Last Lecture

Good afternoon and welcome to the 16th annual last lecture. I'm Christine Fitzpatrick, president of the Senior Academy, and it's truly my pleasure to be here with all of you for this special event. The last lecture series is an important tradition on this campus and is sponsored by the IU Indianapolis Senior Academy Office of Academic Affairs and the IU Foundation. The Senior Academy is an independent association retired faculty and staff whose members continue to contribute their expertise and experience in support of the university's mission. This event offers a unique opportunity to hear from a distinguished member of the campus community, a chance for them to share wisdom, insights, and reflections. Through this series, we honor the knowledge and experience of those who have dedicated their lives to education, scholarship, and service, creating a legacy that reaches far beyond their individual achievements. Each year, we invite a speaker who embodies the values of IU Indianapolis, excellence, dedication, and a genuine commitment to the betterment of society. The last lecture is not only a testament to a life of learning, but also a celebration of the impact one person can have on countless others through their work, their words, and their example. Today, as we gather to continue this cherished tradition, I encourage all of us to listen, reflect, and find inspiration in the words of our esteemed colleague. Professor Deals' reflections are sure to leave a lasting impression, perhaps even spark new thoughts or action, in our own lives. So thank you once again for joining us today and for being part of this community that values growth, reflection, and the endless pursuit of knowledge. I now have the pleasure of introducing Latha Ramcham, inaugural Chancellor of IU, Indianapolis. Please welcome Chancellor Ramshan. Thank you so much and thank you for inviting me to share a few remarks. It's truly, truly, truly a pleasure for me to participate and learn more about the last lecture series that our senior academy here is hosting. And I think about this really as an opportunity for all of us to learn. I have learned so much in the last 10 months, just being on this campus. And there is so much to learn from every one of you who's been here, those who've been here, who've stepped down, who've retired. So this is such a great idea to host a series like this. I believe this is the 16. annual series and so the ability to listen to learn to learn from those that have wisdom by ways by years of experience that are here that can share that with us so that people like me coming in can make sure we avoid those turns that we should be avoiding but the opportunity to learn is just so amazingly wonderful and coming through this last lecture series I hadn't heard of this before. So I was really struck by the innovativeness of this whole concept. So thank you all for hosting this. The last lecture, as I'm told, has been given annually since 2009 and offers our community to hear reflections, reflections on life's lessons and meaning of life from either current faculty or retired faculty at IU, Indianapolis. And really, I believe the speakers are chosen based on exceptional merit. Their lives, their experiences, the wisdom that they distilled from that, and to be able to enjoy that is truly amazing. What to me is doubly special is our speaker today, who is going to deliver the last lecture, Dr. Scott Deal, I got to meet Scott and I got to know him before our last. board of trustees meeting where he was presented as our faculty that we were celebrating and that we wanted to showcase to our board of trustees. And I don't know if you all participated or watched the meeting, but Dr. Deal was our chosen speaker. And in reading about him and reading about his musical genius, which has to do with percussion, just amazing story of what he does, how he inspires his students, but also, and I hope he shares the story with us today, his ability to transform himself from a participant in the audience to a player on stage, right? I mean, imagine this. If you're all sitting here and you're attending a concert and suddenly the people performing come and tell you, oh, we don't have a singer today, can you come sing for us? I mean, really, Dr. Deal has been there and has done that. So I was really struck by that experience. And so there is a lot to learn from what he can share with us. And I look forward to this to hearing him. The person who's going to formally introduce him is another artist, an artist who we call Dean Greg Hull. And so without further ado, please join me in welcoming Greg Hull who is an artist of his, you know, of his own merit and who is going to formally introduce Dr. Deal. Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you, Latha. Really appreciate your time and thank you for joining us today. And I want to thank everyone for being here today for this wonderful event. It's an honor to be here among colleagues, so many colleagues, students, and friends to celebrate one of our most valued campus traditions, the last lecture. Today I have the privilege of introducing Scott Deal, Dr. Scott Deal, professor of music. music technology, and also the director of the Donald Tavill Center. Scott's a remarkable colleague whose career exemplifies the dedication, vision, and creativity that inspires this all. This year is especially meaningful as Scott and the talented music and arts technology department joined Heron just a few months ago, bringing with them an incredible spirit of collaboration and innovation. Scott Deal has made extraordinary contributions as a musician, visionary, and the the realm of international creativity and music technology. He has established a distinctive and influential reputation on both national and international stages through his groundbreaking research and telematic musical performances. By innovating