the lengths we’ll go to

by Amy | Mar 1, 2019 | singing

I have been EXTREMELY fortunate in my life to have the opportunity to work with people who have profoundly inspired me. I grew up in a small town suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. My Dad was a hardworking mechanic and VW salesman. My Mom stayed at home and raised three kids while she operated a thriving cake business out of our home. While we never went without, our lives were simple and our excesses were few.

We were church-going people, and we spent a lot of time going back and forth to various church activities throughout each week. Our parents’ meager income was enough to afford us the opportunity to go to a Christian school, but beyond that, higher education was rarely emphasized in our circles.

Throughout my childhood, I took piano lessons off and on for several years. Playing the piano soothed me and helped me make sense of the world. Alongside taking piano, I developed another passion that eventually took over and guided me throughout middle school and high school — singing!

Like many kids, high school was a tough period for me. My parents weren’t able to buy me a car, so I had to work to pay for my car. I later was appreciative of this, because it cultivated a work ethic in me that I would later use to my advantage. But, at the time, it caused me to have to choose between school involvements, like choir, and responsibilities, like working. Yet, even with those choices, I was able to participate in elite choirs throughout high school and achieve a level of success with those choirs.

After I graduated from high school, the last thing on my mind was college. I was more interested in earning money, partying with friends and boys. Because there wasn’t a history of college graduates in my family, I was not encouraged to press forward into even the “thought” of obtaining a degree.

Despite all that, I ended up going to our local metropolitan community college for a year and then quit school to get a job as a men’s fragrance salesperson at a department store. While I was working behind the counter at The Jones Store, there was a mallwalker by the name of Richard who would come by every day and spray on his Aramis cologne. Little did I know, he had just lost his wife of 50 years to cancer, and this was a way for him to get out of the house and meet people.

Over and over again, Richard would come by my counter and wave a nice greeting as he walked away. Until one day, he stopped and said, “What do you really want to do?” This question took me by surprise, because I didn’t realize I had options. I answered him, and simply said, “I don’t know. What do you mean?”

Richard went on to ask me what I enjoyed doing or what I knew most about. He then went on to explain how he had just lost his wife to cancer and spent the bulk of his career as an accountant. But what he realized when he retired was that he actually really enjoyed painting — specifically with pastels — and he wishes he would have pursued that further. Then, he asked me again, “What do you really want to do?”

This time, my answer was different. I had always loved music. I loved singing. And just recently, before this encounter with Richard, I had found a cassette tape of Beethoven symphonies in the back of a used car my Dad had bought, and I couldn’t stop listening to it. The sound of strings playing together in such perfect, pristine collaboration was the most magnificent sound I had ever heard with my own ears. I was hooked. I needed this in my life somehow…some way! So, finally, when he asked me this question I had an answer: “I want to do something with music.”

Over the course of the next few months, he would continue to walk by and ask me how my plans were coming along. The details of the timeline are now fuzzy, but I know that I was able to get an application sent to me by my local university at UMKC, and I filled it out. Over the course of the next few months I would take voice lessons from teachers I knew and prepare for an audition for the Conservatory of Music. And when that day came, I did it!

A few weeks later, I received a letter that I was accepted into the Conservatory as a music ed major, but only on probation. See, my grades in high school and community college weren’t that great, so I needed to prove myself and get those grades up to stay in the program. Challenge accepted!

I tell you all that to say that those years from 1994 to 1998 were some of the most formative years in my entire life. I had the opportunity to study under some AMAZING teachers like, Dr. Charles Robinson, Dr. Randall Pembrook and Dr. Eph Ehly (pictured above). Those men, and so many other instrumental teachers there, taught me the value of perseverance and hard work. They taught me that life was more than just earning a living. They taught me that “we don’t teach music to people, but we teach people through music.” They taught me that I had a purpose, that I had value and I had the right to dream big. But most importantly, they taught me that, above talent…above all else really, my highest purpose is to inspire, encourage and support others to live out their purpose as well.

Toward my last year or two of undergrad (again, the timeline is fuzzy), my financial situation begin to take its toll on me. I was living at home, working part-time to full-time hours at Sprint Relay Center for the Speech and Hearing Impaired while going to college full time. My drive from my parents’ home to the school and then to work was like a big triangle where nothing was close together or convenient. Many of my required courses were spread out throughout the day, and parking at Grant Hall, where most of my classes were, was always a nightmare. Not only that, but my car was always a less-than-reliable source of transportation. It seemed to always break down somewhere at the most inconvenient of times when I was either on my way to work or an important rehearsal.

