I was born in Utah and have spent most of my life in New Mexico. I am a pianist, harpist, organist and dabble with a few other instruments. I am a composer, arranger, conductor, mentor and music educator.
Here's a few peeks into my personal life.
I've kept a private blog thru "Blogger" as a journal with a daily or weekly post since 2015. I share it with parents and grandparents weekly so they keep up with my life. I don't post much on Facebook or social media. I print my blog yearly using a website called "Into Real Pages", based in the Netherlands, and they mail me a hardcover book with everything printed in color.
I live in Albuquerque, NM and consider myself a native who loves green chile. I created my own recipe for Green Chile Sourdough bread during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns and my youngest son makes it monthly with me.
Aside from my musical interests I love to cycle (indoors if it's windy), cook, and play games with my family.
I graduated from UNM with my Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Composition and Theory in 2003. I returned to UNM in 2023 to begin working on my Masters in Music Education, and to complete my post-bacc teaching licensure.
I have been married to my husband Decker since 2001. We met at UNM as he was studying Mechanical Engineering. We've got 5 children, the oldest three are are adults and out of the house, and the younger two are in high school.
I have done lots of music projects and jobs while my kids are at home (including playing music for actively dying patients on hospice care).
I most recently privately taught piano lessons to students and was the collaborative pianist for the Volcano Vista High School/Tony Hillerman Middle School choirs. I also play the organ for our church.
I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have had lots of opportunities to do music in my church. I really love working with young adults aged 12-18. I worked with over 40 youth during Summer 2023 in Wyoming as we provided live music along the California Trail/Oregon Trail/Mormon Trail/Pony Express route for a pioneer handcart reenactment. I loaded my van with instruments that valued more than my van is worth, typical of many musicians.
Musical Narrative, October 2023
My parents had an interesting decision to make in my early childhood. It was obvious I was a musician; I sang confidently at four years old in group settings at church, belted jingles from 80’s commercials while on my kitchen counter stage, and picked out the “Jeopardy” theme song by ear on the piano at age five. Would my parents (both second generation children of immigrants from modest financial backgrounds) sacrifice time and money to support my musical education? My mother wished to play the piano, but her father was a social drinker and her mother was always working to help make ends meet. My father came from a long line of musicians who played instruments and sang in choirs and at home. His grandma earned money while roller-skating telegraphs for Western Union in the 1960’s to buy my father a cello, which he played in college on a scholarship. My parents did indeed sacrifice time and money to give me lessons. The old upright piano I tinkered on had once been in a bar, painted lime green, with cigarette burns along the music stand. My parents saved money to buy it, stripped the paint, refinished it, and that piano became a dear friend of mine for 10 years. I spent hours at the piano bench (and later at the harp), practicing songs from eight teachers over the years, two of which were my parents.
My father was a critical part of my development as a musician. He can play every instrument he picks up at a proficient level within days. While he reads music well, he loves “jamming” and playing by ear. He appreciates many music genres, including (and not limited to) classical symphonies, rock bands, world drumming, New Age, and Celtic music. I grew up listening to all of this and more as a child. My dad taught me about I, IV and V chords and I heard the deceptive phrase “one more time” repeatedly while playing piano accompaniments as he practiced fiddle songs. He encouraged my growth through performance opportunities and playing alongside me. He bought a classic wind-up metronome and taught me it was my “frenemy” who would mercilessly show me weaknesses on songs and help me improve. He connected me with lyricists and supported my efforts to compose music by purchasing some digital notation software for our home computer in the 90’s. When we moved to Idaho Falls and money was tight, he swapped violin lessons for piano lessons with another teacher so I could keep learning. He made sure my growth didn’t suffer because of financial situations.
My mother also played a huge role in my musical growth. She ensured I practiced daily because I was generally a lazy, albeit compliant, child. She is responsible for making sure my musical foundation was consistently laid when I was young, and I owe this accomplishment to her because I never would have made myself do it on my own. My mom was my cheerleader and praised my efforts even after “failed” performance experiences. When I had a teacher who nearly destroyed my love of music, my mom wouldn’t let me quit. Instead, she became my piano “coach” and gently helped me along in books as my non-pianist teacher for 3 years. She is still my favorite person to sing with during our family Christmas sing-a-longs at the piano. I love that my mother didn’t let her lack of training stop her from helping me. She made huge sacrifices of time and money so I could have musical opportunities that she never did.