new methodologies that harness telecommunications technology, Scott has revolutionized the way performers and audiences connect in real time across vast distances. His pioneering work has created a framework that not only facilitates seamless interactive performances between geographically dispersed musicians, but also enriches the experience for audiences around the world. Scotch Research and Telematic Performances, which is also built on within the TABEL Center, has set a new standard for global connectivity in the arts. Through his efforts, musicians separated by continents can perform together as if they were in the same room, creating a deeply engaging and communal experience that transcends geographic barriers. His work has reshaped our understanding of how technology can be used to foster intimate shared experiences, even we are far apart, a concept that resonates deeply in today's increasingly connected world. What makes Scott's contributions so extraordinary is not only the technical prowess involved, but also the imaginative and collaborative spirit behind his work. He has forged meaningful connections across disciplines, collaborating with artists, engineers, scholars, His visionary approach has also influenced the future of musical education, showing us new ways to teach, learn, and perform. Scott has helped us open an entirely new pathway for students who are now able to envision careers and fields that didn't exist a decade ago. Beyond his technical and artistic accomplishments, Scott is an inspiring presence at Heron and here at IU, Indianapolis, where his generosity, openness, invite us all to think more broadly about the possibilities within our fields. His work reminds us of the power of creativity, and the importance of pushing boundaries, not only for our personal growth, but for the benefit of our communities and the world. As Scott takes the stage today to share his own reflections, I know we're all in for a truly inspiring and unique experience. His journey is one of innovation and resilience, and his insights have the power to reshape how we think about music, technology, and the global community we all are a part of. So, if you would, please join me in welcoming our colleague and friends Scott Deal to the stage. Can everybody hear me out there? Can everybody hear me out there? Great. Let's push this down here. All right. And this is my timer so I don't go over. No, seriously, you want me to have a timer. I can tell you that. Just ask my students. Okay, we started it. Okay, it's so exciting to be here. I want to begin by thanking Christine Fitzpatrick, the president of the Senior Academy, Gene Robertson, the Senior Academy Last Lecture Selection Committee. My hearing colleagues, Robin Cox, Chair of the Music and Arts Technology Department, Associate Dean William Potter, along with Greg Hall, for their support in submitting my nomination, and as well as Christian Wisehart, the Heron Communications Specialists, who designed the digital display that was shown on monitors across the campus. Also, I want to thank Emily Kean of IUI Faculty Affairs, Provost and Executive Vice-Chancellor Jay Gladden, and Chancellor Lothor Ramchad, who has made all this possible. Thank you all so much. It's a true honor to be. asked to present this lecture, especially in light of this audience. My friends, I have many of my friends here from the community, my colleagues who I just have such profound respect for and associates and students. It makes it difficult, I have to be honest, it makes it difficult for me to choose actually what to say. But I figured it out. Okay, so you got, we got, we got, we got it. But to begin, I just want to very quickly address. And I appreciate all that Greg said, all those wonderful things that were said about my research or anything, but I really would like to address what it is I do here. And what also is what is music technology? So let's quickly as a prelude hit that. Okay. So what I do is I teach music technology. Okay. And so the next question would be at the graduate level. I teach in the master's program. We also have a PhD program. But often, especially in the community, I get asked, well, what is music technology? You know, and how's that different? So this is a very succinct definition. If you think of a traditional university music education, which that's what I have come out of. I have three degrees in percussion performance. And I spent my life in those nine years practicing most of the time. practicing and performing, practicing and performing, reading about music history and theory. And so to distill it all the way down to a phrase, music education in the Western world is about how to, how to play. And it's really important. I don't want to say that music tech is more important. It's important. But how to is a vital thing. And you'll see when I talk in my lecture. Because we have over a thousand years of this music education, how to play these instruments. And it's been handed down and improved and handed down and improved and handed down. And so if you go to a traditional music institution, say, for instance, the Jacobs School or my alma mater, University of Cincinnati conservatory music, you know, you're learning the techniques of good playing. You're learning how to hold your mallets or how to play the trumpet. but how to produce a beautiful sound. It's all how-to. Music technology is all about what if. It's not about how-to at all. If we were teaching people how-to, we wouldn't be doing our job. Because how-to only as good as the day you finish school, and then suddenly you're obsolete. And so we ask, what if we tried this software in this fashion? in a performance? What if we include players across the internet and process their sounds in real time in this fashion? What if mushrooms can be made into material that provides for better room acoustics than traditional sound