?

You think this would be a good idea?

Think the kindergartners could do that?

You think second graders could do that?"

You have no one to talk to, but if you have my book, you at least have

someone to listen to you, or if you work with me on a coaching 101, I

mean, I could talk it through with you.

I have a client that is working in a private school in California, and

as she's bouncing ideas off of me, "Well, how do I do my long range plans?

Well, how do I put together a musical?

Well, how do I deal with these crazy kids?

What do you do at the beginning of the year?

How do you create...", they're always talking about, nowadays, about

community, creating community when creating relationships with the kids.

When you have 700 kids, it's hard.

You can't get to know them all.

You only see them once a week, maybe twice a week if you're lucky, and

you get a little snapshot of their personalities and who they are.

You know, you might find out what they're good at, what they like the most.

Well that kid loves drums, so I'm going to give him one whenever he wants one,

but that one loves to sing and dance, so I'm going to give them the rhythm

sticks and they can go to town, you know?

Yeah, and it's about learning how those kids kind of adopt to those sort

of opportunities as well, and Cheryl, I want to lead into this, especially as

we get closer to the end of our time.

I really am curious more about this sort of subject that I've been thinking

about because you've been really expressing to me a lot of passion

about this, and we definitely need people that have passion, especially

when it comes to teaching nowadays.

I think that we have lost a little sight of that because of all the

different things we could get into that.

That could be an hours long episode, which I certainly do not want to

go down those waters in itself.

Let's say that you have someone; as you mentioned, you teach other people,

you help to coach them, and they can certainly reach out to you, which

I'll give you that moment at the end to talk about how they can do that.

What would you say to someone that is under your wing to kind of help them

if they're feeling distraught, they're feeling kind of remorseful about the fact

that, "Man, I don't have this knowledge.

I wish I would've learned this in school."

What would you say is maybe your best piece of advice, and I'm just looking for

one piece of advice, that you would give to someone that's kind of feeling that

way and they're starting out with you?

How would you best help them guide so that they don't feel as overwhelmed with

that, because it can be overwhelming, like you said, you just literally

mentioned about having three, 400 kids in the school because they're all alone.

How would you tell them to overcome that situation?

Number one, I would say connect with other people that do what you do.

It doesn't matter if it's not at your school, and find somebody at a

different school; in your district.

Find someone, even if it's your teachers from college, if you're a young teacher

coming out, find someone to talk to; somebody that was in your class

that has now just started teaching.

You need to have that community, and I know that NAFME, the National

Association For Music Education, they are planning to add in some of

those professional communities so that we can get that conversation.

I worked on the document to help update and fill out things.

Some goals for music education professional development that's coming

up, and they're starting to talk about that with their new document

that they've published, so you need to have somebody, a sounding board,

and then take care of yourself.

Take care of yourself, because teaching, period, it's stressful on your voice.

It's stressful on your emotions.

You're not doing a nine to five job.

You could just be gone that day and nothing would happen.

You have to lead plans.

You have people that are depending on you.

If you're not there at the school that day because you're sick, you're

tired, you need a mental health day, nothing gets done, and the substitutes,

they do their best, but they're not you, and if you are not mentally and

physically healthy, you can't be that for them, so take care of yourself and

find somebody else to help you out.

Find a mentor.

We didn't even get into the fact that you and I are Toastmasters in itself,

and I literally just now heard all that and the flashing across my brain of,

" This is why we have groups like that."

Yeah, completely different nature, but the same premise even in music teaching or

any sort of subject matter, core subject matter, teaching can be so important to

have that community base, and I think that's why I resonate with everything you

say here because of wanting to connect, wanting to be with like-minded people,

finding that time to take care of myself because as you know, Cheryl and my

audience even knows too, it was a period of time in my life I literally did not do

that, and that has helped me so much to kind of recharge and realize that there's

a little bit of breathing room for all of us, even for those that don't necessarily

work that quote unquote nine to five.

Yeah.

But Cheryl, I thank you for sharing that.

At this point, I want to give you the last few minutes here to talk about

your business, which again, for the audience, it's Noteworthy Publishing, LLC.

Can you tell us how we could reach out to you if we are

interested in being coached by you?

What other services would you provide to someone that is in the music

field, or maybe even non-music field, if you're willing to do something

like that, maybe off the side, how can we get in contact with you?

How can we reach your website?

Tell us all those things here to wrap us up, but I'm going to

give you the last few minutes.

All right.

Well, I have a website.

