Professor Noe Marmolejo is a Master Teacher and storyteller who has impacted thousands of students over the course of his teaching career. Noe describes how his path was shaped by his Latino roots and childhood in a small Texas town with parents who both worked in education. Additionally, Noe was heavily influenced by the guidance and mentorship of the men in his community after his father passed away. Throughout his teaching career, Noe has continued to perform professionally as a trumpet player, often intentionally alongside his former students. Join us for this conversation about education, teaching philosophy, musicianship, discipline, mentorship, and the importance of continuous learning and reflection as an educator.
Professor Noe Marmolejo is a Master Teacher and storyteller who has impacted thousands of students over the course of his teaching career. Noe describes how his path was shaped by his Latino roots and childhood in a small Texas town with parents who both worked in education. Additionally, Noe was heavily influenced by the guidance and mentorship of the men in his community after his father passed away. Throughout his teaching career, Noe has continued to perform professionally as a trumpet player, often intentionally alongside his former students. Join us for this conversation about education, teaching philosophy, musicianship, discipline, mentorship, and the importance of continuous learning and reflection as an educator.
Thank you for joining us today on Paths in Progress. I'm your host, Carrie Young. On this podcast, people in a variety of career fields, talk about their journey from choosing their college, deciding which majors and minors to pursue, their first jobs out of college, and all of the hurdles, detours and victories along their path through today. Our goal is to help students hear about a variety of exciting opportunities out there and understand what day-to-day life is like in these careers. I hope you enjoy and learn from our story today. Thanks for listening. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are here today with Professor Noe Marmolejo. He is a professor of jazz studies at the University of Houston. He has his Bachelor's degree in music education and his Master's degree is in performance and conducting. Noe, thanks so much for being here today.
Noe:Thank you, Carrie. It's great to get to do this with you and I know that, having listened to many of the podcasts so far that you're doing really well with this, so I appreciate it.
Carrie:Oh, thank you.
Noe:Yeah, absolutely.
Carrie:I appreciate that. I know you're a busy guy, so I appreciate your time. So can you take us back to wherever you'd like to start your musical journey story and let us know how you got to where you are?
Noe:Yeah. I was born in a little bitty town in south Texas, Alice, Texas, near Corpus Christi. Very fortunate to grow up in a little bitty town, that had a very good band program, music program, the supervisory in music and the head band director at the high school was a gentleman by the name of Bryce Taylor, who was one of my very earliest mentors. It was a great opportunity for all the students that decided to go into band to get to work with him. He was, again, one of the legendary iconic figures in Texas band history. He just recently passed away. He was in his mid nineties when he passed, very, I'm sorry, had a long life and very much influential to a lot of musicians. Not just us as students, but to other musicians, other band directors and things like that. For me, it was sort of this amazing sort of crystaline moment. I remember the way they did beginner band in Alice. We would have a something like six week session where all the elementary school kids who were moving into the sixth grade, would meet at the band hall at the high school. We would split up into groups of either brass and woodwinds, percussion and, you know, specific teachers from the district would teach all the beginning processes for all the elementary school kids in the town. So, you know, we were there learning our notes, learning our fingers, learning how to sit, doing all the normal posture things. Typical of a good program. And towards the end of it, like the fifth week and the sixth week, Mr. Taylor announced to the entire group, at the end of the day that we were gonna have auditions, whatever that meant. At that point, I didn't know what that meant. But we had auditions for the end of the camp concert that the beginning band was gonna play. Selected students were going to pick a line from our Belwin Band Builder book and play for the entire camp at the end of the week. And then, they would write an arrangement of whatever tune that we, individuals that wanted to audition, chose to play that one of the guys would write an arrangement of it for the rest of the band while we were the soloist.
Carrie:Oh, wow. That's quite a lot for kids who just picked up an instrument.
Noe:Exactly right.
Carrie:Geez.
Noe:Yeah, exactly. When I think about it now, I think, Wow, that was pretty gutsy. But you know, Yeah. Said, Okay, who? Raise your hand if you wanna audition? And I just raised my hand. Sure. Okay, I'll audition. And so he goes, I remember he called me, Okay, Marmolejo, what are you gonna apply for us? And I go, Well, I'm gonna play line number 23 Oh, Susannah, something like that. And so, that afternoon I go home and I start hammering the piece because I know I'm gonna have to play it for the whole class, everybody. And so I go in there and there was like six or seven, 10 kids that said they wanted to try and they were only gonna pick three, I think, or something like that. Really, Again, competitive for little kids. So yeah, I go in there and I played Oh, Susanna and he said at the end of everybody playing, he says, Okay, tomorrow morning, the list of the people who we've chosen will be up on my office window. Of course, the next morning, I mean, I'm running out, I'm getting outta the car as fast as I can to go check to see what the heck I got. I'm thinking, I mean, how could I not get it? I mean, of course, you know, But anyway, so I go there and sure enough, there's my name. And now I'm thinking, Okay, now what am I gonna do now? So to end the story, here we are in South Texas. It's summer, you know, it's hot. I mean, it's really hot, miserable hot. And the end of the session concert was going to be played out on the tennis courts, which are, by the way, it was like a asphalt, thus like a highway. The band would set up and we would, each of us that it was time, Okay, we're gonna do the soloist now here's first soloist blank. Here's the next soloist. Next soloist. Noe Marmolejo. He's gonna play Oh, Susanna. And I just pick up my horn, I walk over there, stand there, play the tune. The band played its arrangement with me. I get all the way through it. It was fine, I guess. And when it was over the reaction from the audience, the clapping and the whistling, you know, at South Texas, whatever, you know, so the clapping and the whistling and the cat calling and the whistles and all that stuff just went on and on and on for all of us. And it was literally that moment that I went, this is what I'm gonna do. It was literally it, you know, before the sixth grade even started. So at a very early age, I said, That's it. I'm done. This is where I'm going. This is what this is.
Carrie:Now Noe, I've known you like almost 15 years now, I think. I have not heard the story.
Noe:Really.
Carrie:How is that possible? For people listening who know Noe, you hear stories, right?
Noe:I'm a storyteller.
Carrie:I haven't heard the story. I'm so glad you told it.
Noe:It was, I mean, I'm getting goosebumps right now thinking about it. You know, it was,
Carrie:Oh wow.
Noe:It was really crystalline. It was like a decision was made, you know? And I was just like, yeah. So I was very focused on that. Of course, at that point, I was very interested in other things as a kid. I mean, my dad passed away when I was in the eighth grade. And so my mom, single mom, you know, and, I never had to want. I mean, my mom, if I wanted something in, it was specifically if it was something about education or something, my mom was certainly gonna do whatever she had to do. I remember being way into astronomy. She bought a telescope, you know, from Sears or whatever it was. And I remember I would spend hours and hours and hours at night, outside, in the backyard. Because Alice is out in the middle of nowhere, so it's a dark sky. Yeah. I mean, we could see the Milky Way, and I remember memorizing Nebula numbers and I mean, I was like way into it and thinking I was gonna become an astronomer. I had an uncle who lived in Edinburgh and in those days, now it's UT Rio Grande. But in those days it was called Pan-American College and they had an astronomy program. I was really thinking about going down there to get my degree in astronomy. And then when I found out how much math it required, I said, Well, there, that's not gonna work.
Carrie:that'll do it.
Noe:Yeah. I can't do this So, my mom was an English teacher, so I was always well read. I grew up in a Catholic home. I was an altar boy. I was a good boy. It was just almost perfect and, in terms of my behavior.
Carrie:So When did that change?
Noe:Yeah, when I, when I went to drastically when I went to college. That was, that was growing up with two educators as parents. My dad was a principal. Yeah, I was, he was the principal at the elementary school that I went to. That was kind of tough. But it was a different time and times are so different now than then. I mean, it was a different way growing up. But like I said, my mom was always very supportive of doing what she needed to do in order for us, both my brother and I, who was also a musician, to have whatever we needed, that she would get it. You know, And, and we would work to, I cut lawns, I threw newspapers, I did all sorts of stuff to help. I didn't just say, Yeah, mom, go get it. You know? But, that was part of the training, you know, in those days, you know, and again, in those days, it was safe as a child who was sort of safe to be out, you know?
Carrie:Even for me too, we would go out and then just be like, be home around dark. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then they had no idea where we were.
Noe:Exactly. Yeah. That was it. It was like, go outside and play. So we were never vitamin D deficient. And my dad had a very shrill whistle, that he could whistle really loud. And it was primary because, in those years before he passed, he was a cancer victim. He had thyroid cancer. Basically, when he came to MD Anderson, the voice got taken away. And so the only way he could call on us was to whistle. You could be miles away and hear it. It was so, you knew it was time to run home, not walk, you ran home, because if you didn't run home. Yeah.
Carrie:Yeah. So as you were looking to go to college, were you envisioning life as a performer or were you envisioning more being an educator?
Noe:The thrill was always playing, and I was already playing, I wouldn't say successfully, but I was already playing when I was like a sophomore or junior in high school, with some of the local orchestras, in the area. After my dad passed away, a lot of the men in the town who were my dad's friends watched over my brother and I, you know, not on top of us all the time, but they were watching us. I know they were. And one of the men was a guy named Mr. Bernal, who owned a bakery in town. It was run by the whole family. And Mr. Bernal had an orchestra. I remember he called my mom one day, when I think I was a junior, maybe sophomore, but he called my mom and said, you know, I was wondering, do you think that that, Noe, he would wanna play in my band? I got some gigs to play that I need another trumpet player. And my mom was like, Ooh, I don't know. I mean, I don't You think he can do it? He goes, Yeah, he can do it. He's a good trumpet player, blah, blah, blah. So I remember, you know, getting in the van with the whole family and drove down to Benavides, Texas, which is even smaller than Alice. And we played our first gig there in a gymnasium, I think. It was like a, not like a homecoming, but it was something like that. And Carrie, I was literally, the music that is specifically labeled orchestra in Mexico is insanely complicated. It's just like, DS signs, double DS signs, double codas, double dcs. I mean, it literally all night long I was completely, utterly, completely lost all night long. I was just sitting there, just going, Where are we? Where are we? I mean, had no idea what was going on. And I was so dejected. I remember that that first time I was dejected beyond belief. I thought, What am I doing? This is stupid. I'm not a good trumpet player. I don't even know what I'm doing. You know? And we're going home. It's after the gig, you know, going down the two lane roads down south Texas and the farm to market roads and things. And Mr. Beal said, you know, and he had a really thick, thick accent. And he goes, What's the matter, Marmolejo? Like that? And I said, God, Mr. Bernal, I was lost all night long. It's so embarrassing. And he goes, he handed me 15 bucks for the gig. It was 15 bucks. And I said, I can't take that money, Mr. Bernal. I didn't, I didn't play. I was lost all night long. And he goes, No, you take the money Marmolejo. And by the way, that won't be the last time you're lost. Okay. And so, you know, I mean, Okay. And so, and I did a number of gigs with Mr. Bernal's band and I learned a lot about just, I bet, you know, just, it was like you're fighting to just stay relevant, you know, in the group. Cuz they all knew it. He was a trumpet player too. Sounded like the old style trumpet players of the day. Like Harry James had that beautiful wide vibrato, very romantic sound. I wasn't that kind of trumpet player, but it was amazing to just be in that sort of that environment where you are being held to some sort of standard about what you have to do. And I remember that was the last time I got lost in that band. I remember asking Mr. Bernal, not the very next day, but then very next week I went to his house and I said, Hey, can I borrow that book just to look at it so I could try to figure out how to do it? And he goes, Sure. And he gave it to me. I literally sat there days going through the charts, trying to figure out, okay, I got it from here, I gotta go to there and from there I gotta go here. So I was very diligent and and responsible about like, I'm not gonna be lost like that again. You know? So, yeah.
