Ryan Hagler
“My name is Dr. Ryan Hagler. I am a bass player, and my position is officially assistant professor of jazz, which is pretty cool.”
What drew you to a teaching position at Trinity?
“Well, I mean, I wasn’t teaching full time before this, and I’ve always just been kind of scoping things out for openings that were interesting, especially in the Central Texas area, because I was living in Austin. And,I didn’t really know much about [Trinity], to be honest, because it’s a small school, and I hadn’t really heard a lot. But once I applied and came here for the interview, I was blown away by the culture and the vibe and the students and was really excited to have the chance to get here, and here I am.”
What are your hopes, goals for this semester or your greater time at Trinity?
“This semester, the hope is to survive. But, yeah. I mean, directing the jazz ensemble is the main thing in my position. So, my hope is to establish a good foundation for that ensemble going forward. And the big goal is to try to build that into something really special. And there’s already been a great history of other directors of that ensemble, and I’m just hoping to build on what they’re doing and hopefully give the Trinity students a really wonderful jazz experience.”
And what excites you about teaching jazz specifically?
“I mean, everything about jazz excites me. It’s literally my favorite thing there is. So it doesn’t take a lot for me to get excited about it, basically, because, yeah, it’s my favorite thing to talk about.”
Has that been a lifelong passion?
“I’ve always been passionate about music. I mean, I started when I was pretty young, but jazz was a little bit later. That started kind of as I got into college. But since then, it’s kind of been the main thing.”
If you could have everyone listen to one song or musical composition, what would it be?
“I would have to say John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme.’ If I had to just pick one, which is too hard. That’s too hard, but if I had to pick just one, that’s the one I pick. For me, it’s everything that’s great about jazz music. It’s passionate, and it’s deep, and it’s beautiful at times, but also challenging to listen to. It’s very dense and aggressive at other moments and almost ugly sometimes. You know? It’s kind of this whole range of things. I would liken it to a really great film in a way that, you know, a good film doesn’t just make you feel good. It kind of takes you through an emotional journey a little bit, and I think ‘A Love Supreme’ is a great example of that.”
How would you pitch your class to a student?
“I mean, that’s an interesting question. What would I say? I mean, I try to sell — especially teaching jazz history — I try to sell it as: if you think you don’t like jazz, I can convince you otherwise. I think that people who say that they don’t like jazz are mostly just confused about it, and they just need to learn a little bit. Yeah, I feel like jazz is something that a lot of people have an opinion on despite not actually being that familiar with jazz. I have a lot of thoughts. My opinion, and or I should say, my observation is this: I find it very interesting. Like, if people go to a show, like a rock band, and the band is terrible, they leave that show going, ‘yeah, I didn’t like that band at all.’ For some reason, when people go to a jazz concert, and they don’t like it, they leave that show saying, ‘oh, I must not like jazz.’ And I don’t really know why that is, because it’s just as likely that that was just a bad band. But for some reason, people assume that all jazz is identical, and so if someone is playing jazz, that that’s just what jazz is. And the reality is that jazz is very hard to do well, and there are very few people on the planet that really do it great. And so it’s very unlikely if you just go to some random concert that that’s gonna be a good band. Right? And so, you know, I would say you really got to know the good stuff. Just like you got to find great movies or great television or great rock bands or great food or you know? Not all tacos are delicious. Tacos are very delicious, but not all tacos are good. Right? And it’s the same with music.”
And if someone was looking into or getting into jazz, what would you consider “the good stuff?”
“The good stuff, I mean, just like anything else, if you’re gonna get into rock and roll, you know, listen to the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and, you know, the people that you’ve heard of. You know, Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Duke Ellington and, even Benny Goodman or, Chet Baker. You know? The famous people are famous — most of them — for a reason. Not all of them. Just like there are really famous musicians in every genre that kind of suck. That happens with every kind of thing that humans do. Right? But for the most part, the people that are famous are famous for a reason. You know? It’s not an accident that Jimi Hendrix is one of the most famous guitar players that ever lived. Right? That’s because he was really good. Right? So start there. That’s going to be my advice.”
And then my last question is just, what’s a fun fact about yourself?
“I am a huge video game nerd. I’ve been kind of obsessed with all the Dark Souls series for a few years now. Those games are very hard, and they make me hate my life sometimes, but it’s worth it.”
BriAnne Woodward
“My name is BriAnne Woodward, and I am teaching voice this semester at Trinity.”
What drew you to a teaching position at Trinity?
“Reputationally, Trinity is fantastic on all levels. And musically, I’ve been very active in the community of San Antonio for the last twenty years, And the school just keeps gaining more and more accolades and bringing in incredible artists from so many places. So my excitement was getting to be part of that in any capacity. So I saw a post asking for semester coverage for a voice studio, and I thought, I’m throwing my hat in the ring. So I was very happy for the opportunity to even be considered because it is a level of excellence that I don’t think as many schools achieve. So I was excited for the opportunity just to even apply.”