It's, lessonsfromthemusicroom.com and on that website there's contact information

where you can go in and check on, and I'm still building that somewhat, so

it's a relatively new redo of that website, so there will be a chance to

say, you can contact me right now and say, "Hey, I'd like to work with you."

You can do that, and we'll schedule sometime.

We'll have a little freebie meeting and then see what you need to have happen.

I would be willing to come and do a keynote for any school district

that they needed it to see how music connects with classroom teachers.

That could be something that could be as a beginning of the year school thing is

saying, getting all those combinations.

Of course the book is available.

It's also not only available on my website, you can buy it there, and

if you get it from me, then I'll sign it for you, but you can also get it

from West Music or you can find it on amazon.com, and there's also a

Kindle book, so the Kindle on Amazon is like, $9.99; something like that.

Then you can buy it for pretty cheap on all those different places, so

just shop around to find the right one, but if you buy it from my

website, I have it and I'll sign it.

Yeah.

Well, with all that said, I think that you definitely have a lot that

you offer, Cheryl, to the music world.

I feel like you have definitely made an impact, not only in just the kids, but

even the adult practitioners of music, and I think that it's so important to be

effective in being able to do that, and I'm glad that you're willing to share

those gifts, not only from a domestic perspective, but the international aspect

from what you have learned overseas for the times that you have been over there,

and I think that, to really sum this up, I think that music is so important.

I had a gentleman on the show not all that long ago where we talked about

how music can kind of lead into the different types of things in our lives

that help us to strum along to not just the things that we do, and actually I

have to correct myself, it was a guy that was from a film industry, which films

essentially helped to dictate a lot of that, so it wasn't just about music,

which can be a compendium to the film industry, mind you, but how that can

just define a whole generation in itself with how we learn important lessons, but

Cheryl, with all that said, thank you for being on Speaking From the Heart.

I've really enjoyed our conversation today, and I really appreciate you

providing this perspective, not just to me, but for my audience as well.

It's been my pleasure.

Thanks.

I'm glad that we finally got to do this.

Me too.

Thank you.

I want to thank Cheryl again for being part of the show, and I really

enjoyed her conversation with me about the importance of music, and

just as a reminder, if you ever want to check out her website, go do that.

It will allow you to have an opportunity to book with her and knowing her for a

few years as a result of Toastmasters, which again, if you are interested in

checking out a local Toastmasters club, although we didn't talk about it in this

episode specifically, I'll put a link in the episode notes as well, as it relates

to checking out one close to you to start working on your communication and

leadership skills because, even in the new year that we started, it's always a

great opportunity to check out like-minded individuals that will help you get to that

next level, but I think that's really what this is about; this whole conversation:

getting to the next level, being able to sing your heart out and don't worry,

I won't sing for you on this episode.

I'll let someone else do that for you down the road that's more qualified than me,

but I think that we learned so much about understanding that maybe we want to do

something that we necessarily wanted to do for a long time, but maybe doing something

that will help us to get to that end goal, which is really, at the end of the day,

learning how to do a specific trade to be able to do something specific, but I think

Cheryl brought up a good point during this episode that I cannot resist talking

about now, and it's about the fact that we do see music, especially in the United

States, as a curriculum falling away.

I think that she summed it up nicely when she talked about the fact that there is

more of a professional sense of wanting to be a singer of some sort, and not

really thinking about what the history of music is; the academic sense of it, and I

think that we know that there's different specific courses that we could take if

we really are interested in those sort of things, but it seems that we're catering

more towards being that next super rock star or being that next lead drum player,

or being guitar player, or whatever instrument you think there is that you

can do a really good job with, but I don't think that we really are understanding,

and we're missing the mark, quite clearly, on what we could do to help us to survive

in this important educational moment.

I think this begs the question itself, can we be an outlier and being able to peak at

our highest peak into other areas as well?

I think that for many of us, we always dream of being that next sort of musician.

Having that ability to teach in ways in which we can influence a generation, not

only because of the TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, now known as X,

sort of propositions, if you will, and getting those sort of inquiries, that

following, because of each new song that we release, but I think that we need

to understand that to have all those things, we have to be well-rounded.

We need to be able to have a little bit an understanding of everything

so that we can make a maximum impact.

I think that we often forget about having empathy with the different cultures that

are surrounding us, that have provided us with these tools; these abilities.

How did you learn how to eat growing up?

Did you read it from a book, or did your mom and dad show you how to

eat with a fork, spoon and knife?