treatment materials, as my colleague Timothy Schu does, professor in our department? What happens? And this one's really going to, it flows, okay, this one, I don't even know the answer to. But some of my grad students are, are going here and I'm like, wow, they're getting ahead of me. What if I use fluid corpus manipulation? You got that fluid corpus manipulation software for audio sounds in real time? Obviously, I have no idea. But that's the fun part of music technology. I mean, really, you have to kind of let go. Do you know more than your students? You just clearly don't, okay? You're going to hang on, you know, you hang on for doing. life there. And then also just to say this, and we have a fantastic, we have an incredible program. I mean, the faculty are amazing, the students. It's just every day is a fun day. But our students are comprised in music technology, and I tell people this a million times a year, and my students will recognize it, that there's two kinds of people in music technology. There's musicians who are really interested in technology, and they're fascinated. They want to get if they want to do these things. computer science majors, engineering students, I'm graduates, I'm talking about the graduate school, people in IT, people in circuitry, that they just love music, and they want to see if there's a way to segue into the field somehow using their skills. And so we take these two, that's very broad and very general, and also business people. We've had them in our degree program. We bring them in together, and we put them in into an interdisciplinary context, and away we go. So that's a short, very short tutorial as an introduction. But also I can't stop there because I'm so proud of some of our students. And actually, this is really great because these two guys are here in the audience. Trian Mung, where's Trian? Okay, Trian got to stand up. And Jordan Munson, where's Jordan? There's Jordan. Okay, yeah. You might not know these two gentlemen, but here's why I put their picture up. This is from the first semester I was here. My first semester, I came here in 2007 from University of Alaska, and in my first class, these two guys were in my first class as graduate students. And look at them. Don't they look cute, they look so young, you know? He's so young. Look at Jordan, like, with his little gouty and everything. awesome, right? And when I see that picture, I just, I just get all, like, heart warmed because, but I can tell you this, they were incredible students. And at the time, I was a new professor, I had nothing to do with hiring anybody. But our department here at the time, David Peters, was really impressed with him as I was. And we had a really, really fun year. They were so ready to, to, like, you know, take on the world. They had ideas. They had energy. And we just, like ran with it. And they got hired as at first, lecturers or maybe adjunct, but they were hired into our program to be instructors. And they've worked themselves up. And I'm so proud. Jordan is now a teaching professor in the Heron School of Art. And he's also a major recording artist. He works, he records for New Amsterdam Records out of New York City. I can tell you hundreds of musicians that would love to be associated with that label. And Jordan, our own Jordan Muson, is on that label, and he's a well-known recording artist. And then Trey and Mung just got his Ph.D., and he's also a teaching professor. And, yeah. Yeah, and they're just both, they're tremendous additions to a faculty, and so in preparing this and talking about teaching, you know, we've been on this journey the whole time. Of course, other people, but I have a special place in my heart for both of you guys, so there it is. Okay. Here's the lecture. Here's the outline. We're going to begin with the end. We're going to talk about the rivers of life. We're going to talk about people, exclamation point. We're going to talk about how big things come from a small place. We're going to talk about taking the leap, and we're going to end with the beginning. Okay, let's end with the beginning first. And this will probably be like the most, you know, serious part of the lecture. But I'm just going to dive in. There's no really good way to talk about this. So three years ago, I was diagnosed with malignant prostate cancer. And it already spread. Now, I'm a person that every year I went and got checked. But somehow, between years, it popped out. And so it's been quite. quite a journey those three years. I've been through all of the treatments. I've been through hormone treatments. I went through 10 straight weeks in 2022 of radiation. I think that's when I was the sickest, every single day, except for weekends, for 10 weeks. I've been through chemo. I've been through radiation chemo. I'm not quite sure if it's radiation or chemo. It's radiation, but they inject you. And I also just want to do a shout out here as well, is that I've been a patient at the Simon Cancer Center and I just could never, ever say good enough things about those people. I mean, they're just so passionate and they're so smart and it's been really amazing to me to watch them and the way they treated me and my wife and the care and concern and how hard they work. In fact, I got a second opinion. 