What are your goals for this semester or for your greater time at Trinity?
“Alright. So goals for this semester would be to get to know students who are new to the studio and welcome them into being part of such a wonderful program. And also supporting the goals of a lot of the rising juniors and seniors as they’re moving into their final semesters of study, preparing for performances and auditions and recitals, and ideally, giving them all kinds of confidence to take the technique that they learn here to apply without necessarily the one on one work that we do every week. Ideally, we create, you know, the confidence and techniques so they can go out and know and maintain their instrument without us checking every little bit of it. So you wanna have them fly, so to speak. And then beyond that, I hope that it will gain and grow more interest within the program so that way more students would wanna study next semester. Yeah. And I would love that. I think that’d be terrific. I love singing, and I love encouraging other people to do so.”
What excites you about teaching this subject specifically?
“I have a private studio that I’ve been doing, well, really since I moved here after graduate school about twenty years ago. And again, I would work with a lot of different ages and stages. Some folks who want to pursue music as a professional career, some who just wanna understand how to sing well. And I’ve worked with students who have trouble matching pitch, and I’ve worked with students who now graduated with their own doctoral degrees in the performance field and they’re doing great things nationally. So for me, I think music is a wonderful revelatory study. It teaches you a lot about yourself and it gives you incredible confidence and awareness and discipline that can be applied to any number of fields for success in your life. So for me, I love working with a lot of different ages. Like I said, I’ve worked primarily with middle and high school before, also some college students, but I’ve never had the opportunity to teach at the collegiate level. So that’s been an absolute dream come true for me to get to do that.”
How would you pitch your class to a student?
“Well, here’s a fun thing. I would never try to convince anyone. Because often when you try to convince someone, it creates a bargaining piece and they always feel that you owe them. I would rather invite people to be part of it rather than convince someone. I would share with them all the joys that I get from creating music and what we discover through the study of voice and the tremendous skills that you gain, not only musically, but in terms of your own personal discipline, your fortitude, your willingness to be vulnerable, to make mistakes,and build from them rather than be taken down by them. And I think any study of music, but, within my instrument of voice, it just gives you tremendous confidence to take on the world. Yeah. I mean, it’s really wonderful.”
If you could have everyone listen to one song or musical composition, what would it be?
“Perhaps if there was just one opera, it would probably be, you know — because that was one of the things at first when I was told, ‘oh, you can sing opera one day.’ I thought, really? I was just a little bit worried about it — but for me, I would have people see ‘La bohème,’ because it is a terrific opera examining just wonderful human ideals, the fragility of love and the rare quality of finding real love. And sometimes we’re able to hold it with both hands. Sometimes it slips from our grasp, and it’s the agony and joy of that experience. And it resonates with something deeply human in everyone, whether you understand Italian or not, whether you’ve been to Paris or not. There’s something so deeply human about the experience of being young and trying to figure out what your life is supposed to be and that opera. But I would insist that you see it live. Don’t listen to it. Opera is a 3D thing. You have to be there. You have to see it. You have to hear it. It’s so visually rich. And I think that’s why a lot of people step away from opera and don’t wanna do it because if they just listen, you’re missing out. But there’s — your soul gets to do everything in that opera. Every human emotion, I think, is in ‘La bohème.’ So I would recommend that if you saw nothing else.”
And what do you do in vocal classes?
“So when you come in so a lot of it, we have to establish a lot of trust right from the get go because I’m asking people to sing for me. That’s a very personal and deeply intimate thing to do and, again, not something that is immediately what people do. So a lot of it is getting to know the person and feeling comfortable, finding about your musical background in history. Have you had training in this before? And if so, to what extent? What are some of your favorite things you’ve ever sung? What are languages that are frightening to you? Have you sung in foreign languages? It’s a lot of inquiry at first to establish your personal history and familiarity so I can figure out where to meet you. But then most importantly, I’d love to hear people sing. To hear what the instrument does and what are things that I can do to help improve upon it, strengthen it, and ideally correct or offer assistance for anything that causes the singer confusion, frustration, or those weird things your voice does that you just don’t realize how. And so, again, I get to be the outside set of ears to give them feedback, and we record during that lesson so they have time to go back and reflect. Because when you’re actively performing, you really can’t be analyzing your sound or the product. So we record the lesson, we do a lot of feedback, and then between lessons, singers go in and they’re gonna have some time spent in the practice room. Often, a lot of that will be listening to the lesson and applying what we’ve done to figure out, oh, when I make that adjustment, it really does sound better because it’s trial and error. And then ideally from week to week, we build on the previous week’s successes and apply it to different songs and repertoire. So it might be art songs, it could be musical theater, it could be opera arias. It’s a wide variety depending upon what’s going to best serve the student in their development and what they want in terms of their goals beyond the time here. Because like I said, for some folks, this is just a wonderful exploration of how to sing. For others, it’s the very first step in what will eventually be a successful professional career. And we have to figure out everything in between.”