Carrie:Well, and clearly you had some innate inner motivation. Yeah, too. I think so. Cause a lot of kids would not have taken that and taken the time to sit down and really try to be there.
Noe:Yeah. Well it was very, it's a very like soul sucking of Like at the end of it, I literally thought that that's it. This is not where I belong. I can't do this. I'm not any good at this. I was lost. You had a guy like that who, like a lot of those men did, at least in my town. And again, friends of my father, I think they felt like they owed my dad something. You know, that were very encouraging. I mean, but Bernal could have just said, Okay man, well thanks. I'm never gonna hire you again But, he wasn't like that. There was a real mentoring thing about the men in that town.
Carrie:So what were you thinking then as you were applying for college and deciding kind of where to go and what you wanted to start doing?
Noe:Well, now it was really funny because, in 1969 I made all state band. I didn't place very high. Made the second symphonic band, not the top one. But I was very competitive in the auditions, for the region auditions and all area auditions. I missed going to area in my sophomore year by one chair. So I thought, okay, you know how to do this.
Carrie:That's good motivation.
Noe:Very motivating. but my senior year, I made it to state. The first night that you're there, you're auditioning for your positions in all the organizations. In fact, that was one of my first real time, experiences with somebody who was connected to somebody who at that point I didn't really know, I'd only heard about him, but would eventually know is Eddie Green. One of his students, one of his trumpet players was in the auditions. And he was from Lake Highlands, which was a highfalutin high school band program. He was a 10th grader. I was a senior. So we did the audition and then, we stepped outside, let the judges do what they do in terms of the numbers. And then the monitor, who by the way, was my band director from Alice comes out and he goes, All right, we need the following numbers. And one of the numbers was me. I'm thinking, Okay, that could be, we need to break a tie, or I'm on the cusp on the back end. I could be at the top of the top of the second band, or I could be at the bottom of the first band and they're trying to figure out which one. So I go in there and it was really scary. Fortunate for me, the excerpt that they picked for the time breakers or whatever it was, was the second movement of the Persichetti symphony for band, which we were playing at Alice. The second movement is a complete trumpet solo. It's what it is. I already knew it. I mean, I knew it really well. And I think back at those times, and I don't even try to think about why, but I always had a real knack for being expressive on lyrical pieces. I had a real sort of knack for being able to do appropriate rubato and appropriate lengthening of phrases and lengthening of notes. I remember always getting comments from the band judges about, How do you know that? And of course, you know, we didn't have internet. I didn't have a record. I said, I don't know. I just feel it that way.
Carrie:Did you listen a lot?
Noe:No, I didn't. I think the first, the very first record I really listened to as a trumpet player was Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. And it was only because my cousin, who was also a coronet player who I mean he was completely a major fave of mine. He was a great guy. His neighbor in that little bitty town called San Diego. And we're out in the street playing, throwing ball or whatever, and here comes Avalino. And he goes, Hey man, you guys need to come into my house and check out this album. I'm like, What? I mean, I didn't know what that meant, you know? So we go in and there's Avalino and he's holding on to the album cover of Miles Davis', Kind of Blue. It's 1959, you know, I mean, that's when that recording was done. And I was like, it's a black man on the cover. Wow. I what, You know, in Alice, Texas, there were like maybe two black families. I mean they were beloved in town. There were just great, great families. So going into Abileno's room and we're listening to Miles Davis and of course at that point I didn't know John Coltrain. I didn't know Cannonball Adderley. I didn't know Bill Evans. I didn't know anything of that stuff. And I was like, Wow, that's like really interesting. I didn't have any experience in jazz band in high school. But anyway, back to the whole thing about just having this knack for interpreting, I can't tell you that I spent time listening to recordings cuz it just wasn't available and it wasn't accessible like it is now. We go to YouTube, Spotify. So here I go into the audition for the Allstate thing, and we play that excerpt, and I nailed it. Thank you. We go outside again, and then they come out and they start reading the list. And I'm waiting for my name. Waiting for a name, Waiting for a name. No name, no name. I'm going like, Whoa. Now We're in the top five. I'm going like, Whoa, wait a minute. I made top five. We'll go. And finally it's like top three. I'm going, Oh my goodness. And finally the last name was mine. And I was first chair in 1970 allstate Band in Dallas, Texas. And it was William D. Ravelli from Michigan was the conductor. From that experience at TMEA, I started getting bombarded with scholarship offers and letters.
Carrie:We should probably pause and explain to people listening outside of Texas, that being first chair, Allstate and the state of Texas were banned is huge. Band in Texas is very different than it is in the rest of the country, Right? So people listening in other states that may not resonate in the same way, but in Texas, that is incredibly significant.
Noe:I mean I've always looked at it as Wow, what a fortunate experience or what a great opportunity. But at the same time, and again, I don't know Carrie, where I get this. I mean, I was certainly getting a lot of advice from either musicians or, again, I keep harping on the whole thing about my dad's friends and stuff. But I mean, there was always this thing about: you gotta keep working, you gotta keep working, you gotta keep working, you know? Yeah. And I remember, I don't know what the exact words were, Somebody said this, and at first I thought it was a kind of a cruel comment to make to a kid. But I think about it now, and I think I value more now that I'm as old as I am. Where the guy said, Hey man, congratulations on the first chair to all state. Oh, thanks. I appreciate it. He goes, Hey man, that's over with now. You can let that go. Oh. And I was like, Wow, dude. That's a little rough. But then, you know, I think he's right. I mean, the reality of it that's interesting over with, and, you know, it's a beautiful thing. You've been bestowed on it. You earned it, you worked for it, whatever. But what are you doing for me now? I mean, that's everything. What are you doing now? Yeah. It's great to read your clippings, but. Inevitably within the next three years, I received a good dosage of that from the person we were gonna probably talk about a little bit, from my teacher at SMU, Rick Gianguilio. So anyway, so I was getting a lot of offers. In those days, we didn't have community colleges. We had junior colleges, Right. Delmar College in Corpus was a very fine music school. David White taught there. Yeah. Yeah. David White is from my hometown. He and I, We're both from Alice.
Carrie:Yes, I remember.
Noe:The guy that ended up becoming the chair of the department at SMU was a guy named Eugene Bonelli. And then he ended up becoming the chair of the department at CCM in Cincinnati. I, I'm with literally following'em all around. It was inadvertent, but I was literally following'em around. So I ended up going for two years to Delmar and had a great experience there. There were a lot of my friends that had gone there who were all staters, great trumpet players. It was a great trumpet section. We were very much, you know, challenging each other all the time. And I got to play in the Corpus Christi Symphony. I had to join the union. I was playing with adults and professionals. The conductor was a Bernstein protege by the name of Maurice Perez. Very demanding individual and so that was a great experience.
Carrie:I think you just made a great point when considering colleges in your location, because sometimes the colleges that are outside of these big like Mecca cities, that we think about going for the arts and we're not going to New York or Chicago or wherever. Sometimes these schools in smaller areas have these partnerships with their local symphony orchestras or their opera companies or theater companies. So that's something for students to keep in mind that if you're looking for something outside of maybe what your dream city is, these smaller communities sometimes have these incredible partnerships where you can have these professional performing opportunities that are outside of your university campus.
Noe:I mean, I understand being swallowed up by the glitz, you know, of of Sure. Big cities or big time programs. I often tell students, I said, you know, I mean if you're wanting to go to Northwestern, Curtis, Oberlin, or Eastman, wherever that's the name of the places, they're all the obvious ones. Those are great places to go. I think you should experience, particularly if you're from Texas, I think it's really critical to experience an education outside of Texas to get a whole different perspective. Cuz it totally is a totally different perspective. Yeah. Because it's not as band oriented, and I'm not saying anything about bad about band. I'm a byproduct of that. But I think, a lot of times, I tell them, Look man, get your undergraduate degree and get it in education. Unless you're one of those 0.5% persons that's gonna get a gig, with a major symphony orchestra. And I mean, I wish you well, if you can, that's great. Do it. But, when you graduate and if you have the gumption and you have the where for all go get a master's degree and don't do it in education. Do it in something else. Do it in a performance area where you're filling those needs of your artistic soul, and work with a great mentor and work with a great community of musicians at some of the other more elite places. Because that's where you can begin, you know, your two, two and a half, three year process of networking and making the connections so that if you do have the lean into the performance world that you know you have a better chance. Unless you're exceptional as an undergraduate. So a lot of times I think, Hey, man, go do what you want to do in your upper level degrees.
