Talking Up Music Education

2018 American Eagle Award honorees Cheryl Bentyne, Alan Paul, and Janis Siegel of The Manhattan Transfer share their musical origin stories, including the evolution of the iconic jazz vocal group. They explore the importance of vocal training as part of caring for your instrument, and the hard work that goes into maintaining a lifelong musical career.

Kala artist, vocalist, and America's Got Talent contestant Mandy Harvey found her voice after a devastating hearing loss that derailed her plans to become a vocal teacher. Through family encouragement and the realization that at her core, she was a musician who just happens to be deaf, Harvey relearned to play music and to sing by feeling the vibrations of the instrument along with the assistance of a visual tuner. She shares her inspirational story and performs LIVE from Summer NAMM.

American folklore scholar and former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Bill Ivey explores ideas for how to achieve meaning and purpose in life through art and music as American society moves away from work and wealth as a means to fulfillment.

Mike DiCesare, co-founder and President of Jamboxx shares his commitment to making a product that allows everyone to play music, regardless of ability. The Jamboxx is an electronic, USB-powered, breath-controlled instrument styled after a harmonica that plays digital MIDI notes. Notes are played by sipping or puffing via the mouthpiece. Moving the mouthpiece left or right determines which note is played. https://www.jamboxx.com/our-instruments

Country music band Parmalee was raised on a diet of southern rock, country, and blues. They've played on country music’s biggest stages, landed on the top of Billboard’s Country chart, and have 30 million combined streams on Spotify. Special thanks to the CMA Foundation as well as Fender Musical Instruments Corp. and Cole Clark USA for the guitars made available for their performance on the podcast.

NAfME and The NAMM Foundation have worked together on music education advocacy initiatives for many years. In this episode of Talking Up Music Education, host Mary Luehrsen catches up with NAfME’s Mike Blakeslee and Denese Odegaard as they discuss the current landscape of music education—and how to effectively prepare music teachers to ask for support from their administration.

Vanessa Carlton, 2018 NAMM Foundation SupportMusic Champion Award recipient, gets real with host Mary Luehrsen about becoming a super star before she was ready; settling in to her freedom as a songwriter; parenting as a touring musician; and her philanthropic work with Nashville schools.

Forte Tenors Josh Page, Alok Kumar, and Zach Page talk about finding their voices as young men; their musical influences; training like a tenor; performing in operas all over the world; and the role of social media for professional musicians.

Arabian Prince got his start in Compton where his mother was a piano teacher and his father was a radio talk show host. He developed an affinity for technology at a young age and began paying around with synthesizers, echo boxes, and computers to make new sounds. His career took off when he co-founded N.W.A. and he continues to write songs, produce, and DJ—in addition to his big philanthropic project, Open Labs.

Iconic music and video innovators Ok Go performed at the 2018 NAMM Foundation Celebration for Music Education at The NAMM Show on January 25. Drummer Dan Konopka stopped by earlier that day to chat about the band’s origin story; receiving his first drum kit at nine years old; and how no one in the band managed to get sick among “60 vomit incidents” during the filming of their groundbreaking video for their hit song, “Upside Down & Inside Out.”