Who Am I?

"you don't know 'bout me, but I'll bet you want to" 

-Taylor Swift, 22

Glamour Shot!

My name is Kyle Ryan, and I am a musician. I have not been a musician since I was young, although I'm told that I loved to listen to Yanni when I was little. I started playing music in 8th grade when I realized that I wanted to be Tom Delonge from Blink 182. After begging my parents they bought me a guitar and I went promptly on my way to learning the Blink 182 catalogue. High School became a blur of ska bands and shows in rented local halls, with a two year stint in the Jazz Band. I suppose my first realization that music could be a deeper experience was in Music Theory in High School- I had a truly inspirational teacher that really set me on my course as a musician. Theory class fueled my desire to constantly create my own material- and I have been doing so ever since, probably to the point of neglecting to learn things I should have by other people. After playing guitar for 5 years, I was continually a disappointment at parties since my repertoire contained mostly my own material- and none of it was very good.

My theory teacher in High School was one of the first people to suggest that pursuing music would be a valid option in my life. Boonshaft talks about many of my teacher's qualities in his chapter "The Flames of Growth." In it, Boonshaft quotes Roger Lewin, saying "too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." My High School music teacher gave me nothing but problems to solve. He pushed me to learn the inner workings of music, to apply them practically, and to elevate my playing. When he came to me to ask if I would play in the Jazz Band and I explained that I knew nothing about jazz- he handed me recordings and music and told me that I could do it, and made himself available anytime I needed help. This was a major struggle for me but it wound up a formative learning experience.

On his recommendation, I applied to Berklee College of Music where I went and majored in Production and Engineering. At Berklee I was met with more "problems to solve" than I ever could have imagined- and while the instruction was wonderful, it was truly a culture of figuring it out on your own. Professors seemed more like facilitators- and this is a quality that I hope to bring with me to the classroom. Boonshaft mentions this in the book while talking about "Motidisparation." Teachers must gradually wean students from extrinsic motivation so that they become intrinsically motivated to learn. My whole life I have been intrinsically motivated to learn, and my main goal as a teacher will be to teach kids how to learn themselves. Boonshaft reminds us of Yeats who said "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

There are three things that I am truly passionate about in music. (Let's be real, there's probably way more than three, but for your sake reading...)

(1) 

All music matters. Every style, every genre, every artist. My years spent as a recording engineer after school taught me a skill that I cherish- which is to find and latch on to the qualities of any particular song or piece that you love. I don't care if you are listening to Norwegian Death Metal and you grew up listening to nothing but folk- find the thing that is awesome about that song, and focus in on it. Learn to appreciate it within its context. All music is great- and I honestly feel that one of our jobs as musicians is to figure out why.

Side note: I LOVE pop music. I'm passionate about it. I will defend it to my death. I think that all musicians (myself included) go through a lengthy snob phase while mastering their instruments in which they tend to devalue some music as compared to other music, and I think that true musicianship comes at the other side of that phase- upon the realization that there is merit and craft to everything.

(2) 

I believe that there are countless ways to interact with music. I believe that it is one of our primary jobs as music educators to expose students to the various ways that they can personally interact with music- and match kids to paths that interest them. I think that there tends to be a focus in music education on an incredible narrow range of musical options, and I would love to do my part to change this. I work now writing background instrumental music for a music publisher that licensees to TV. As a result my music has been all over the place, on anything from So You Think You Can Dance, to Pawn Stars, to the Steve Harvey Show. Here's a clip of some of my more "sensual" music setting the mood for Honey Boo Boo:

(The clip should start at 8:40 automatically, but if it doesn't that's where the cue is until about 9:06)

Every day writing and recording this music I use an incredibly wide range of musical skills that I learned in school, and I want students to know that options like this are available to them. Students need to see that you can be an engineer, a composer, a producer, a player, an arranger, a DJ, a manager, an educator, or a combination of all of them!

I think that the actual music industry is notably absent from much of music education. Just as the tech and science industries should inform our STEM instruction, the music industry should play an integral role in what we teach our kids in music class. I'm certainly not saying that they end goal of music education should be job placement, simply that we need to give kids a fighting chance to continue interacting with music on a tangible level after they leave our classrooms. We're missing a lot of the student population. Something is wrong when a high school kid who is not involved in school music can go home and produce platinum selling records on his laptop:

I'm not saying I have all of the answers, but there is a disconnect here, right?

(3) 

This brings me to my final belief- absolutely every student can be a musician. I know this sounds simple, and it may even be obvious to those of us already in this field, but not everyone out there believes that musicianship is attainable by everyone. The myths that surround talent and creativity are roadblocks for many people. I think that the ultimate goal of music education, macroscopically, should be to make every single kid a musician. Every kid should play music in high school, because every kid should be a musician by then. And if kids can't play music by high school? There's four whole years to learn. If you find the part of music that a student can relate to and make personal connections with- you can inspire them to pursue music forever. It doesn't matter whether that thing is Shostakovitch's 5th or a YouTube clip of Drake. Our student's diversity is vast, but luckily so is music.