Carrie:Yeah, and you can always refine your conducting, course. You can take music at classes, course you can do all that other stuff of in conjunction course
Noe:And that's actually rather simple now to do that, you know? I think that that's really critical with sometimes students, being starstruck, you know, and That's great. Going to Delmar, for a trumpet player wasn't that great as it relates to me blossoming beyond what I'd gotten in high school. The guy there was not that great of a trumpet teacher, but he was an encourager. I mean, he really encouraged me, and also held me over the fire sometimes. Mm-hmm. So that was a great experience for me, and I made lifelong friends there who, till this day, great teachers, there were some really fine musicians in that school. So that was lucky in many ways. So then I auditioned for SMU and on one level, and I'm not sure why I thought go to SMU, but I just thought, go to SMU. A lot of that was just pretty much luck. I mean, there was just luck involved in that. It was SMU where I really began the process of getting into a place of what I think about music, how I think about music, how I view what it is that I know about music. The nurturing of learning the expression about music as it relates to verbalizing it. And having enough information that you don't verbalize from a can of simple nothing to like, it's substantial, you know? And I give all of that to my experience working with Richard Gianguilio, who was the principal trumpet player of the Dallas Symphony at the time. Originally from Philadelphia. Short, little Italian guy. And I tell you, that first year with him, I think I was very fortunate that either I was stubborn, or I just I had no other way of figuring out what to do. But that could have very easily been a year where I decided I'm out of this.
Carrie:Which some students choose to do, right?
Noe:Yeah. And by the way, the world doesn't stop spinning, you know what I mean? The world's gonna continue to spin. Yeah. It finds something, follow your bliss, be passionate about whatever, all the advice fragments, you know. But it was it was Rick Gianguilio, who totally tore me to shreds. I mean, literally every lesson for a full year was utter dissection and deconstruction of me.
Carrie:Can you tell your story about that? I love this story.
Noe:This is like, and I've told this story like a million times. We had a meeting of all the studio, all the Trump players, and we met to discuss our lessons, in terms of what day we're gonna take him, what time we're gonna take him, and what we were gonna play on that first lesson. And then subsequently, you know, the assignments would start pouring in. And so, we're in the meeting and I'm sitting there waiting to take my turn. He goes, All right, so, Noe Marmolejo, and I've raised my hand and he goes, what do you wanna play? What day do you wanna do it? Are you available at 10 o'clock in the morning on Wednesday or something like that? And whatever the date and time was, he said, Yeah, I can make it that time. So, okay. And he goes, So what are you gonna play for me? I think maybe I projected that I was being a rather kind of flippant, maybe, I don't know. I said, you know, I'll play Charlier II and I'll play some Hindemith. That's all I said, you know? And he looked at me kinda like, Oh, okay. And by the way, he wrote down everything in his notebooks. You know, a lot of guys don't write down what their students assignments are. So the next week they forget. They don't even know. So they go on to something else. But anyway, so no, he wrote down everything which you realized later that you were kept to your word, you know? I remember get to school about eight o'clock and like slowly, methodically, carefully warming up, playing fragments from both the Charlier and the Hindemith, cuz I'd played the Hindemith and recital at Delmar. So now it's time for me to go to the door and I go to the door and knock on the door and he says, Come in. I walked in and there he's sitting at his desk. It was this long sort of tube of a room and it was in the basement at smu. And there was a little window at the top of the end of the room, which you could see people's feet walking by on the sidewalk. Anyway, so he goes, well, what do you wanna play first? And I said, Well, I guess I'll start with the Charlier, you know, I said like that. And so the Charlier number two is entitled You Steal, which is about style. It's a rubato piece. It's supposed to be very stylized and stuff. And it's very melodic. It's in the key D flat, and it starts on the me, on the F of d flat. Okay. So, and it's on the beat one, so it's like beda. So like that. So he goes, All right, go ahead. So I, you know, Okay, here we go, buddy. Here we go, buddy. Here we go. And I go, Beda. And he stops me after the third note, he says, Stop. And I go, and I'm like, What? Oh, okay. Was it already bad? What's going on? And he goes, You know what, go ahead and transpose that up a step. And I'm thinking up a step, What's a step up from D flat? Oh, E flat And I said, Okay, the first note is not f it's a G. So by the way, all that thinking, by the way, should tell you only one thing. Noe Marmolejo does not know how to transpose up a step.
Carrie:Well, and especially doing it on the spot when you're not expect to get totally throw people off, right?
Noe:So I go, I'm gonna give it the old college try, I'm gonna try to make it. And of course, I'm like all over the place. He stops and I can see the frown right now. I'm sort of exaggerating, but I mean, you see the frown on his face and he goes, So you can't transpose up a step. And I said, Well, actually, Mr. Gianguilio, I just started working on transposition. And in defense of myself, I said, but I'll tell you what, I'll do this for you next week, transposed. And then he just gives me a nod, barely says, Hmm, something like that. And he goes, All right, well go ahead and start again. I go, Right, okay, here we go, Beat da, da da. And he goes, Stop. He stops me again, the same place. And I go, Oh, no. What is he gonna ask me now? And he goes, he went to the Paris Conservatory, which you have to solfege. Okay? I was gonna try to be clever and say fixed removable, do But I didn't open my mouth and say, You might not, Yeah, I didn't open my mouth and say, I said, Okay, let's see the first note's an F and the D flat, That would be me. And then the next note is a dflat, which would be do. Okay? Again, taking too long, which by the way means only one thing. You don't know how to solfege or at least very well. I said, Me, he do again, folding, just terrible. And he goes, so are you not that good at solfege? And I said, You know, not on sight. I just said something like that. And so then I go, But I'll solfege it for you next week, I promise. And he goes, Hmm, okay, so start again. And I'm thinking, Okay, is he gonna let me finish? He's gonna let me play the fourth note. I don't know. So I start going d da da, and he stops me again, the same exact spot, and he goes, Transpose it up a fourth. And I go, and I'm thinking, I couldn't do it up a step. Now you're asking me to go up a fourth? I'm thinking, Okay, I'm trying to think, Okay, what's a fourth up from D Flat? You know? I mean, literally, I'm completely disarmed, utterly destroyed. And now at this point, I'm just standing there. You know, I mean, I've said what I'm gonna say about up a step. I've said what I'm gonna say about solfege. I'm not gonna utter another fricking word. I'm just standing there just like, Hmm. And I'm like, destroyed. Totally. And then so he looks at his watch, and this is, by the way, the conversation that you and I are having here is exactly the amount of time that it took. And he looks at his watch and he goes, Well, that took about three minutes, I guess, the lesson's over then. And I was like, Whoa. Okay. You can leave. So all you hear is me open my horn case, putting the horn in, closing it, snapping the snaps, going to the door, opening the door, pulling the door open, and it's creaking like in a haunted house. I open it, I walk out the door and you hear it slam. I go to the bathroom and I throw up. Oh no. And almost every lesson that year. I had a bathroom moment of throwing up before I went in, and I was an utter nervous wreck, just completely destroyed. And every time I would prepare something, he would go, Well, okay, that's fine. But can you do it this way? I mean, he was always adapting, adapting, adapting, changing, adapting, never letting me get comfortable with anything. And I remember years later, I met him at a convention, a trumpet convention. I walked up to him and I said, Mr. Gianguilio. And he turned around and he sees me, and he goes, Whoa. Hey Noe, how's it going? Da da da. And he looks at me, he goes, Hey, you can call me Rick. It's okay. And I looked at him, I said, Oh, no, I'm not gonna call you Rick. You're Mr. Gianguilio to me. And for some reason I looked at him and I said, Have you always been the short? I said that to him. And he goes, What do you mean? I said, This is how tall I've been forever. And I goes, You know, it's really weird, man. Every time I took lessons from you, I thought you were like freaking looming tall over me. He goes, I was never taller than you, man. Just the image. You know?
Carrie:So how did that change you as a musician?
Noe:Trying to be self-sufficient. You know, he goes, Hey, man, 99% of what you're gonna do as a musician, you're gonna be by yourself. If you're doing it right. Mm. And I remember telling him I said, Man, you, you roughed me up pretty good that first year. And he goes, What? No, man, I liked you. And I'm going like, No, you didn't
Carrie:What'd you do to people you didn't like?
Noe:Yeah, exactly. And I knew people, he kicked my roommate out of his studio, made him go to somebody else. And I can't imagine how bad that must have been. But again, what did I learn? It was just like, first of all, being self-sufficient is one of the main things. And then you really taught me the thought process of not just, Okay, here are the notes, here's the rhythms. Maybe some crescendos, maybe some decrescendos, you know, the details. He taught me about the details. Because you never knew what kind of detail he was gonna be wanting, you know? In the beginning it was more about keeping him off your back in a sense, keeping'em off your back. My brain was completely opened up. Like I told you early on, I mean, I was always very well read. I was already reading philosophy books in like fifth and sixth grade. I was reading Eastern Philosophy, which would've killed my mom if she knew. And finding sort of this simpatico with Eastern philosophy because there seemed to be a connection to the thought process of the Eastern philosophy specifically, to art and music. Like it's connected somehow, you know? Today, you know, some of the words of that specific sect of Buddhism, like zen, you know, the word zen is overused. So ridiculous, like thrown around. You don't even know what it means when some people talk about it, right? Oh, that was such a zen,
Carrie:It's like a buzz word.
Noe:Like, Oh, that was such a zen moment. Really. Do you even know what zen is? But, the whole philosophy of being a creative, has always driven me. It's always driven me. Heck, in my jazz history classes, I can't tell you how often I'm quoting Grout or Bernstein or people that are not jazz musicians, because it's fundamental. It's just fundamental. I want very much to be as well rounded as I possibly can be. But he was, I owe him more than anybody because I didn't have a father figure really. Bryce Taylor, my band director in high school was my first real father figure, after my dad passed away. And then after that, it was Rick Gianguilio, and, and Rick Gianguilio was really the really true, true father figure. Even though there wasn't a parental relationship. It wasn't that, it was just, he was, yeah, he was a, he was a guiding light in a sense, and he was maybe doing it inadvertently. He didn't know. I mean, he may not have known what the impact on me was gonna be. And, and it was not until many years later that I pronounced that to him. You know, even though I know I've known for a long, long time. The year after I left, I knew that that was a profoundly fundamental experience that I had with him, even though sometimes it was kind of scary, you know?
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. So, you ended up going to graduate school. How did you make the decision to go to graduate school, and how did you decide with programs where to go?
Noe:Yeah. I finished my senior recital at SMU. And I remember the lesson after the senior recital, Rick, says to me, So what are you gonna do? And then I said, Well, I'm gonna apply for jobs, here in Texas for band jobs. And he goes, Really? And it was kind of a little bit of a, what are you even wasting your time doing? That kind of,
Carrie:You mean public school teaching band jobs? Okay.