Early on in my studies, Sprint had a program that reimbursed college education — in any major. I took full advantage of this during my first two years of school. But after those first two years, they changed the program to only include degrees that were complimentary to the company — like business or computer science. I was at a fork in the road where I needed to either change majors or take out student loans. At that point in my life, and many times before and since then, my only database for handling decisions revolved around money and my current financial stability. But this time was different. After much deliberation and prayer, I decided to stay on with the music program I had begun and already invested in.

The main challenge, however, was always my commitment to stick it out even when my outer circumstances sometimes dictated that I fall off the path completely and derail. I wanted so badly to take the easy route. I wanted life to be easy-breezy and not filled with so many obligations and commitments. I wanted what I saw my friends having: the glamorous life of parties and dating and new cars. Instead, I was working my butt off and barely finding time to practice my instrument or prepare for exams. I had already let my grades slip and began ditching classes when Dr. Robinson pulled me into his office and talked with me about what was going on. He didn’t judge me. He just genuinely listened to how I was doing. And then he nudged me and encouraged me to keep on going and fight for this. And I took his nudge to heart and pressed on.

Being a part of the Heritage Chorale at UMKC was another nudge for me to press on throughout undergrad, and it gave me a glimpse outside of my own circumstances and into all the possibilities that could await me if I chose to press on and release all the baggage. By the way, the music building where we met for choir was where Walt Disney himself had attended elementary school. Isn’t that the coolest? I had NO idea what awaited me in that choir room when I walked into choir that first day. Our choir director, Dr. Eph Ehly, would stand at the door of the choir room at every single rehearsal and force you to shake his hand with a firm grip. “No weak handshakes allowed.” Once everyone had taken their seats, he spoke words that would inspire generations of music makers and educators alike to go out and change the world. He would encourage us to leave our problems at the door and come together for this divine hour and focus on the task at hand: the music.

That year, under the direction of Dr. Ehly, Heritage Chorale was invited to sing at Carnegie Hall in New York City. During that entire year, my life was transformed. I was so inspired and so much more committed to the journey than I had been before. I started to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but most importantly, I started to actually enjoy the journey and embrace the hard work, because I knew I was supposed to be there. I still struggled with financial baggage and relationship woes that always loomed in the air and threatened to throw me off track, but these great influencers, who were, for all practical purposes just doing their job like good Midwesterners do, inspired me to look beyond my dire circumstances and stay the course.

Have you ever been through a time in your life where you’ve felt like you weren’t sure if what you were doing or where you were was where you were supposed to be? On the contrary, have you ever had the experience where you were sitting under the direction of another person and felt immediately at complete peace because you knew, no matter what, you were supposed to be there, in that place, at that very moment, hearing that crucial message your heart so longed to hear?

Those are the moments I look forward to in life, and those are the moments I experienced under the direction of Dr. Ehly. I am so grateful to him and the other advisers I mentioned who cared enough to spur me on when the going got tough and pushed me to fight for the life I didn’t even know I wanted to live.

This week was the ACDA (American Choral Directors’ Association) 2019 Jubilee Convention in Kansas City, Missouri. Dr. Ehly was one of the clinicians, and many of us alums who were under his direction so many years ago have been chatting for months about how we could manage to get back to Kansas City to be there, in his presence, again. Unfortunately, with our family commitments and the kids’ schedules, I was not able to make it back for this, and my heart has been heavy over not being able to see him and talk to him again like I had hoped. My girlfriend, Kimberly, even tried to coax me into riding from Tulsa to KC with her and back in 24 hours so we could just be there for his long-awaited reception. We laughed as we talked about it and she said, “Isn’t it funny the lengths we’ll go to to be inspired?” She, like me, is a Mommy to 3 kids and is feeling a bit uninspired and uncertain in her current journey as a singer and music teacher. While the temptation was so great to join her — almost overwhelmingly — I determined that going would be too difficult to manage. A 12-hour drive twice in two days isn’t something you recover from quickly. But, oh, what I wouldn’t give to be there!! I feel like it’s one of those moments where my heart is there, and I long so desperately to be in that place, like a sponge, soaking up and savoring every last word.

But duty calls…

Alas, since I cannot be there, I dedicate this post to him and so many mentors of my past and present who not only teach music, but continually inspire people to be better humans through music.

If there’s something in your life that seems out of reach; or if you feel like you want to pursue something, but it just seems too frivolous or uncertain — remember this:

God put you here for a reason. Your background does not determine your future. Your past experiences don’t dictate who you are and what you are capable of becoming.

I firmly believe that, if we pray for God to provide mentors to help us get where we want to go, He will provide them just like He provided Dr. Ehly, Dr. Robinson…and let’s not forget my dear friend, Richard. God provided me with mentors in abundance, and I am so grateful for their steadfast commitment to helping people like me reach greater heights far beyond anything we thought we were capable of doing.