Both my parents worked together to shape me as a musician. They took me to dozens of concerts, plays and musicals as I was growing up. They scrimped and saved money to pay $1,000 for a locally made lever harp when I was nine years old. It was hard to find harp teachers and money was tight in our family of six. My dad got a book entitled “Teach Yourself to Play the Folk Harp” and he was my harp coach even though he’s not a harpist. I developed a few poor techniques due to having a non-harpist teacher, but they got corrected eventually and his efforts were successful and appreciated. He put up with my poor attitude and rebellious tendencies in my teenage years. In one lesson I recall vehemently stating “I refuse to play any more songs from that Music Theory and Arranging book!” He laughed a little and then told me that some day I would thank him. (That book was very helpful in shaping me into an arranger and improvising music. I got my Bachelor of Music degree in Music Theory and Composition several years later. Thanks, Dad.) I recorded three albums with him and another harpist mentor in my late teens. We performed at countless venues and, while I don’t drink coffee, I love the smell of freshly ground coffee because it reminds me of playing harp and cello music with him on cold winter nights in a coffee shop. My parents were crucial in fostering my love for music and providing happy experiences to grow as a musician.
Between moves from Idaho Falls back to New Mexico many of our belongings were in storage while we waited to sell our old house and buy a new one. My dear friend, the upright piano, was too heavy to move between rental houses and stayed in storage for over 7 months. I was starving for music and desperately missed the piano. My parents found a good deal on a small Wurlitzer Spinet piano after 7 months. The next day I was suddenly “sick” and stayed home from school to play the piano to my heart’s content. However, I forgot I had no music books because they were all still in storage. In that moment as I sat at the piano with no songbooks available, I found I could “hear” complete songs in my head and make them come out of my fingers with full right-hand melodies and improvised left-hand accompaniments. The theory and arranging book, and the I, IV, V chord jam sessions of my childhood, paired with forced time away from the piano, created a beautiful musical explosion of sound. That was a defining moment in my musical development. I learned it’s good to experiment playing songs without written music, and that sometimes it takes a difficult situation to be the catalyst for growth. My parents sold the upright piano a year later since the Wurlitzer Spinet was easier to move, but it didn’t sound nearly as robust as the upright. I always wished for a fancy baby grand piano and put it on my purchase bucket-list. I’m so grateful my husband supported that wish and bought me one shortly after graduating from college. The piano was my first love and my primary instrument.
What influenced my decision to learn the harp? My Dad loved Irish music and would play “The Thistle and Shamrock” program weekly, broadcast via radio from Dublin. I enjoyed that music too and would listen while we ate dinner or washed the dishes together. I remember my dad taking me to a music store when I was nine years old and sitting down in front of a small lap harp. I played around on it for a bit and had fun making lovely music on it so quickly. My dad asked if I’d like to play the harp and I responded with a happy “yes!” It’s been a positive experience, having learned a unique and beautiful instrument. I was awarded a music scholarship at UNM in 1999 based on my folk harp audition. Playing the harp gave me many performance opportunities over the years, being both a solo instrument and a great addition to any ensemble that is as full as the piano and yet much more portable. I have played in orchestras, at art and Renaissance festivals, on the streets busking for tips, in large concert halls and church cathedrals, weddings, funerals, hospice and assisted living facilities, private dinner parties, outdoors in camp music settings, recording studios, and for some visiting royalty from Spain at the UNM president’s house. I earned enough money from gigs and CD sales in high school to pay for a trip to Europe after graduation. I enjoyed being one of 12 harpists in the New Mexico Harp Festival in 2012. This experience started my dreams to create a large harp ensemble comprised of middle or high school students.
There are several difficult issues with the harp, however. The cost of a basic instrument is quite high because it’s complicated to make, has 24-47 strings, and is low in demand. Not many people are willing to pay $1,000-$7,000 for a lever harp, or $25,000+ for a pedal harp, not to mention it requires a large vehicle for transportation. The size and price of the harp limits how many people can invest years of their lives for its study. It’s not a common instrument that music educators are prepared by universities to teach, hence my middle school and high school orchestra directors not knowing what to do with me or how to help me. Further, many beginning/intermediate orchestra songs are not scored to include the harp. It was also a challenge finding teachers because there’s just not a lot of harpists. I have thought about these difficulties and have ideas to make the harp accessible to more students and create a harp program in the public schools. I desire to help young musicians have access to harps and lessons that couldn’t otherwise.