Noe:And he goes, you can't, you can't do that. You gotta apply for graduate school. You need to do that. You need to keep going. You're on a roll right now. You need to keep doing it. And I was like, Ugh, okay. So I applied to a couple of different places, but at places that I really didn't really care to go. As I mentioned earlier, I knew that Eugene Benelli was a chair of the department at CCM. I'd never been to Cincinnati. I didn't do a live audition. I sent a taped audition. They accepted it. For some reason, you would think that they wouldn't, but they did. And I got accepted. Luckily, knock on wood for me, I never, through my entire collegiate career, ever paid a single cent to school. Mm. Yeah. I was in scholarship on all of them and I was smart enough to avoid the probation or the revocation acts.
Carrie:You gotta know your limits Sure. And what you have to do. Yeah.
Noe:That experience at CCM was for me, not so much about trumpet, but more about the academia, I mean the hardcore history mm-hmm. a lot about the history. We got to do a production with the Orchestra of Schoenberg's, Moses and Aaron, which is a massive piece. Hmm. And we were performing it to celebrate the centennial of an institution across the street from CCM called Hebrew Union. It's a Jewish college. They were celebrating their hundredth year. And in conjunction with their celebration, we were gonna mount this production of Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron. I didn't play first trumpet on that, and I'm gonna be honest with you, I mean, I don't know if I coulda done it. The guy that ended up playing it, one of my colleagues named Mike Bucallo. Utterly and completely virtuosic trumpet part, it's like insanely difficult. And he absolutely killed on it. I think we performed it either two or three times. And Schoenberg's son was there. We had a whole year in preparation in terms of the academia. We had classes that were dedicated to Schoenberg and the music of Schoenberg, and certainly specifically Moses and Aaron. So it was interdisciplinary as it relates to the curriculum that was associated with the performance of the music. And again, the massive production. It was multidisciplinary, we had the dance department. We had obviously the orchestra. We had the choir. I mean, it was huge. And we had one of the set designers from the Kennedy Center came and did the sets. The orchestra is on the stage and it spills down into the pit. It's massive. It's a massive orchestra. Hmm. The music is insane. And the guy that played Moses at that time, was this famous, famous baritone by the name of George Londen. That part is a Sprechstimme, which is a spoken, you know, there's not singing. It's spoken. I know you know that. Yeah. Yeah. So it comes a time that George London and the other, I can't remember the other guy's name too, that played Aaron, came in and I'm not exaggerating one iota. The moment that George London stepped into the halls at CCM, he was Moses. I mean, he walked in with the staff. He did not drop character. He was the whole time. I mean, he is like really freaky. Oh, wow. And the first words that come out of the opera, the very first sound that you hear in the opera is Moses screaming Aaron's name. I mean, like screaming loud. It just shatters the room. I mean, I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it, but I mean, I will never, ever be in anything like this, you know? It was a great experience. And again, academically that that school was absolutely killing. I mean, we had our oral exams at the end of the session. We had, I think it was a 50 minute oral exam, and they had different weekends that you had went to do it. They assigned you weekend. I think there were two weekends before mine, and the attrition rate was like 85%. They were folding on people. I mean, like hardcore. You have a panel, you know, committee and it's like your area, the trumpet, history, theory, musicology, and then they have that one guy who's trying to get everybody off your back just so that you can keep going. And I mean, seriously, it was like scary. And I mean, one of the trumpet players and I worked probably every night for six months, trying to figure out how we were gonna survive this. I walked in there completely gassed. Like, I was like, just, I don't, I couldn't remember anything. I sat down and go, I don't remember anything. I don't even know what I'm talking about. The very first question was from the history guy. And he goes, Okay, let's begin. And he goes, trace opera from its beginnings to the present.
Carrie:Oh. Just, you know, just do that real quick.
Noe:Right out there, you know. I was ready for that one. When we were talking about our panels, I'm going like, what's this guy into? And they were, Hey, man, that guy's a hip opera guy. You better be ready for opera. And so I did it. I got through it. And he asked about nationalism, and I remember I kind of folded a little bit on nationalism when it came to a American composer. I said, You know, we got Copeland. And even though Dvorak wasn't really American, he wrote American themes. And I was like sitting there going, Well, who else is there? But I couldn't come up with a name. And he looked at me, he goes, The unanswered question. He just said that to me: the unanswered question. And I'm thinking, You're right, I'm not answering your question. And I couldn't remember, What are you talking about? The unanswered question? The unanswered question. I said, Okay, well, Bernstein didn't write that piece, but Bernstein's nationalistic, he's, nah, not really, You know, that he's a conductor and musical theater. I'm going like, No, God, he's more than that. You know that. And so anyway, I couldn't answer him, so I went on to the next guy, and in the middle of the questioning from the theory guy, I remembered, Oh, and I turned to the guy and I said, Charles Ives. And he goes, Thank you. And I went on, you know, but not unscathed. So they asked me to leave and I came back in after they called me back in and he says, All right, there's a few questions about the theory, but we're gonna pass you. And I was like, thank God, you know, so I got through it. All that stuff to this day, I remember all of it.
Carrie:Well, the fact that you took so much time to study months in advance, I think a lot of people don't do that.
Noe:You're right.
Carrie:I think it's safe to say.
Noe:85% attrition rate. I would imagine a lot of people didn't really study that.
Carrie:Yeah. I mean, if you knew that was coming, then maybe people would approach that a little differently. So you had thought about getting a job teaching prior to going to grad school. So as you were going through grad school, what were you kind of thinking about? Were you thinking like, Okay, I, maybe I am gonna perform? Or were you thinking when I'm done with this, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna teach? Did you have that in your head the whole time?
Noe:I think the second option is what I was thinking. If I was thinking it. I'm gonna be honest with you, it's terrible. But I don't think, I was thinking any of that. I was just thinking, I'm doing this right now, this is what I'm doing. I'm gonna try to finish this.
Carrie:Right. Yeah. I think that's normal though, right? Did you feel like a lot of your peers at CCM were focused more on a performance career?
Noe:Yeah. A lot of them were performance majors, with aspirations obviously. And a bunch of my trumpet player friends did really well. I mean, two of them, Dale Orris and Jeff Fulks both played in Buddy Rich's band. They hit the big, you know, and they're great trumpet players to this day. Both of'em are still playing. I mean, the trumpet players there were great, really great players. There was a bunch of'em that ended up going to New York and playing in the pits.
Carrie:Can you talk about, kind of what you were talking about before, even if your intent is to go back and teach and talking about getting the performance degree, can you talk to students who may be in a similar situation who may feel like, you know, I may not want the full blown performance career. So can you talk about how you think getting that performance graduate degree really informed you as a teacher and influenced the rest of your career path and why that was a wise choice for you and what you gained from that, even though that wasn't your intent to follow that career path?
Noe:That's a great question. And I, I think I have a great answer. Kind of. When I ended up coming back to Houston and teaching in Spring Branch at a school that was called Westchester High School, which was a very elite 5A school in those days, five A was the biggest schools. Lots of smart kids, parents who were in the oil industry, they had money, we had private lessons, everybody played great instruments. It was like, it was Shangri La, you know? I ended up being assigned to do orchestra, which was a complete shock to me. I wasn't told, Oh, and by the way, you're gonna do the orchestra. That was a great experience for me because I found that I really loved working with orchestra students and working with strings. I really loved it,and was very successful with it at Westchester, after inheriting a really bad string program. But as it relates to the question that you're asking, I think, and I've said it to students before, I said, Here's the deal guys. I mean, you're in this situation right now where, let's say at school. Some of you, and I'm not saying this is as a negative, just the reality check on this. Some of you, when you finish this portion of your life as a student and then getting your bachelor's degree for right now, and even a master's degree, let's focus on the bachelor's degree. Is that some of you, when you do that and you play your last concert, and you put that horn in that case and close it, for some of you, will be the last time you ever played that instrument. Yeah. You know, which is, to me, I, I can't even begin to imagine what that is. Okay. Yeah. And so I remember, when I began my teaching at Westchester, I remember waking up to the notion that at that point, I had not broken into playing in town and it wasn't playing anywhere. And part of that was I just didn't do the correct thing by going out and hanging out at places that were people were playing or, you know, making, to get church gigs or whatever, I just for some reason didn't do it. And when I came to the realization that that was a reality that I thought to myself, Oh, whoa, hang on, wait a minute. And so I remember very purposefully, my orchestra class started like at 11 in the morning or 10 30, something like that. I would lock all the doors to the orchestra room after everybody came in at the beginning of the school day and put their instruments up and go to their classes. I would lock all the doors, go into my office, and I would practice every day for an hour. And it wasn't with a mission, you know, I'm doing this because I had to do that. There was no goal oriented aspect to it. It was just like, I need to go feed that part of me that I'm having been feeding. Yeah. And so that was the thing that kept me from really literally going out of my freaking mind teaching in the public schools. Even though I was living in a pretty sheltered school district, as it relates to what people had. So that was a real awakening, you know? I think that that's an important thing that students need to realize is that first of all, right now, again, the whole in the moment thing, right now, kids, you're living a fantasy land. You're living in a fantasy land right? You may think it's the hardest thing, like what a drudgery being a student is. This is the easiest thing you're ever gonna do in life. You know why? For one reason: you have a syllabus and it's telling you exactly what you gotta do. You got the deadlines right on there. That's easy. Now, when you don't have a life syllabus and you're on your own, playing the instrument and dedicating an hour of time for myself was very important. And it proved to be the right thing to. Because I've always felt like I've approached my teaching as a player, primarily, who happens to have a lot of ideas about what I want the music to be or what I want the lesson in history to be or whatever. It's always as a performer. I always look at it from that place, you know? Yeah.
Carrie:You've had many years of performing, I don't wanna say on the side, cuz I don't feel like it's side. Right. Yeah. Whatever you performed in addition to teaching. Right. There's probably a lot of players listening who want to do that. Sure. But there's very important networking, for lack of a better term, involved with that and discipline and balancing it with everything you're doing. Right. So, can you talk about how you started doing that and why you feel like you've been successful in that so long term?
Noe:Right. Well, I think, again, some of it is happenstance, right? So like a lot of the kids at Westchester and the parents were members of churches in the Memorial area.
Carrie:And for people listening, this is a very affluent area in Houston.
