Project Updates

More professor interviews have rolled in. Here is a particularly good one.

1) Who are you? What do you do?

I am an artist, scholar, and teacher. I am a music professor at UCB, teaching courses on popular music, music and politics, and music and identity. I also do research on interracial and intercultural music performance. Finally, I am a composer, sound designer, and performer, working in theater, dance, and film.

2) How did music influence you as a child, and how has it influenced who you are today?

Performing or listening to music has always created a space in which I feel fully alive. Sometimes I am intellectually stimulated, others emotionally, others spiritually. Often all three at once. For this reason, I have chosen to make music central to my daily life, at work and at home.

3) Why is music education important?

Music definitely helps brain development and hand-eye coordination. The ways in which it affects the brain cannot be overstated. Much less spoken about, though, are the ways in which it provides alternative models of how to be people in the world. Children who sing in a choir, for example, learn firsthand what it means to be responsible to a group, work together, and make something beautiful with others. Also, particularly in the U.S., the dominant culture does not support messages or material that develop or engage the emotional and spiritual elements of ourselves. Music is important for helping students learn about and connect with themselves by having intense emotional experiences.

4) What is one thing you will promise to do in the next month to spread awareness about music education?

I pledge to better mentor the young artists that are around me and help them to understand the great value of their efforts and importance of their voices.

5) If you were a song, what would you be? And possibly why?

I would be Bob Marley's "Redemption Song." It's simple yet hauntingly beautiful. Straight to the point yet poetic. And about living fearlessly, taking control of your own destiny, working for justice, and forgiving the hurt of the past (but with a critical eye and the desire to make the future better).

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Tamara Roberts
Assistant Professor, Department of Music
University of California, Berkeley