And then lastly, what’s just a fun fact about yourself?
“A fun fact is — well, and this is one I often share with people — I am a native Montanan born and raised, and if it weren’t for music, I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now, because I am the product of wonderful people who told me, ‘you’ve got a good voice. You should keep singing.’ And it led to one introduction and audition after the next, after the next. It gave me a chance to tour the world, sing in a lot of different amazing places, meet incredible people and it changed my life. So I love that, you know, I came from a beautiful wonderful place and got a whole world because I was just a girl who liked singing.”
Melissa Camp
“I’m Melissa Camp. I am the visiting assistant professor of music history, and I’m a musicologist by trade, which means I study the history of music, the theory of music, both in the Western world and also I’m more specifically, an expert in Middle Eastern music as well. So, specifically, Middle Eastern women in media and how those women are received by media and their influence on the world.”
What drew you to a teaching position at Trinity?
“I’m originally from Dallas and grew up here. I mean, I grew up in Dallas, and I’ve always loved San Antonio. And I’ve always been really attracted to the liberal arts college, as you all were as well. And, in many ways, I look at the students of Trinity and think, like, ‘man, that’s what I wanna be when I grow up,’ because y’all are just so awesome, and it seems like everybody’s like a superhero. You know, everybody’s in, like, a million clubs, and they have so many hobbies. I’m just really drawn to the Trinity students and how studious and how kind they are. I think that’s the biggest trait that I value the most in the Trinity students, is kindness and along with, you know, how smart y’all are. And so I love getting to talk with Trinity students.I always feel so energized whenever I’m in the classroom and talking with everyone. I’m just really in love with it here.”
What are your goals for this semester or for your greater time at Trinity?
“So, I’m just here for the year. My goal is to help make the music department more transparent to the rest of the university. I think so much of music history in general is based on this liberal arts model of incorporating this art form of music, but also incorporates many of the humanities of writing and research. And I think that it helps appeal to a mass here at Trinity. And so I think that my goal is to help students realize their potential as researchers. And research doesn’t necessarily have to be in biology or sciences. It can also be in the humanities as well. And researching in those humanities can help students be better researchers in their own specific fields.”
How would you pitch your class to a student?
“I’m pitching it as: I know they’re not going to go on to be music historians like me, and in fact, I actively discourage them from doing so, because it’s a horrible profession. But, I’m in love with it. But I’ve been telling the students I want them to be empowered in their learning and take agency in what they find curious about their passion of music, because we all have a passion of music, you know, the musicians and the artists that we love to listen to on a daily basis. And I want them to feel excited about being more informed as listeners and consumers of music.”
What excites you about teaching your specific discipline?
“So, I’m most excited about teaching women in music. I am really excited about the direction of music studies of going towards gender and gender studies and incorporating that into how we look at music and how we study musicians and composers and figures. And so that’s the one I’m most excited about teaching. I am also excited to teach the others. I love teaching non-majors. I think non-majors bring an interesting look into music that I’m blind to. And so, I think that’s a lot of fun. Also, I’m going to be teaching my first major class of music history. It’s from antiquity all the way up to 1750. It’s music that we don’t even study anymore, and it’s kind of in the dark ages, and so I’m excited to see them experience the music for the first time. And, also, I’m teaching that class as: it’s not a dead music and music art form. It’s something that can live on today, and they have the capability of keeping that tradition alive.”
If you could have everyone listen to just one song or musical composition, what would it be?
“My favorite answer to this question — and I like it a lot — is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the Fifth of Beethoven, which is the Judge Judy theme song, which is [where] they put Beethoven’s Fifth to a disco beat. And I love that so much because I think that shows how all music is just people stealing other people’s ideas and continuing on that tradition. And, it’s a fun, tongue-in-cheek way of showing that music history is alive and well, and there are traces of it in everything that we listen to, whether that’s through sampling, whether that’s through putting Beethoven to a disco beat, or, you know, through any sort of lyrics that we hear.”
Finally, what’s just a fun fact about yourself?
“I have two cats. I have one cat who’s Katniss the cat. She’s 10 years old. She’s my pride and joy. She can do nothing wrong. She’s amazing. She’s obviously named after Katniss, the book character. And then I have a second cat who’s new on the street, on the block. He’s a street cat that we picked up by a dumpster. His name is Luigi Meowgioni, and he is the worst thing to ever happen to me in a loving way. He is a destroyer. He picks on Katniss. He’s a menace to society, but I do love him.”