Noe:Anyway, so I remember getting phone calls from choir directors saying, Hey, the Williams family told me about you as a trumpet player. I was wondering if you'd be willing to come and play our Christmas thing, whatever. Oh, and that's how it started, really. So once I started getting back into the groove of getting to play, I started, as is normal, that once you break in, regardless of what level, don't be thinking, Oh, if I'm not getting to play with the Houston Symphony, it's not happening. Right. That's not, that's not the point. What are your standards and how are you gonna play regardless of what the gig is? I mean, you know, you always bring that sense of integrity, you hope. And so, I started getting calls, after I left Westchester and I was, you know, here at U of H and there were guys there in the trumpet studio who were playing church gigs. And that started getting students telling me, Hey, do you wanna come and join us at XYZ place? Yeah, okay, cool. I'd come and play. And then that bloomed into, well, the Houston Lutheran Chorale needs another trumpet player. Would you wanna play in that? Like sure, I'll play in that. And then it's like, Hey man, I'm not gonna be the contractor for Houston Lutheran Chorale anymore. Do you wanna do it? Oh, okay, sure, I'll do that. So a lot of this is getting inadvertently thrown in me, but it's because I'm present. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Even though it's uncomfortable sometimes, particularly if you're going to an environment, you don't know anybody, there's a little discomfort of it except that you go knowing on some level, you need to go knowing that you've prepared yourself enough for the opportunity. You know?
Carrie:You've referred a lot of people in students over the years too. Absolutely. For people listening who are maybe embarking on this or just getting started and, or maybe haven't started yet, can you talk about the importance of let's say conduct and etiquette and everything when you are referred for a gig and what you need to do to keep those referrals coming? Because unfortunately, we've watched people over the years, I'm sure you've watched a lot, kind of messed that up. Sure. So can you talk about maybe what to do versus what not to do, to build that reputation and to keep those opportunities coming?
Noe:If you were to say, what's the one thing that you need to do? And I would tell you just common sense. Common sense etiquette. And by the way, common sense etiquette is about letting go of yourself and thinking about the person that you're gonna go do this for. The list is simple, obviously, you know, the whole be there on time. And by the way, if the gig starts at eight and you show up at eight, you're late. Oh yeah. And then as it relates to how you behave on the gig. You know, it's like a wedding you don't spend your time at the open bar drinking during the breaks. I mean, just common sense. The etiquette sometimes students don't understand, Okay? So there are two seasons where trumpet players at U of H are working a lot. Christmas, right? Either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, maybe a pageant if they're lucky, but the churches aren't doing pageants that much anymore, costs too much money. Or Easter, Those are the two big days for brass players. Okay? And by the way, the money that's being made on those gig is insanely ridiculous. It's like churches are paying a lot of money to get a brass quintet or whatever to play Yeah. For their services. Mm-hmm. There have been times when I go up to the student, when I get a call, I need a trumpet player and I'll go up to somebody, I say, Hey man, can you do a gig on Easter morning? And the first question that they always ask is, How much does it pay? And I'm going, like, Okay, it pays 500. And he goes, Oh, okay. Well I've already got an Easter gig. Let me get another trumpet player for my gig cuz that one only pays 350 and yours pays 500. And I go, Uh no. Ooh, no. No. That's not gonna happen. I'm not offering you the gig now. Cause you already have one. And by the way, that's called commitment to a gig. Okay. I don't care if the gig pays 10 times more than that. No. You've already said yes to somebody. That person now is believing that you're gonna show up. No, I'm not gonna do that. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna be part of that scheme. And there have been times where literally you would hear kids doing that.
Carrie:Oh, I bet.
Noe:There have been a number of times on the Monday after Easter that I'll come into rehearsal and I've heard something like that and. Absolutely go ape on the band going, if you did this and sent a sub to your gig, and by the way, didn't tell the person that you were sending a sub. You're dirt in this thing. That's not proper. You know?
Carrie:As far as the people you like to play with the most, like if you were choosing your ideal colleagues for a gig, what are those people like and why are you choosing them?
Noe:Well, all of the ones that I choose to play with now when I'm doing church gigs and I get called for quintet or whatever are ex U of H students. All of them are. Steve Curtis on Tuba, Brian Logan on Trombone, Russell Vo on French Horn and Jody Ilgenfritz on trumpet. I call'em and I say, Hey guys, here are the gigs that I need to do. How many can you do? And they will tell me, I'm already in B with this. But I can do that, that, and I use those guys always, that's my go-to group. Because we've been together since they were in college. And I brought them up at a time when generally if you were playing like, let's say Houston Lutheran Chorale, that was almost in a completely adult orchestra. It was a big orchestra. And when I became the contractor, I started hiring U of H guys. Not because we'd pay'em less, we'd pay'em the same. I just felt a compulsion and a need to break these guys in cuz they weren't getting calls, because they weren't old yet. And so I started throwing'em into the fire.
Carrie:Those go-to guys that you have, What have they done right over the years? Like why are they your go-tos?
Noe:They have all exhibited what I consider to be, first of all, all the proper things about timeliness, integrity, being punctual. I mean, and when the down beat goes down that they play and they can play. I mean, Brian's is one of the first subs for the symphony. He plays in the symphony in Beaumont. I mean, he plays in a bunch of different orchestras. Steve Curtis plays tub in the Austin Symphony. Jody is one of the great, great high school trumpet studio teachers. Great guy. Russell is a great horn player, has played at TUTS. He's played all sorts of different things. It's family. They become family, you know, and. So every time I get to play with them it's like the old man's getting to play with all these youngsters and they're not youngsters anymore. They got families and stuff, you know, for me, it's always a pleasure, to see if I can still keep up, you know, in a sense, because I tell you what I mean, you know, sort of a diversion from that. But I mean, Covid really took it outta me psychologically. I mean, I don't think I was clinically depressed, but if I wasn't, I was pretty freaking close. For me it was utterly paralyzing in two environments. It was paralyzing in my practice, cuz there were no gigs I didn't practice. And then the other one was my health. I'm back on track cuz I found a great endocrinologist, but it was bad. And so it took away for me the two things that are some of the most important and dearest things in my life is music and health, you know?
Carrie:There's a lot of people out there who start teaching in a public school or high school setting and want to make that leap to a university setting. So can you talk about what that looked like for you, going from teaching high school students to teaching at a university?
Noe:Yeah. That's a tough one because, you know, I taught at Westchester for seven years. I went in there in 76, and I left in 83. At that point there was a lot of changes going on in Spring Branch. The joke around the district was, whoever is the last one out, making sure you turn the lights out. And don't misunderstand when I say this, the population changes was occurring because of the following. The people that were living there when I was there were, I wouldn't say they were elderly, but they were middle aged, you know, parents. And at some that population stopped having children. So I wouldn't say that they were at a zero population rate, but it was low. Okay. That was one aspect of it. The other aspect of it was still too expensive to move in, so young people weren't really moving in, particularly on that side of I 10, on the memorial side of I 10. So anyway, I decided at that point that the light was coming down the tunnel. I needed to get the heck outta the way. I had done what I was gonna do. I felt good about what I did at Westchester in terms of my successes there. I had all staters. I won festivals with the jazz ensemble, which they'd never had one. My orchestra was very successful at UIL and I was fortunate, you know, very fortunate.
Carrie:That's how a lot of teachers kind of approach things, Right? Is when they get to the point where they think, I've done what I was meant to do here, and now I need to go do this somewhere else.
Noe:Right. Right. Yeah. But at the same time, I did not see myself moving laterally in a sense, to another public school. I just didn't have it in me to do that. It wasn't because I didn't like my kids. I mean, I really love those kids. I still talk to them to this day. I just didn't have the passion for it. And so, I contacted Eddie Green, who, by the way, growing up, my band director in Alice and Eddie Green in Dallas at Lake Highlands hated each other. They hated each other. So everything I knew about Eddie Green was pretty negative. Oh, wow. Yeah. Very strange. And I remember when I was in an education class at SMU, Ed came to visit and talked to the education class about becoming band directors. And he knew who I was because he knew that I had beaten his 10th grader at State. Oh, nice. And he also knew that I was a student of his mortal enemy, Bryce Taylor. They both hated each other equally. It was really hilarious. And, you know, and I get, I get it. We couldn't beat Lake Highlands. We couldn't beat'em. And look, I mean, we're down in south Texas. We have no private lesson teachers. Eddie had a whole staff. He's in Dallas, Texas. He's got people from the symphony coming to help him. Not the same thing. Not the same thing. I mean, you know, a bunch of our students were lived out on a ranch on farms and stuff. Anyway, so he came and visited us. I was just sitting there listening and somebody asked him about, what kind of places do you think we should be searching out in terms of programs, to start as beginning teachers? And Eddie, to this day, I know he was saying this to me. That's my paranoia maybe. He said, Well, whatever you do, don't ever teach in a small town. He said like that, Wow. And I was like, Really? Dude, I'm from a small town. What are you saying? What the heck? So anyway, so now here we are in 19 83, and I decide, okay, there's no doctorate going on at UH, there's no doctorate at Rice. So what am we gonna do on another master's? So, I apply to U of H and I get in. At that time the School of Music at U of H, it had a lot of associates that were in the symphony, you know, Jim Austin, Byron Hester, jeff Learner, a lot of guys. So I went over there and I worked with Eddie Green as a TA, until he retired for like, it was like 17 years. David Tomas came in while I was doing my TA. So at the end of the second year, I remember David Tomas and I were playing racquetball at the Houston Club downtown. And he just totally waxed me. He was like ridiculously good at it. Really it burned me up so much that he beat me. And so we finished the game and he turned to me, he goes, So what are you doing after you graduate? And I said, I guess I'm gonna go teach public schools. Or do you wanna stay and start the jazz band? And I looked at him like, What? Really? And he goes, Do you wanna stay start a, Jazz band? And I go, I don't know if I can do it. I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm good enough to do it. I was very tentative about teaching at the collegiate level. I had no confidence at all about it. He says, Well, look, you got a few weeks before school ends. You need to think about it. I'm like, Geez. So it took me literally almost three months to finally answer him. I just went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Cause I had had some opportunities to go work somewhere else. And I thought, No, I can't do that. So I went, Okay, I'll do it. Good. And I said, is this a tenure track position? You know, I'm asking the obvious questions. He goes, Yeah, it's a tenure track position. I'm going like, Wow, okay. He goes, And your salaries are gonna come from Mexican American studies. And I was like, What? What do you mean? He goes, Mexican American studies is gonna pick up your salary. And I'm thinking to myself, So wait a minute. There was a couple of things about that that bother me. And I think, Well, don't look a gift source in the mouth. Just freaking take it, you know? Okay. Take it. Right? And yeah. Okay. Yes. But at the same time it was like, Wait a minute, man. So the only reason you're asking me to do this is cuz you're getting money from a minority line item budget. Mm. You're hiring me because I'm Latino? I didn't even say I didn't, you know, you're hiring me because of that. You don't really think specifically that I can do it, but you have the money, so I'm gonna hire somebody. And that really bothered me for the longest time. Wow. Wasn't, I didn't know. I wasn't, I'm not good enough really. And, and be honest with you, I didn't feel like I was good enough. I really didn't. And later on I remember. When I got that Excellence Teaching Excellence award from the university. And I remember that Betsy Weber had written one of the letters of support and wrote a fabulous letter for me.