18 months ago, I was diagnosed further that had gone to stage four. And I was encouraged to get a second opinion. So I went to the next state over Cleveland Clinic. And the first thing they told me with my second opinion, analyzed all my problems. They said, well, the first thing, and the most important thing is you are in really great hands. That is, you could not possibly do better than being with the Simon Cancer Center. And so I owe you a huge debt of gratitude, even though it's a tremendously challenging thing to go through. and there is no cure 18 months ago my doctor told me I between one and four years in front of me and so and you can imagine that's a real gut check and what preoccupied me a lot in now those weeks afterwards was well that's a big time spread and you know what are you going to do and what does that mean and it was very confusing and I was talking to a health care professional and I shared kind of like figure that out or it was four is it you know and she said something that that really changed my life and and has made it a much better journey she said how about this how about if you just decide today is the last day of your life tomorrow you're gone and don't worry about that year four year stuff it's meaningless today that's the only that's all you got you got nothing else and so that was amazing for me and it changed my perspective And of course, I've worked hard at that. My wife and I are walkers, and especially since the diagnosis, we've walked three and a half miles a day. So I figure I've walked across the United States. And she's really disciplined about it. I'll be like, I don't want to walk. No, no, we're getting up. Come on. Wait, get out a bit. Get out of bit. We do it right before breakfast. And so I feel very deeply about that. And I've lived since that conversation. I ask myself that every day. or I tell myself, today is the last day of my life. What is important? Who is important? What am I doing with my life? How do I make this meaningful? And it's been great. And you know, the other thing about that is what happens when you decide it's the last day of your life is all the weight that just falls off to the side. All the worries, all the burdens, like emotional burdens, like a resentment, or you were slu. or you don't get along with somebody or you're, you know, you got a lot of pressure on this thing, you've got to turn in, or you're writing a grant, all these weights, they just fall away because they're not that important. Now, where's the chance there? Okay, anyway, I just want to say to the administration, I'm not advocating, not working hard. Okay, everybody to keep working hard, okay? I still work hard. But it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be something you just carry around with you. And, you know, you let go and you let go of like, you know, I was sort of a speed demon, you know, I let go of that. Just let people go in front of you. It's not important anymore. And then you can become light and life becomes really beautiful. And then you can focus on the things you love, you know, my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my friends and my music. And that's what I've done. So today, my question is, what would you talk about if you knew it was the last time you ever spoke to your students? I've had a year and a half to really think that one through, and I have been thinking it through. But that's what I want us to consider today. And, of course, you haven't had a year and a half. you've had like a minute. And so, but how we're going to set this up is that today is a class and you're my students. Okay. And this is the very last time I'm ever going to give a class. This really is the last lecture because I've been thinking about that all this time. And so it really is last and we're going to take a journey. And there's a little autobiographical, auto biographical, actually maybe a little bit more, but that's what came out of cultivating this last lecture. Things I've learned. And it's interesting. You know, I've really worked at this. And I thought I've had like, you know, I could talk for four hours all the things I'd like to share. But I had to distill it down. And something I discovered is that you learn the same lessons over and over and over. But the first time, the second time, you learn those lessons. They're traumatic. you're young, but that's when you really learn those lessons. And those are the ones that stick with you. Next time you learn that lesson 10 years down the road, you're like, oh yeah, I remember this. I've been here already. I know what this lesson is. But the first time, you know, you feel like the world is coming to an end. And so a lot of it is when I was young. But that's the reason why. Because it reverberates. It goes back. It keeps life does this. It's the same lessons. And everything I'm going to tell you today, there's nothing new in it. It's ancient. There's no, I don't have any new, I'm not going to talk about new research, because it's not important. It's important day to day, but it's not important for this last lecture. So let's proceed. Okay, I'd like you to indulge me for a few moments as we consider rivers and the rivers of life. And I'm using real pictures of real rivers as a metaphor. This is the Tananaugh, the mighty Tananaugh River in the interior of Alaska, where I used to live. I was a professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Now, it's a glacial river. And so, and this is actually one part where it's really put together well, but a lot of times it spreads really wide into a delta. And it's a huge river, and it just kind of winds around in Alaska. And And it's beautiful. And there's a lot of people paint paintings of it up in Alaska. Okay, here's our own White River here in Indy. Quite a different one is warm and inviting, is calm. It kind of just like cruises, you know, gently through Indiana, you know, and every spot of it is so beautiful. We live in Broad Ripple and particularly there, the beauty of the White River is great. Okay, here we have an entirely different. We have two rivers, way different. We have the Hudson and the East Rivers in New York City. Population, millions of people, hustle, bustle, tons of boats, activity, everything, crazy. This is, I don't know, I thought, it looked like a river when I took the picture. It's called Pine Creek, but it's in the Pine Creek George, Gorge in western Pennsylvania. But it has lots of falls and rapids and, you know, it's kind of tumultuous. So, and