This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Michael Parsons, Director of Instrumental and Popular Music at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, TN. Michael is also Director of Sound Fuzion, a pop vocal ensemble at the University of Memphis.
In this episode we'll learn more about how Michael uses pop music ensembles like Soundscape, which is a group of 16 instrumentalists and vocalists, to recruit students for Briarcrest's many music ensembles. We'll also get his perspective on what it's like to teach music at a private school vs. a public school.
Our conversation was recorded in August of 2024, just as the new school year was beginning. We've broken it up into two episodes, and this is part two.
Here's Soundscape's YouTube channel
Here's One Voice's YouTube channel

This week Nick Averwater talks with Michael Parsons, Director of Instrumental and Popular Music at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, TN. Michael is also Director of Sound Fuzion, a pop vocal ensemble at the University of Memphis.
In this episode we'll learn about how Michael has incorporated pop music groups and commercial music studies into the music department at Briarcrest, but in a way that enhances the traditional music ensembles.
Our conversation was recorded August, 2024. We've broken it up into two episodes, and this is part one.

This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Gillian Desmarais, who teaches Music Production and Engineering at Harmony Learning Center in Maplewood, MN. Gillian is the founder of Sound Tech Ed, a website that provides resources for music programs that allow students to learn and grow with music technology. She has also been named to the 2024 Yamaha 40 Under 40 list of music educators, and was named 2024 Teacher Of The Year by TI:ME.
In this episode Gillian will tell us more about Harmony Learning Center, the students she teaches there, and the ways in which she customizes the curriculum so that they can excel academically, and musically. She'll also tell us about how she continues to evolve and improve as a music educator.
Our conversation was recorded August 12, 2024. We've broken it up into three episodes, and this is part three.

This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Gillian Desmarais, who teaches Music Production and Engineering at Harmony Learning Center in Maplewood, MN. Gillian is the founder of Sound Tech Ed, a website that provides resources for music programs that allow students to learn and grow with music technology. She has also been named to the 2024 Yamaha 40 Under 40 list of music educators, and was named 2024 Teacher Of The Year by TI:ME.
In this episode Gillian will share some ideas for music educators who want to introduce music technology into their classroom, or expand upon what they are already using.
Our conversation was recorded August 12, 2024. We've broken it up into three episodes, and this is part two.
Here are the different music technology resources Gillian mentions in this episode:
FL Studio
Soundtrap
Garage Band
Launchpad
BandLab
Logic
Ableton Live
Cubase
Ableton Push
Akai MIDI Controllers

This week we continue our look at using technology in music education, as Nick Averwater talks with Gillian Desmarais, who teaches Music Production and Engineering at Harmony Learning Center in Maplewood, MN.
Gillian is the founder of Sound Tech Ed, a website that provides resources for music programs that allow students to learn and grow with music technology. She has also been named to the 2024 Yamaha 40 Under 40 list of music educators, and was named 2024 Teacher Of The Year by TI:ME.
In this episode we'll be learning about Gillian's early interest in music technology, and how that influenced the way she teaches music. We'll also find out which software and web-based programs she uses. We have links to all of these resources below.
Our conversation was recorded August 12, 2024. We've broken it up into three episodes, and this is part one.
Here are the hardware, software, and web-based resources Gillian mentions:
Launchpad
Ableton
Soundtrap
drumbit
Groove Pizza
Chrome Music Lab

This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Theresa Hoover, a music educator, clinician, author, and podcast host.
In the last episode, we learned about how technology, particularly AI, can benefit music educators with things like writing lesson plans and recruitment. This week Theresa will talk about other AI resources that are useful to music educators. We'll also find out more about the concepts behind her book, Empowering Ensembles with Technology, which can be downloaded at the website for F-Flat Books.
Our conversation was recorded August 5, 2024. We've broken it up into two episodes, and this is part two.
Here are the online resources Theresa mentioned:
LyricLab
ChatGPT
Suno
Udio
ChordChord
Hookpad
Padlet
Music Snippet

This week Nick Averwater talks with Theresa Hoover, a music educator, clinician, author, and podcast host.
In this episode, we'll be learning about how technology, particularly AI, can benefit music educators with things like writing lesson plans, recruitment, and more. Theresa is the author of the book, Empowering Ensembles with Technology, which can be downloaded at the website for F-Flat Books.
Our conversation was recorded August 5, 2024. We've broken it up into two episodes, and this is part one.
Here's Theresa's website
Here's Theresa's "Pass The Baton" podcast

This week Nick Averwater talks with Dr. Matthew Arau, Chair of the Music Education department at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and author of the book, Upbeat! Mindset, Mindfulness and Leadership in Music Education And Beyond, published by GIA Publications. Dr. Arau is also the founder of Upbeat Global.

As the 2024-2025 school year gets underway, Dr. Arau will share his ideas for starting the year off right, including ways of defining success, setting realistic goals for yourself and your students, and more.

We've been away for a few weeks while we finished up a two-year renovation project here at Amro Music. We're thrilled with the results, and excited to serve our education partners more effectively than ever. We've posted a video on our YouTube channel that shows some of the improvements that we've made to the store, our repair shop, and our Director Services department, but there's nothing like seeing it all in person, so if you're ever in Memphis, we hope you'll take some time to stop by. We would love to see you.

This week we have the second half of Nick Averwater's conversation with David Davis. The first part of the interview was posted back in May of 2024. David is a Music Teacher at Park Spanish Immersion Elementary School in St. Louis Park, MN, a city of around 50,000 people just west of Minneapolis. In 2023, David was named to the Yamaha 40 Under 40 list of Music Educators.

In this episode David shares his thoughts about music literacy and how it's defined. He'll also tell us what the first few weeks of school is like in his band room. And we'll learn more about the importance of diversity in terms of repertoire, ensembles, and instrumentation in his school's music program.

Here's our conversation with Dr. Anita Collins that was mentioned in the interview.

This week Nick Averwater talks with David Davis, Music Teacher at Park Spanish Immersion Elementary School in St. Louis Park, MN, a city of around 50,000 people just west of Minneapolis. David was named to the 2023 Yamaha 40 Under 40 list of Music Educators.
In this episode we'll learn about the people and experiences that inspired him to become a music educator, and we'll find out about some non-traditional approaches to keep students interested, and increase enrollment and retention in his music ensembles. 
Our conversation was recorded in January 2024. We've broken it up into two episodes, and this is part one.