Carrie:I'm sure she did.
Noe:She looked at me and she goes, You know, by all rights, Noe, neither you or I in terms of paper, should ever have gotten any of these jobs. You know, And it was because somebody took a chance on us. Yeah.
Carrie:But like what you both have done, my God.
Noe:That was a real important motivation. That's still to this day in the back of my head, constantly. You were given a, a shot and you decided that you had to react to being given that opportunity. Cause on paper, there was nothing in my resume that would've said, Yeah, let's hire that guy to these jazz bands. Right? There was nothing. Literally nothing. So to be given the opportunity, I mean, you could see how on some level, I was a little concerned personally whether I was adept to do it.
Carrie:It's been so interesting to hear how so many people ended up where they are because of some version of this story. Right. Exactly. They had an opportunity that they were not looking for, that just kind of came across their path, seemed kind of questionable, for whatever reason. Right. Totally. And then it ends up being the thing, Right. That you're meant to do. Yeah. It's so interesting how so many people end up in that kind of situation.
Noe:Yeah. And, I feel even though, yeah, sometimes it's a headache to be doing this job. You know, I was telling somebody the other day, we were talking, asking me about career paths and stuff, and I said, Look, man, here's the deal. And I'm only telling you this because it's a reality of what it is. Okay. We've picked a path. You and I both picked a path that requires a lot of us. And that doesn't mean that other paths don't, but this one does, Right?
Carrie:On a similar note to that, I guess, so as students go through your ensemble, in your classes at the university, what do you hope they're walking away with after they've been in rehearsal, in class, just going through their learning process with you. What do you want them to walk away with?
Noe:I said this a number of times. What I'm trying to avoid in their own minds and in my own existence: to avoid that I need for things to happen now. Okay. Now, even though we're in a situation where we're learning music, I'd like for this stuff to happen now, you know, I want these notes to be learned. I want these rhythms to be played. That that's the now of the piece, right. Of learning these music. But, you know, really the thing that I want is sort of inadvertent in a sense and does not live in the now. It does not live in the now it lives in the, like later tomorrow. It lives in weeks from now, months, years, whatever. I want them to, at some point in their life as they grown older and have their own families, and have their own kids and all that stuff, if that's what they choose to do, is to have a moment in their life when they suddenly go, Yeah, I remember being in that, That was good. That's really a simple thing. And it doesn't matter when that moment comes. It doesn't matter. I told the kids all the time, I said, You only owe three things. You owe three things. You owe everything you can to yourself, to the music, and to your peers. That's it. I said, You'll notice, by the way. Yeah. And I'm not asking you to include me on that list. Yeah. Because I don't need for you to come up and hug me and thank me. I don't need that. Because the job is done. It's like, we have to move on. Right? We have to move on. I don't know when I realized this, but I realized it and it's like sort of a shocking realization. As a teacher, the one thing that you have to face is the following: your students stay the same age and you keep getting older. It's true. You get older and your students stay the same age. You have to stay relevant on some level regard, regardless of what the age difference is. And I've been very lucky that, you know, I have my mom's jeans in me. She lived very productive life, until she was stricken with what she was stricken with. And then that was a utter, like crashing halt. It was like sudden boom. You know, there is rarely a year that goes by that somebody doesn't contact me and say: your mom was my English teacher. Your mom did this for me. Your mom did that, Your dad did this. I remember when you dad, I can remember hearing your dad's footsteps, walking the sidewalks at the elementary school where he was the principal. I could hear his feet. Those kinds of things, those details of like recollections of things, they're sort of banal in a sense, but they're also a recollection of something that was something. You know, there was something,
Carrie:It was an impact. Yeah. They made an impact.
Noe:And as small as it was. Yeah. So I think to me, that's my desire. That's what I want. One of the things that Betsy wrote in my letter of support, she said, Noe gives a place for students that don't have a place. Mm. Which I thought, Wow, that's interesting.
Carrie:That's true.
Noe:You know, that's really interesting. I tell the students all the time too, I said, you're gonna be one of three teachers. You're gonna be one kind of teacher: a student comes up and asks you a question. You're gonna lie. Okay? You're gonna admit that you don't know it, or you're gonna know it. Mm. That's it. And by the way, the second one, That you don't know it, your answer is always gonna be to the student, Hey, you know, admit that you don't know it. It's okay. Don't come up with some kind of whatever to get them off your back. Not look bad. Who cares about looking bad? I don't care. And say, You know what, kid, that's a great question. I'm gonna find out for you. You're gonna be one of those three people. So which one, which line do you wanna be in? Because you don't know who you're serving, you have no idea what that kid's gonna do.
Carrie:You've mentioned how well-read you are and how that's really important to you and how a lot of that came from your mom. And you mentioned you started reading philosophy books at a very young age. Right. I think all of us have had, all different kinds of teachers who pull from their life experience and things that they've learned over the years. So have there been particular things that you feel like either influenced you early on or things that you've pulled from? A lot of students, when they're in education programs, they have to write out their philosophy of teaching. Right, Right. And so what is yours and what have you pulled from for that?
Noe:Well, I think it's a mishmosh of things. It's a lot of different things. I'm constantly, even to this day, I have tons of journals that I write in that I basically fill up over a year.
Carrie:Can I just mention, I think a lot of master teachers that I've heard talk, a lot of them journal. Absolutely. That's such a common thread. The best teachers are still learning. Right? Right, right. And so that's such an important way to make sure that you are keeping yourself in a reflective state and that you're keeping yourself as a learner and you're pulling from things you're reading and learning, too. Right, Right. Is to journal them and to be able to look back on that and then develop a lot of things develop out of those.
Noe:Right, right. Absolutely. There are times when I think, God, why couldn't I think of that combination of words. You know, I've said that, but in another way, you know what I mean? But, I agree that I think journaling is really critical. I have journals from all the way back when I was at SMU, you know, every lesson and every practice session I would write in my journal about that practice session or the lesson itself, and I can go back and read some of those and think, Boy, I was really naive. And by the way, that's great because that means that you're reading this now, and that was like, let's say 20 years ago, 30 years ago, whatever it was, and you go, Look how far I've come. You know what? Yeah. So you get to see the measure of that. You get to see the distance that you've come, I mean, Really important, you know? One of the things that has been a major philosophy to me, again, a very inadvertent thing. I was on tour in, probably the eighties, late eighties. And I was in Japan. I was touring, and we were at the very end of the series of concerts. We were all over Japan. We stayed in Chiba City. And Chiba City is a sister city of Houston. And we were staying in a Toyota training center for executives. So that's where they were teaching the executives for the big factories, to build cars for Toyota, you know. And so we were staying in these very spartan, little cubby hole of rooms. All the musicians had our own room. And, we had the Japanese slippers, we couldn't wear shoes in there. And we had Japanese robes and, you know, the whole thing. It was all just really rich in terms of the culture. And so, remember in the old days, when you would close a hotel room and it would, on the hotel room door, there would be this, like a framed piece of paper that talked about exit, when you were supposed to check out and all that. I remember I closed the door and I noticed that on the back of that door there was this framed thing, and there was a line splitting that frame, long tall frame in half. And on the left it was in Kanji, you know, Japanese writing. And on the right it was translated Kanji into English. And you know how sometimes you can translate a foreign language into English and it sounds funny sometimes? It's like they say the translation doesn't quite make it right. Certain words that really can't be translatable.
Carrie:It's too literal or yeah.
Noe:So anyway, so this was talking about the concept of a philosophy called Kaizen, which is K A I Z E N. And you can look it up on the internet. I mean, there's so much stuff on the internet about it. There are a lot of different people who have written about it to, you know, sort of expose what this is about. But this is what Toyota does. They approach this philosophy from kaizen. And the word kaizen, means, kaizen is two words, that together translate as good change or improvement. But then I think in the end, the philosophy or the principles and the methodology of it is, translates into continuous improvement. So now this whole process has its origins, I think in post World War II, Japanese quality circles, I think this is what they called it. They basically developed partly in response to American management and productivity consultants who were visiting the country. I can't remember the name of the guy that was primarily responsible for that happening. But, it was brought to the west by an author, that wrote a book called Kaizen, and it's something about the success of Japan. I can't remember the exact title of it. And in that book, Kaizen talks about 10 principles. So here I am reading this on the back, on the door, and I'm suddenly, I'm, yeah, I go down about halfway down the list and I stop and I go, You know, cuz it's talking about cars. It's talking about cars. That's what it's talking about. And I decide, you know what, Every time I see the word car or automobile or factory, I'm gonna change that into a word that is related to music. And sure enough, it absolutely works. So there's like 10 principles in Kaizen. And every one of those principles, except for maybe one of those principles, is hard to translate into music. But it is absolutely music. The first one is let go of assumptions. That's the first one. Let go of assumptions. The second one is be proactive about solving problems. This is aimed at students and this is like perfect, right? The third thing is, don't accept the status quo. That's pretty powerful. Okay. The next one is, let go of perfection and take an attitude of adaptive change, adapting. It's about adaptivity. Oh, it's hard. Yeah, that's a tough one. And the next one is, look for solutions as you find mistakes. Which by the way, requires for you to be awake in your practice. Okay. I think you recall that maybe me saying this to the freshman class when you had your class, which was great. I said, It would be easy for me to say, you must respect practice. And you're gonna assume that that means going into a room and slugging it out with the music. That's not what I mean. What you have to do is respect the practice of practice. Yeah. That's a totally different thing. And you have to be awake. So look for solutions as you find mistakes. That's a critical practice element, Right?