then here is again, the Tanninaw, I couldn't use the, using this picture, you can see how it winds around. But this is a lot, you know, we're going to get to that metaphor, but it's windy, right? And if you're, if you're taking a boat down the Tanninaw, you don't know what's around the corner. You got to wait until you get there. You know, and then you're suddenly, wait, I'm going the wrong direction. I'm going backwards. But then it eventually makes this way. Okay. And then finally, this isn't quite a river, but, you know, it'll do. It's the Strait of Georgia between Canada and Vancouver Island. It has currents in it that are river-like currents, but I thought I'd put one big body in it. So these pictures of these rivers, and I'd ask you to sort of imagine this, can serve as a metaphor for our lives, okay, for our lives journey or a career's journey. You know, in this case it'll be a career, but really, especially in the arts, especially a musician, because you have to start kind of early. your career and your life are very closely intertwined. And so I'm going to start a couple of picture, family pictures at the beginning because, and when you're young, when you're born and when you're a little person, you're on that boat on the river of life, but you're just going along for the ride. You haven't built anything. You haven't made your own boat. You're just, you know, you're running around the deck playing. You're enjoying it. Okay. It's later that it's time to step out and form your own vessel and choose your own path, finding your own tributary, go to a different river. And all of our lives, every one of us makes different choices, does different things. But we're all on that river. So here we go. There's my family. This is 1967. I was 10 years old, and that's Thanksgiving, obviously. My parents, Bill and Ellie Deal and my brothers left to right. Matt, Ty, me, and then Bart. Matt was the oldest. I was number two. Ty was three, and Bart was the youngest. And we were typically, your typical, Wasp American family. My father was in the military. I can share about that in a second. We moved a lot, but all my brothers are still alive and kicking. We have great relationship. They live all over the country, and they're great people. And we're all talkers. That's why I got to use the timer. that we all that's one my wife tells me that the one thing we have in common is we just like okay okay there's my dad is the engineer this is a great shot okay um he was an air force officer and he was pilot but he was also an engineer aeronautical engineer and we moved we moved all the time this was the 60s cold war by the time i graduated from high school i had lived in 18 different places from California, all the way to France, and everywhere in between. Little towns, big cities, it was crazy. But one thing he liked to do, I don't know, if anybody recognizes that, you don't have to raise your hand, but this is in Arizona outside of Tucson at the Kit Peak Observatories, okay, where you do, like look at the stars, you can see this triangular building in the back as a giant telescope. And so he was super into that stuff. He loved the technology. Of course, he was an engineer. And he wasted no opportunity to take us to things like that, to see things, to see airplanes. He took us down inside a missile silo, you know, ICBM. We didn't know what we're looking at. I didn't know until it didn't occur to me until like 25 years later. I was looking at a nuclear missile, but he took us down there into it, put us in airplane seats, you know. He just thought it was all great. And then we watched all the science fiction B movies on TV in the 60s, you know, the day the earth stood still and forbidden planet. If it was on, we were watching a Star Trek. And he was just, he was just that kind of guy. And then also he was this kind of guy. He was a pilot. He flew, he started his career as a test pilot in the 50s, flying U Jets. And then during the Vietnam War, he flew F4 Phanoms. They were a fighter jet, two-seater. That's my dad on the right and his co-pilot navigator on the left. And he flew 100 missions over North Vietnam. His jet was an RFC phantom that means reconnaissance that had no guns on it, no bombs. His job was to swoop in and to take pictures of various areas of Hanoi. He never, it was always Hanoi. So he flew 100 times over Hanoi. And, you know, I think that, I mean, for me, it's a profound thing. First of all, we were a completely scared witless. while he was gone. It was, and my poor mother, you know, and my heart goes out to anybody who's over in a war zone because it's truly, truly frightening for the family. But also, and I found out in later years, he was scared with us. He said they'd go and get a briefing what they were to do, and they'd leave, and some of the pilots would vomit. They'd be so scared, and they'd go do it. But you can be scared, but you can still be courageous, and he was a very courageous man. And I think that, you know, that really has an impact, has a major impact on your children. At least it has for me. But then now here's my mom. And notice the caption. She did everything else. My mom was super mom. And if you've ever known military moms, they are that way. They're pretty incredible people. Imagine having four boys and then raising, raising them. moving 18 times, you know, over a 20-year period, she was tough as nails, and you did not want to mess with that lady. I can tell you that. And she wasn't very tall, but even as we got taller, she demanded and commanded and commanded respect, but she was also really incredible, and she played it, as I'm going to talk about. And, you know, the one thing about the rivers of life is that, well, I'll I'll wait. I'll stop right there. My mom loved music. She loved to sing in church. She had a record player. She played songs all the time. Ray Conniff, Perry Como, Boston