I mentioned the eight teachers I studied with as a child. My parents were some of my first teachers and they were incredible. Here are some ways my development and music education philosophies were influenced by the other six teachers.
Delores Louder was my first piano teacher at age 5. She encouraged sight reading and told me if I could sight read I could always have a job working as a pianist. This proved true as I worked at a Presbyterian Church after college, playing for their congregation and choir. It was a great job and one that helped support my family financially while my husband was still in school. I also have worked as the collaborative pianist for the Volcano Vista High School and Tony Hillerman Middle School choir program. I often think of Delores during rehearsals. She also taught me how to transpose music and had me practice this on all my weekly songs. She made playing the piano fun and I found joy in music.
Mrs. Schliebe was my next piano teacher at age 7. I remember being afraid of her. Mrs. Schliebe’s musical expectation was perfection. I would diligently practice all week, then go to lessons and make mistakes, and those were the focus of the lesson. She would make me repeat the same song over and over and over again for weeks. I came to dread our lessons, becoming timid and afraid of making mistakes. After a few months I told my mom that I hated the piano and wanted to quit. This experience almost squashed my love of music but thankfully my mom quickly came to the rescue and took me away from her studio. And as hard as this experience was for me, it profoundly shaped my views about teaching and perfection. It influenced my opinions on taking a “whole-musician” approach as a music educator. It increased my awareness of my own music students’ mental state and desires to help them overcome mental blocks in their musicianship. It shaped my personal philosophy; music is a tool to help refine us regarding our work ethic, our self-perceptions and confidence, our anxiety in social settings and performances, how we deal with discouragement, how to persevere, and how to deal with songs and people we don’t like. I did not enjoy her as a teacher, but she helped shape and influenced me as a musician and educator.
After my mom’s piano coaching for a few years, we moved to Idaho Falls and met a piano teacher named Deanna Dance. She was patient, kind and helped me find songs that I liked. She was very influential in helping me master playing 4-part hymns, getting better at fingering, and learning how to accompany groups. She healed my fear of teachers, and I learned that a kind teacher can motivate a music student far more than a strict, exacting teacher.
We moved back to New Mexico in my early teens, and I met Debbie Siebert, a trained opera singer and talented pianist. She taught me voice and piano lessons. While I don’t love classical music, she helped foster an appreciation of Bach inventions and fugues. She balanced these genres with indulging my love of New Age piano music. I fell in love with Jim Brickman piano music while at Hastings’ Music and Bookstore, browsing through the CD collections. His music is very syncopated, and she saw these songs as an opportunity to strengthen my counting and rhythm. She taught me that one could master many genres and find the genius in all types of music. She also taught me that students work harder at songs they like and that it is important to balance teaching skills through content that is enjoyable to the student.
During this time, I met Donese Mayfield, a wonderful harp mentor in her early 50’s. My dad and I formed a group with her called “Sweet Breeze” and recorded two albums together. She was a very organized, consistent, talented woman. She was fabulous at marketing herself and being a businesswoman. Later she helped me start playing harp music at Assisted Living facilities for declining patients in hospice care. She helped me get a great paying, flexible job at Ambercare Hospice where I worked for over 15 years as she supervised my work. She taught me some differences between volunteers and professionals and how to appropriately provide music to those who were actively dying. I never “paid” her as a teacher, but she mentored me for years and taught me that there is great influence and benefit in sharing your time and expertise to guide younger musicians.
The last formal music teacher of my youth was Anne Eisfeller, a pedal harpist and teacher at UNM. I studied with her for four years while in the music program, using a school owned instrument. In addition to instruction on how to use the pedals, she corrected my poor harpist habits, refined my technique, taught me how to care for the instrument, and showed me the “French Style” of playing the pedal harp. She encouraged a quiet, calm demeanor and was a very talented musician who understood the harp inside and out. She shared job opportunities with me, which helped improve my pedal harp skills. She rented one of her personal harps to me on several occasions. However, the pedal harp never “spoke to my soul”, and I didn’t love it enough to want to pursue it professionally, nor spend $25,000 for one of my own. Yet Anne taught me to be a harpist who was thorough, on time, professional, and prepared with my music.