Carrie:Yeah. You can't just go through and make a bunch of mistakes and not think about it.
Noe:Did you hear yourself miss that? No, I didn't. Well, that means you're not paying attention. Hello? Yeah. Ok.
Carrie:No, but how many people do that? Right.
Noe:And then this next one I think is very critical for teachers, is try to create an environment where everybody in the room or everybody in the environment feels empowered to contribute. That one's tough. That is so important, but it's really critical, you know, And I think sometimes you see it now in education, like in band, the band directors they'll be going along and then they'll stop and you go, All right, well, now it's time for me to get your opinion of all what's going on. Which to me sounds very contrary and very manufactured. Is just like, I gotta insert this in my plan. Right? That's not the way it's supposed to be. It's supposed to come from, to me, is your awareness of their inability to understand. What you're trying to do is empowering them to explain to you what's going on with them. Right? And that relates a lot to why I thought the hour of practicing during my time at Westchester was important. Because part of what I learned in that process of practicing my hour every day was that I kept in touch with how difficult it was to play my instrument, which connected me to the difficulties of the student. I never lost that. I know what you're going through. I'm not lying to you. I know what you're going through. I just did an hour and I was folding over here doing this and that. So staying in contact with that connection between Your struggles and their struggles to get what you know, to do what you're asking them to do. You need to be able to do that. That feeling of empowerment to contribute is a beautiful thing, but it has to be done in a way that isn't a manufactured, Okay, now's the moment in the lesson where I ask your opinion. There are times, in a classroom situation where a professor asks the students, Oh, wait, what is your opinion about, I'll just throw it. I said, What's your opinion about scriabin? Okay, now that's a heavy question to ask, but, okay. What's your opinion about? Nobody raising their hands, nobody wants to answer the question. They're afraid to answer the question. And I go, Are you afraid because I've created an environment that doesn't allow you to feel free to do this? Or are you afraid to be wrong? Well, you name one activity that starts perfectly the first time. Right. But anyway, so that's an important one. This is an exercise that I do to myself all the time. I ask myself five times, I'll say to myself, Why? I'll say, why one, why two, why three, five. I'll do it five times to get to the root cause of stuff is to stop and ask myself five times the question of why, as it relates to whatever the activity is or whatever the assignment is. He says, Don't accept the obvious issue is ask yourself the question why, so that you can really get to the root cause. That's a tough one, too. And then never ever deny yourself the opinion or the information that you can get from multiple people. Ever. Hmm. I think that's sometimes people are afraid to ask for opinions because it might be, that that person might think, Well, if I ask, if I have to have to ask a question, that person's gonna think that I'm not smart. And I'm like going, Wait a minute, man, we're all ignorant about something. And let's be thankful for that, you know?
Carrie:But how much are you gonna miss out on Exactly. If you're always afraid to ask people who know more than you do.
Noe:Opinions from multiple people and then definitely because we're in the creative and the we're in the arts, it's part of it the huge part is creativity. Just finding the ability to be created to create small improvements. Things that we can control rather than trying to fix big things, small things. And the last principle is again like the biggest challenge: never stop improving. So those 10 principles, I think the overwhelming majority of those principles, I do my best to employ in my classroom. I'm obviously not saying, Okay, which one of the principles that I just work on right there, You know, it's not like that, but you know what I mean? At least have a source that is constantly sitting in the back of my head to employ on some level.
Carrie:Well, it's important for people teaching any population to have some kind of check for themselves in that way. Right? Absolutely.
Noe:But I think this was a very, to me, the experience of having read that thing and then the experience of trying to figure out how to employ it within whatever I was doing was pretty earth shattering in a sense.
Carrie:Yeah and what a good lesson that you never know what kinds of things can teach you a huge lesson. I mean, you were reading the back of a hotel room, not even a hotel, back of the door of room, Right. A dorm room. Right. And it's made this gigantic impact on you and your teaching.
Noe:Right? Yeah. Again, inadvertent thing that. In a sense, there's an aspect of you particularly if you're that motivated to experience something new. Right. It's just like there was that moment I could have just looked at it and just said, Oh, whatever, and walked off. But it Right. It so quickly absorbed me.
Carrie:Well, and that you stopped and said, How can I apply this? Right. To what I do.
Noe:So kaizens a big deal to me. I love it.
Carrie:So, as part of your role at the university, there have been times where you've been supervising student teachers and giving them feedback on what they do. Mm-hmm. What has been key advice that you've given over the years and that you think is important to say to students as they're embarking on a teaching career? What are some of the things that they need to have in their mind, like during that college period and right after college, as they start that part of their path?
Noe:Particularly now, I will tell you the teaching in public schools is very difficult. You know, these last two years, we have lost a ton of kids in the public school music business that they had just said, You know what? Forget this. I can't do this. Yeah. I want a life. Yeah. I want a life. I think that one of the things as a, you know, relates to any student, the thing that they gotta try to remember the best, as it relates to their students, and it's for the student's own good, is that you draw a line, you know, a metaphysical line, you draw a line, and you absolutely, your mission is never to go below it. Mm-hmm. you don't go below it. Okay. The line might float a little bit, but do not go below it. I've had people, you know, tell me years later, that stuck with me, you know? But I think it's very difficult, particularly as a public school teacher, is that part of your success is gonna be determined, unfortunately, by the numbers of students that you have in a program. And I'm not saying that that's not a bad check, You know what I mean? You wanna be the kind of teacher that attracts students. Okay. I get that. I'm a byproduct of that as well. I mean, I come from that, I understand what competition's about. We can't eliminate competition. If we eliminate competition, we will slowly but surely become all mediocre. We'll all become mediocre. Although there will always be people that won't be, you know. That whole thing about drawing a line in whatever your metaphorical sand is and just fighting to not let yourself go below it. You have to make your stands and sometimes those stands are not popular. I mean, Right. I really like to sleep at night. You know? I really like being able to fall asleep and not be Yeah. You know, there's enough stuff to worry about anyway.
Carrie:You have to do what'll let you sleep at night.
Noe:Right, Exactly. And you gotta do what you gotta do and do your best to do it with the sense of understanding about what the impact of what it is that you're asking for. Yeah. You know, you're part cheerleader, you're part manager of a store. I mean, you're so many different things when you walk into that room, so many different things. Look how many people you're having to affect that are coming from all different kinds of places. You're trying to find that center and trying to find that middle where you can collectively draw people to the center. Which by the way, in today's political climate, that's like the center of the middle is nowhere to be, you know? Yeah. It's just like the extremes are ruling everything. And it's like, you know, you just want to go, can we all just kind of come to the middle here a little bit and try to figure out how we can get together, and not just constantly need bickering at each other. It gets old. It gets so old. That's why I say, you guys need to expand that language. Man. Your vocabulary has to be expansive, you know? Yeah. Cuz one word may not mean the same thing to somebody else and it's cause I'm trying to offend anybody. Forget that. You know me, I'm pretty, I can be pretty dogg on.
Carrie:We've gotten through two hours without an F bomb.
Noe:Yeah, I know, right? It's just freaking though, I got really close, you know? But I mean, but seriously, you know, I'm trying my best be as even keeled as I possibly can, which is not really part, big part of my personality. I mean mm-hmm. every day is like, I walk in the rehearsal going, Oh my God, are we gonna get through this? Are we gonna get through this? And then I'd leave going like, No, no, no. I messed this up. I did that wrong and da da. And of course, you know, the students are going, Yay, yeah, yeah, let's go have lunch. You know, it's no big deal to them. They're just gonna move on the next thing. Right. You're the one that carries that cross. You're the one that bears that cross.
Carrie:You're thinking bigger picture.
Noe:Yeah. Right. And I remember the first time I went to contest in high school, took my orchestra to contest, and boy, I was so clueless. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I programmed music that was like stupid, just stupid programming. So I'm loading the orchestra to go to the contest. The lady who was running the choir at Westchester High School, her name was Mary Joe Harvey, and she was seasoned teacher. She kind of mother henned me a little bit and I remember getting ready to walk out and she comes out of her office and she sees me getting ready to go on there and she goes, Good luck Noe. And I go, Oh, thanks Mary Jo, I appreciate it. She goes, Just one thing I wanna tell you I'm just like, I go, Yeah, well you got some advice for me. She goes, No, that's not advice, it's just some reality. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm gonna get some kind of warm cuddly or something. And she goes, Don't ever forget, when you get up on that stage, remember that your whole career is hanging by a thread with people who are half your age And I was going, Thank you Mary. That's all likes to hear, but you know exactly what you needed at that way. That's reality. You know, that's a reality. I go, Okay, I get it. So how well have I prepared these people, who were more than half my age? You know? But that was Mary Jo.
Carrie:So you have two incredibly talented artist children. Knock on wood, they're not children anymore. Yeah, they're amazing. Students who are listening, whatever their discipline is, cuz both of your kids, although they're doing different things right, they have a lot ahead of them, we think. Absolutely. What are some pieces of advice that you're giving to them, you know, big picture advice as they go into this type of career path?
Noe:Right. Lately, I mean of the two children, I mean, McKenna's the one that's the most dramatic. She's the more, social butterfly type person. There's a sensitivity in her, that is pretty profound. I think, Miles is sort of, you know, come as it may, but, and at the same time, like insanely talented, but he doesn't wear the talent, doesn't exhibit the talent from a place of light. Look how good I am. I mean mm-hmm. he's just natural about it. There's a organic kind of thing to his thing. There's a casualness to it a little bit. And yet when you Yeah when you see him, I mean, you've seen some of the things I've posted up of him, you know, practicing his dance moves and stuff. He is really dedicated. He's a very dedicated kid in his own way, you know, and he's super smart, you know, self-taught piano, self-taught bass, he's got ears. He can hear like insane, much better than me. And obviously part of that with him is always gonna be the, you're propping him up, you know, when he gets the opportunity to be in a production of some sort, and just being there to tell him, Hey man, you looked really good. I'm already, he's doing this show right now downtown, Secret of My Success. And he's just ensemble, it's not a big role. But basically, I mean, he did not audition for that piece. They called him. Nice. Yeah. So he didn't have to audition. And he had just finished doing the stage production of American in Paris, which he played the Gene Kelly role, the lead role. And his dancing was phenomenal. And even more surprising, his singing was pretty amazing. I mean, I was like really, actually rather shocked. And so, my encouragement with him is really just being there, telling him, Hey man, you're, you're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You know? Wow. What a thing, man. You're doing great. And like on this show, because he is not doing a lot in the show, after I saw the show, he comes out at Stage door and he's looking at me sort of apologetically a little bit like, Yeah, well, you know, it's like, you know, whatever. And I said, Hey man, it's a gig. You're making a living right now. Okay? Yeah. Think of it that way. It's no big deal. You're not gonna be doing Shakespeare every single time you come on stage.