Pops, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, classical music, country music. She just loved it. And she'd be in the living room, like, vacuuming, you know, and singing at the top of her lungs. I mean, she was just a musical lady, you know. And she told me over the years as I was growing up that she picked up on a very early that for some reason, you know, and there was four of us, and she treated all four of us the same, and we've all had our lives. You know, we all made our choices. And so it wasn't like I was singled out, but she noticed that I had this affinity for music, especially live music, and that I would just light up, and that I responded in a way that she noticed. It was uncommon, and she picked up on it because it was like that for her too. And she tells me a story. I was like three years old, and I knew that she had a girlfriend who was a church organist, Mrs. Zinke in Dayton, Ohio. And she said, I wanted her to take me over to hear Mrs. Zinky play. And so she did, and they had coffee, and then she played, and then she finished. And my mom said, I was just ecstatic, and I was clapping, and, you know. And I remember, as soon as I got old enough to remember things, how much I wanted to be, I saw someone playing bongos, and I was like, that's what I was. I'm doing. That. That, can I get that? No, why not? No. What? You know, and then I saw like a marching band with the snare drums. I was like, that, that, that's the thing right there. I want to do that. And so my earliest years, I was growing up begging for drums, you know, it took a while. Now, the rivers of life, I also want to show this about my mom, is that, you know, it is a river, and in life, we're kind of dropped into it. And if you are able to look in the past, the past generations, unfortunately for my family we are, thanks to my grandmother, you find other, you know, you make connections. And so, and I'm not going to go in a lot of detail, but in my mother's side of the family in the past, there was a pretty famous composer. He was published by Shermer, Homer and Bartlett. In the 1800s, he lived in New York. He was a professional pianist and composer and church organist. and his work exists to this day. And then that was her grandmother, Mary Edith Hamilton, who trained at the Cincinnati Conservatory when it was just a standalone school. And then she had a career as a piano teacher and a pianist in Knoxville, Tennessee. And so, you know, your river, you know, is formed. You're growing, but these things are around, the trees, the topography, the water, the substance. Everything is formulating you. And so I grew up, and I, like I said, I wanted to play drums. And I kept begging. And first I got a little practice pad, fourth grade, then I got a snare drum. Then I finally, in eighth grade, I got like a little cheap, like Sears catalog drum set. But I was ecstatic. I didn't care. And I played that thing to death. And then suddenly, you know, and I was also, you know, music was my life. And the funny thing is that I was never, even all the way to the end of high school. I never thought, I'm going to music as a profession. It didn't occur to me. My dad was too more like, you got to get a regular job. I don't know, but it didn't really seem to me like that was it. But I can tell you, music was my life. As a junior high and high school student, I endlessly was with friends listening to records. And my poor mom, you know, once I got that drum set, like little kids, you know, or high school kids, junior high, they like to have jam sessions in the basement, the guitarist and the bassist. trying things out. You're, you know, smoke on the water, right? Remember that one? Okay, exactly. Don, don, don, don, don, don, don, don't, don, all that stuff, right? But my mom, she, we packed the, the drum set in the station wagon. She was toting me all over Dayton, Ohio, you know, to play with these people. And then, and there's a picture, yeah, let's me playing. This is when I was slightly older, I was getting good gigs, playing gigs with the band, so you can see me. You can't seem to me very well, but that's my drum set. The other thing is, once my parents were very egalitarian people because they had four kids. They gave me that little cheap drum set. I was in eighth grade and they said, okay, that you cut off, no more. You've been, everything else from now on, you've got to buy yourself. So I saved them my money and body used drum set. That was nice. But anyway, where was it going with this? That was really my life. And then once I got to high school on a driver's license, I went to millions of rock concerts. I've talked with Greg and O'Holl and I have talked about the concerts that were going on in the Dayton area. You know, all the rock bands, the Prague rock bands, the jazz bands. I just couldn't get enough of it. It was really my world. So anyway, you know, and being in rock bands, and one thing also, and this is when I'm going to talk about mastery, is that everybody has some, not everybody, and I can't say that, because maybe there's some people that don't have something. but I will say I was fortunate I was a clumsy awkward kid okay and I was kind of short and I kind of was having a hard you know I was like a million other kids you know clumsy and awkward especially clumsy I wasn't really good athlete I did sports I wasn't very good I always sat on the bench but when I got behind the drum set it was at all it flowed like poetry. And even my dad, he said that to me once. He said, Scott, I just don't understand. He said, you are like the clumsiest of the four, because I would break things and spill all the time. He said, but when you get behind that drum set, it's like poetry. I just don't get it. It's like two people in one body. And when I played gigs, you know, I noticed. I did. It was it was unspoken. And I was a little too insecure to really think I was