How did you learn how to play kickball?

Did you watch all the other kids play, or did you read it in a book, or did you just

try it and see what would happen without a user manual, or a frame of reference?

Do you see what I'm getting at?

We all learn in different ways, and I think that even Cheryl understood

that with writing the book and making sure that the next generation of music

teachers are prepared to be able to lead their classrooms because she had

to figure it out along the way too.

"How can we help you to be the best?", should always be the question that is

in the back of our minds, especially if we're trying to get to that next level,

but what we can intentionally do in order to do that, to create that content, to

set that foundation, or even to create aptitude and have safety, security,

means that we need to be able to mentor those that are coming down the path.

What we didn't talk about in this episode is the fact that we have groups like

Toastmasters that do that, and if we had more time, I know Cheryl would've

certainly divulged into that and how Toastmasters have helped her to create

that best version of her music, especially what she plays in the classroom and what

she shows others for that matter, but I think we always need to think about

someone, something, especially if we feel all alone, in order to create some

of those meaningful experiences and those movements of musical instruments

and notes in our lives, but sometimes we're not always ready to face the music.

I know.

Here we are again; faced with another subject in which I could play a sob

story about my life, which is approaching almost four years to that fateful day

that I decided that I didn't want to have anything to do with this world, and

I know that if I would've just reached out to someone and I would've had that

right support system, everything would've been completely different, but I decided

that I had to reach out for help.

I have recounted that so many times, folks, in these episodes, and if you're

new to the podcast, I recommend for you to at least go back and listen to

episode one in which I talk about why this podcast even exists in the first

place; why I decided to play my own musical instrument to have a voice in

this big world, not just because of Your Speaking Voice LLC, the business that's

tied to this podcast, but because of the things that I know deep inside of each

and every one of you that I have never met before possibly, that are able to do

the things to sing from your music sheet.

We could have stayed in our own lane.

In Cheryl's case, she could have stayed and been an actress;

been involved with theater.

She could have just stuck with that, but she decided to

go into the course of music.

Maybe being that outlier, being able to create some of that opportunity in

her life, allowed her to also expand.

Maybe to see a different culture, to see a whole other different perspective

for that matter, that would've changed her life fundamentally, but the truth

is, that's exactly what she did.

She did travel that world.

She did travel to Chile, she did travel to Great Britain.

She was able to teach in different ways as a result of having that experience.

She didn't have that "how to guide" that she has now published and she's

able to share and able to coach others.

She figured it out, but it doesn't mean that each and every one of us has

to just quote unquote figure it out.

Time and time again, I have seen people come through my business thinking

that they know that they're ready for this, that they know that they

need that help, but instead they turn their back and walk away, and that

isn't because of the reflection of me.

I often hear that they are not ready for it, and they just wanted to hear and

see what this would be all about, but when we're all alone and we want to have

some of those opportunities to create safety and security and all those other

positives in our lives, in order to flush them out, we need, more than ever before,

to have somebody that can stand by our side so that we're not all alone Cheryl's

leading that charge and being able to provide that community with like-minded

people, and for the first time, thinking of music teachers, math teachers, all

those underserved people that are so important to the development of our kids

and our future, and even us as adults.

We need to give them love and that's exactly why I think we need to understand

a lot more about how we can create that community in our own lives.

It doesn't have to be about music, nor does it have to be about math.

I'm sure that many of us are loathing the fact that we're thinking about

physics lessons from way back in high school and why those never made sense,

but yet, if I understood just a little bit more, maybe I could have been able

to save myself from that accident that I had last week, which I'm just kidding.

I didn't; but I know this.

I know that for many of us, we have to understand by taking care of ourselves,

by being willing to share ourselves in an open community and to be willing to create

that music, no matter where it is that we are in our lives, we can be able to have

not just the specialty courses at hand, but we can be ready to teach in general.

We are the generation that can change all of those things, and it doesn't

matter how old you are right now.

If you are 80 plus years old, listening to my podcast, just know that you

still have a chance to share your voice in this ever-changing world because

we have that opportunity to do that.

All of us do, because we create the cultures that we surround ourselves with.

I think that we all have that meaningful musical instrument, so I'm

just waiting for you now to help join the band together, because together,

we can make some wonderful music, and I can't wait to be playing with

you because all of us bring a unique voice and talent to the band stage.

Thanks for listening to episode number 78 of Speaking From The

Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Thanks for listening.

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Visit us at www.yourspeakingvoice.biz for more information about potential

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