Carrie:Well, and again, you never know what you're gonna get of, you don't. Right. Yeah. You're learning from the people around you, perhaps learning what not to do from people around you. Yeah. Whatever it is you're learning more rep. Yeah. All of that. Yeah.
Noe:It's sort of almost stealthy about how he knows about what he has to do and what he does. He's very like, nonchalant about it, you know? And yet when he does it, it's like, Dude, wow, that's amazing that you can do that stuff. McKenna is a another one who's extremely well read. Very well read, and there's a spirituality to her. in the last few years, she has been really going hard on her roots learning Spanish, you know, even though she's blonde, light skinned, you know, whatever. But that's been a big mission with her as it relates to sort of social justices thing a little bit. I love her for that, you know, because I mean, She's genuine about it. She's earnest about it. And again, amongst a lot of things, like right now she's flying to Provo, Utah right now because they're doing another film festival. And that show that that movie that she did that short that she just did mm-hmm. Of course the production company's flying her down there. There are times, you know, McKenna's voiced a couple of times when she's just like really tired of the whole business. And how, you know, she has auditions constantly for things, and then things halt. They wanna move to LA. You know, Miles is wanting to move to New York. And I'm going like, Well dude, you know, we gotta figure out how you're gonna afford to live in New York. So, I mean, we're all talking about that stuff. But at the same time, I know that, I mean, I've watched reels of McKenna's auditions and thinking, You're gonna break, you're gonna break, you're gonna break, you're gonna make it, you know, I mean, your management is pushing on you really hard. They believe in you, so you need to just not get frustrated. It's hard not to when things are dead, you know? Yeah. For McKenna, she's very artistic. She does a lot of of media work for a number of companies in terms of things like Instagram and things like that. She does all the artwork and stuff that she's really good at that. But anyway, I'm super proud of both of'em. I think the strength in them is that they both love each other a lot. They love each other a lot. Very supportive of each other. I think that they both accept each other's presence. And I think that's a real gift. I think that that's really important. How they came by it again, very organically, mm-hmm. I mean, they were involved, as you well know, at a very early time. I mean, McKenna had an agent by the time she was four or five, you know, Miles, maybe seven. So they were involved in the business, as it relates to having representation, for quite a while, and they've gleaned stuff from it, you know? For me personally, I mean, certainly Cathy the same way. I think that we're both very lucky that those kids turned out how they turned out. And it's really funny too, McKenna and Miles both always, you know, like if they're downtown doing something, how often, you know, like McKenna go, Hey Daddy, do you remember<blank>? And I go, Oh, yeah, that kid is, man, I just saw him. He's in the orchestra. He is playing this or that. I met, No, he says he's a Yeah, dad. You know, so many people, dad. I mean, how do you know all these people? I'm going like, you know? She goes, Man, and they always talk about you, and how important what I, what I did for some other kids, you know? And I'm going like, Well, you know, that's what I like doing. I think the pressure that they feel sometimes from that can be overwhelming a little bit. Mm-hmm. I mean, I know what it was, what it felt like to be my father's son. So, but yeah. Again, I mean, both those kids, I'm super blessed, you know?
Carrie:Yeah. What you said about McKenna digging into her roots. I just wanted to jump on that for a minute. Yeah. Because I've seen a lot of students when they get to college, really taking advantage of that time to do that. Right? Because you have so many resources you may not have had growing up or you weren't aware of. So whether it's learning that language or taking classes that have to do with something in your family, you know, that's really different for everybody. But I think a lot of times we're so focused on career path and our major and checking all those boxes in college that we don't necessarily stop and say, you know, this thing is important in my family, whatever that is, and this is an opportunity that I can take a minor or just take a handful of classes. It doesn't even have to be a minor. But that's a great time to do that, Right? Because you're in an environment where, you know, everybody's learning their thing, but don't forget about the things you wanna learn that maybe aren't part of your career path. Right. Who cares, Right? Right. You can do these other things that are important to you in a different way. Sure. That you can incorporate into your collegiate experience if you want to.
Noe:Correct. I didn't mention this earlier, but I mean very important figure, at least in my growing up, was my grandfather, my dad's father. He was another very well read man, and he came across at a time when it was considerably easier in a sense to become an American citizen. In those days, you know, you had to have a sponsor here. He had a sponsor that was responsible for him financially. The government or some entity within the government gave him a job sort of like an indentured servant almost. And he worked on the railroads for five years, I believe. Oh, wow. And after that, he took the test and became an American citizen. He wasn't a man who made a lot of money, didn't have a lot of money. My grandmother was the typical matriarchal glue that held family all together. At the time I didn't recognize the importance of the cultural heritage of being Latino. I mean, you know, obviously I grew up in South Texas is majority lots of Latinos. My mom was very Latina. I mean, she would pronounce words that weren't Spanish words and turn them into Spanish words, but she would just change the way they were pronounced. She used to do that all the time. I used to laugh at her doing that. But she was proud to be Latina. But that whole thing about culture, it took me a while really to come around the circle as it relates to that. Because look, I mean, as you will know, I pass very easily through the hallways. People don't necessarily go, Oh, he's a Latino. You know, I'm just floating through. And by the way, that's okay. I don't care. As in many cultures, the acceptance of a lot of cultures around the world begin with food. Right. You learn about the culture through the food. So to me, one of the intriguing aspects of growing up in a Latino home, even though we weren't expressing it, was there was a specific way that mom, my grandmom did what they did in terms of the kitchen. It was like a place where we gathered that was like, that's where we went. We could hardly wait for the morning when my grandmother would do breakfast for the entire group of people that were there. It was like a ritualistic celebration. It was like, you know, this massive thing. Many years later, I started to write the opening chapter to a book about growing up, and the influence of my grandmother, my dad's mom on the family unit and how it was when she was the matriarch. Not that long ago, I finally took it out of the mouth balls and I sent it to McKenna. I said, tell me what you think. It's just the beginning of it. And she goes, Did you write this? And I said, Well, yeah, of course I wrote it. I'm talking about my grandmother and she goes, are you writing like a book? And I said, I don't know if I've got the guts. I don't know if I have the time or the guts of the inclination to do it. She goes, This is really good. You know? Again, just the expression of that aspect of my background, was not something that I really spent a lot of time thinking about. And then it came to me. And then in the same time it came to McKennon sort of the same way. And that has become a, a really important glue between my daughter and myself. Yeah.
Carrie:Yeah. I think a lot of people can relate to that. Yeah.
Noe:I think it's a really rich way to connect, you know what I mean?
Carrie:Yeah, yeah. You share something. You share this ancestry or you share this cultural experience or whatever it is. Yeah.
Noe:The fact that she's taken the time to get deep into it really is impressive to me.
Carrie:So is there any other big picture advice you would have for students, whether they're entering music or education, or perhaps neither of those, but are there some other big picture pieces of advice you have that perhaps you haven't had a chance to say yet?
Noe:I think that one of the things that's true about my attitude, about what it is I do, cause I mean plenty of times where you just going like, what's this? Why should I do this? Is it just not worth it? This is not any fun right now? Realize that that's part of the whole picture, right? There's the part that's not fun, but you know that if you're into the struggle that making the not fun become fun. That's the goal, right? And that's the thing is, like, again, the overused: follow your bliss. I believe in follow your bliss. I mean, it's okay to have found bliss in your life. Is to find it and then absolutely wrap yourself around it. Absolutely hold it dearly. It's precious cargo, you know? But it's gotta be genuine and know that it doesn't matter when you feel good or when you feel bad, or when you feel like you've hit the wall and you're not getting what you need or what you want from something that you still keep, like fighting. You have to be able to stand that part of your thing, part of an element of just in general for all of us, is that there's an element of struggle in everything that we have. And then you have to be willing to accept the struggle. you know? Yeah.
Carrie:That's part of it, right?
Noe:Absolutely.
Carrie:That's part of it.
Noe:If I were to pinpoint anything for me, is that I really, really, really have a passion for doing this. I really do. Sometimes it's not easy to deal with it because you love it so much and you're sometimes surrounded by people who don't love it as much as you do. That's hard. Mm-hmm. that's how, I mean, that's hard. Mm-hmm. On one of the social medias where they're interviewing Anthony Hopkins, a great actor, you know? And they said, Can you have any advice for young actors? And I look, it's maybe it's gonna be easy for somebody like this to say that this is a talented genius Oscar winning field, right? Yeah. And he. Yeah, I have some advice for them. Don't give up. He said, That's it. Don't give up. As simple as that is, that guy has the passion for that. But having passion for a subject, having passion for an activity, passion is something that you cannot not wanna do. Right. You just can't. You just can't. Yeah.
Carrie:Well, Noe, thank you so much for joining me today.
Noe:Absolutely a pleasure and an honor for to do it with you. And I'm really proud of you for going into this venture here with this.
Carrie:Thank you.
Noe:I think it's awesome that you're doing it and. And, may it continue to, to blossom and do what it's gotta do. Thank you. Okay.
Carrie:Well, and I really wanted to have you on here because I don't even know the scope of the impact you've had, but I know that you've had a huge impact on so many people's lives over the years through your teaching and through your collaboration with people and your mentorship. So I know, I mean, no matter what we talked about today, you'd have a lot to share to impact people. And I hope that people who you've worked with years ago listen to this and are just reminded of that about you, and hopefully reinspired by what you've taught them and what they're doing now.
Noe:Thank you. And appreciate your words.
Carrie:Do you know someone I should interview? Please DM me on Instagram@pathsinprogresspodcast and let me know who I should talk to. I would love to hear about how these stories are impacting your journey. Please follow Paths in Progress wherever you download your podcasts and leave a review to let me know what you think. You can also follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn at Paths in Progress Podcast. Our music is by John Grimmett and the artwork is by Edgar Alanis. Thanks again for joining me today.