great. But I did notice that with these high school kids and I was generally more and more playing with people older than me that we'd set up and then here's the guitar players they're playing and then the drums are in the back, you know, we're doing the first song and I start playing and then the guitarist would look, they'd look back and then they'd look at each other and they'd be smiling, you know, and then after the session, hey, so why didn't you be in our band? It almost always went that way. So anyway, here's a, here's my mom and I, I just graduated from high school. school. She was just a big support. Another thing she did, I wanted to mention this. See, and this is, I think it really helped me become a musician, all these things. So we have my, the musicians would come to my house, we'd be in the basement. We'd open the windows, playing super loud, big amps, everything. And the door right open, and there's my mom. She's walking down the stairs with a tray full of sandwiches. And I can tell you, those band, those band, they loved my mom. They loved her. They'd be at school, was like, hey, can we practice at your house? You know? So it was awesome. Okay, so I moved, again, moving all the time. That's kind of hard on being a musician, but I do have a quick story. I moved to Pittsburgh, and it was kind of hard to find. It's hard to kind of get that going, and I wasn't really playing. And the singer in the band I had been in Dayton, he called me, and he was really upset that I wasn't in a band. And so he came to visit as I was graduating from Pine School. a couple of weeks at my house. And while I was a school, he got on back in those days when you wanted to get into a band, you put an ad in the paper. Or if you wanted an instrument, you wanted, like, searching for drummer, searching for lead singer, and then you'd answer the ads, and all the papers in the country. We don't do that anymore. So he was answering those, he was looking at those ads, and I came home, and he said, the day I graduate, the night I graduated, He came home that after, I came home that after him school and says, guess what? I have an audition set up for you tomorrow. And I was like, wow, that's cool. And they came over and it was a professional band. It was a little, it was a little bigger than I thought I could chew up. These were people in their late 20s and they were, they were professional band playing six nights a week all over the eastern United States. And I played for them. We talked. And Joey, the leader of the band. He said, okay, here's the deal. We've got to listen to a few other drummers, but we need to know this weekend. Now, you can't, I was already going to go to college. I was going to college as a journalism major. He says, I don't want to hire you and two months later you're going to college. That's not going to work. So if you're interested, and after we audition everybody, I need you at least for a year if you're going to do this. I said, I will do it. He said, what about your parents? He said, I'll take care of that. Because they're a little trick. I was 18 already, so I knew, you know. Anyway, so next day came, he called and said, okay, the gig is yours. I'll pick you up tomorrow morning. And they came, you know, I'll never forget it. So the van pulls up. I'm loading up my drums. My dad's out there. My dad's like, proud of you, son. Knock them dead. It's going to be awesome. You know, my mom's crying. She's really like, I can't believe that I'm leaving. And the leader of the bandings, comfort him almost, don't worry, Mrs. Deal, I'm going to take good care of your son. I know he's young. Don't worry about him. And so I became a member of the Blue Dawns for a year. Look at that. I know, crazy, huh? Yeah. But I got to tell you, it was a magical year, it was amazing. And that was the year I decided, well, maybe this music day. I should just do this. It's just me. You know, this is incredible. So, but there's my mom in about 2000. She was always my biggest fan. And she loved that I was a musician. And she nurtured it and fanned it. And I always thought, like even if I played an orchestra, was just hitting cymbals, she thought I was the best player. And she's gone now. I owe her so very, very much. She was great. Okay, I'm going to hit you with a couple of terms that, as we move to the next section, that are very germane to this lecture. The first one is mastery. A comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject or accomplishment. Think about that. Comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject or accomplishment. we all need to be students. And in today's world, I mean, I think it's great, the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, but I think I fear, I fear that sometimes we take it too far because my belief is, especially in a multidisciplinary context, that you should have something that you have put the rigor in for a very long time and that you are just really, really, really good at. And that is what you do. And that is, you are not there to kind of like be a jack. of all trades, you can do those. No, you are there also to bring this solid rock of ability and put it into the, onto the table. Okay. And in order to do that, you need help. Now, I've got these two pictures. Of course, you might have seen this movie Whiplash. Do anybody see Whiplash? A lot of people. Okay, I just want to go on record as I totally categorically disagree with that mode of teaching. Okay. I'm dead serious. It's just terrible. That is not how musicians learn how to teach. That's a movie. So disregard everything you saw in that movie because it doesn't happen that way. I mean, once in a thousand teachers, they don't last. There was my first university teacher right there, Jim Lambert, and he was really wonderful. He was warm and, but the devotion was the same. The intensity was the same. And when you're a music