In 2012 I decided I wanted to learn the viola, an instrument whose tone I love. I bought an inexpensive viola and taught myself how to read the Alto clef and start bowing. I quickly realized that the viola (and other bowed, string instruments) require more diligent perfection in foundational postures and technique. I studied with two different teachers, Rebecca O’Boyle and Crystal Boyack, over the course of six years. I worked with a local luthier, David Yorgason, who crafted a very nice viola for me. At the end of that time, I was able to play selections from “The Messiah” with a community/church orchestra, which was a satisfying experience. I learned a lot about the viola and myself. I struggled with my fine motor skills and being patient with my growth. I was frustrated with feelings of “sounding bad” and knew that it would take more time than I wanted to devote daily to this craft to get to a level that would make me happy. I became aware of an inner voice that was not speaking very nicely to myself as I would play and practice (who I had somehow muted or tuned out when I was young). I sold the nice viola and stopped taking lessons. But I look back on that period as one of growth that shaped my musical and personal philosophies. I understand how some struggling students might be thinking in their heads when they practice or perform and try to help them become aware of this negative voice. I also aim to point out progress in my students’ musical development, which they might not see on their own. I have learned that acknowledging progress is important in building a healthy, long-lasting relationship with music.
Religion has greatly impacted my musical growth. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We do not have a paid ministry in our church and all willing members serve in various capacities to help the church function smoothly. Our service in various positions (callings) can last from a few months to several years. I’ve had many music callings in our church - organist, choir accompanist, conductor, choir member, music director, children’s group chorister, and have organized four major youth music programs performed outdoors and in camp settings in Wyoming, Colorado and near Santa Fe. I was on the “Lamb of God” production committee that had over 500 people including soloists, chorus singers, orchestra, and production crew. I’ve had opportunities to perform music in church worship services several times a year since I was a young girl. This gave me many chances to “practice” performing in front of large groups of people and now I am rarely nervous when I perform in public. I am grateful I’ve had so many chances to develop my musicianship in a church setting.
While I have loved performing music, I know that I find greater joy in mentoring other musicians and watching them develop. I received my Bachelor of Music degree with an emphasis in Composition and Theory from UNM in 2003, and since then, I have wished I had majored in Music Education. I realized this course of study would improve the quality of my instruction, increase my musical skills and knowledge, and help me gain a better understanding of the broader issues in the field of music education. I’ve learned much from the music teachers I’ve had, and their teachings are incorporated into my own teaching. I am drawn to teaching, as I can clearly see in my mind how to break down difficult concepts and teach them simply, step by step, to mastery. I have five children and have taught all of them to play the piano and sing. I learned many important things from working with my children over the past 20 years, including developing patience when teaching young musicians, and feel ready to be academically trained as a formal music educator.
I have outlined many of my strengths and qualifications for teaching music. I also acknowledge I have many limitations presently. I am largely uneducated formally in the correct methods of teaching musicians. Having taught students privately since age 15 and working in an unpaid church setting for the past 30 years, I have found many things that “worked” but some of these things might not be backed by science or research. I will need to refine my music education philosophies and keep the things that are positive and have merit within the academic body of research and evidence. I will also need to leave behind things from my teaching “experiments” that aren’t conductive to good education practices. I must be open to new ideas, learn new philosophies, and reshape myself as a trained educator who intentionally lesson plans with objectives that allow me to hear or see the learning happening for my students.
I want to improve my weak teaching areas in 3 specific ways. First, I will read every assigned reading in my classes and think deeply about the material, connecting it to past experiences and making changes to my personal philosophies. Second, I will keep a humble attitude while at UNM so I can be teachable with this new information. Last, I will study the psychology of how learners deal with non-musical factors (including discouragement, positive self-talk, work ethic and perseverance, self-perceptions and confidence, anxiety, personal preferences regarding people and songs we do or don’t like) and how music is connected to our growth from the standpoint of psychology and human development.
I love music deeply. I love that music is tied to emotions and can set the mood, lift spirits, and bring comfort. I love that music is a tool that can refine character and develop conscientiousness. I love how music develops the mind and teaches discipline in a fun way. I love noticing music when I walk into stores, recognizing certain composer’s styles, and the art involved in the performing process. I have grown to love practicing music and could spend hours behind my instruments. I fear developing arthritis, thus limiting the music I can play. Music has greatly enriched my life and brought me immense joy. It makes me happiest to share that music with others, especially in the capacity of mentor and music educator.