student, you meet with them once a week, and they really show you. And you can't, you can't get mastery without help and without advice. Intuition, a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning, aka, go with your gut. I thought and thought and thought about a picture. This is not perfect, okay, and it's a little outside the box, but hey, I'm an artist. Right? I can, and it's my last lecture. Okay. So intuition. All right. So I think a dog is a great metaphor for your intuition. Because if you think about your dog, what do they do all day when you're around? They're just staring at you, you know? And then if like someone comes by, they don't like they growl at them, you know? Or like if my wife and I were having a discussion, but it gets a little intense, you know, dog toppy. She lets us know that. You know? And so, and that's conscious, too. but the intuition, they feel, they see, and sometimes it's very, very immediate. Okay, and your intuition, I found over the years, and this is the reason I'm talking about it, and I would tell students today, you know, intuition is easy to lose sight of it. We get so busy, and we get such big obligations, and things we're supposed to do, and things we're supposed to be, that we lose touch, we lose touch with what our insides are telling us. You know, and it, I think it's counterproductive. And I think it's an important thing to nurture. Walking is very helpful for one's intuition. I recommend walking. I really do. Synchronicity. The coincidental occurrence of events such as similar thoughts in a widely separated persons that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality. The coincidental occurrence of events. events such as similar thoughts and widely separated persons. Remember that for a little later. And this one's really outside the box. Okay, now you might be thinking, now, Scott, why do you have a whale when you're talking about synchronicity? Well, I'm glad you asked that. Okay, this is a, I didn't see this. I didn't take this picture. Actually, a princess on my wall, my house. But I have seen whales in the wild. you almost never do it and I'm not talking about if you pay for a cruise where they go where the whales feed and they're there in fact I'm really imposed to them leave those poor whales alone seriously but I'm talking about if you're going about your normal business and on the occasion I saw whales I was moving to Alaska on Alaska Marine Highway and you see a whale you never forget that and it's unforgettable and it's sudden it's unexpected and it's gone before you know it. And so that's why I put it with synchronicity, because that's how that is. You're not expecting it. It kind of hits you like a ton of bricks. So it's these three terms, I think that in my career and in my life, mastery, intuition, and synchronicity have taken me from drumming to music technology. Okay, it's a river, it's a journey. Let's go to the next topic, people. Okay, for me, and, you know, again, I've really given it a lot of thought, but people and the interconnections, I think we are very, very, very interconnected, and I can tell you, my students will tell you that I tell them that a lot. We're so connected. You know, like the dogs, we're pack animals. That's why dogs and people get along so well, because we're the same. We're pack animals and we're connected, you know, and sure, there's the family pack and then there's the community and maybe the nation. but at the end of the day, we're all interconnected. Now, this is a graphic. It's called the Opti Project by Barrett Lyon. It's been around for 20 years. This is just a screenshot of it. And what that is, quickly, is Barrett has developed a software that goes out into the internet and captures all the servers that are active in a given moment in time across the whole world. Okay? And so I've always thought of that as, and you can go to his website, and it's actually pulsating. You can see it, and he can identify things. But I thought a picture will do. I thought, well, what if that was also like our minds? And of course it is because what's behind all the servers? People. People. What's behind all the messaging? People connecting. And I think, I can't prove it. I'm not a scientist. I'm not an empiricist. But I do, I am one who believes. and lives with the idea of the interconnectivity of all living things, of everything. And we're one species, and we're so connected. Here's another example. This is a carpet that is on display at the interest of the United Nations, and it has a poem inscribed on it titled the Bonnie Autumn, from the Persian poet Sadish Shirazi, 1209 to 12. 191, lived in the 13th century. And he wrote this poem while he was a captive of the Crusaders. And that poem is inscribed in this carpet and it was the gift from Iran to the United Nations. And so they hung it up. But here's the poem. It's very short. And it's from the 13th century. All human beings are members of one frame, since all at first from the same essence came. When time afflicts a limb with pain, the other limbs at rest cannot remain. If thou feel not for others' misery, a human being is no name for thee. See? We're together. Now, how does that fit into a career or music, being a musician in academia? well music is a domain of interconnectivity you ever thought what music is there's all i looked this up you know there's entire books defining music i couldn't believe it and there's a very famous one of john cage saying you might have heard you know he wrote the piece four minutes and 33 seconds of silence and he's saying the music is the is the sounds coughing and people moving in the room i i entirely reject that by the way is my i do i new music experimental music person. But I don't think, because here's my definition. My definition of music is very, very simple. I don't need to write a book. It's extremely simple. Okay. Music is human expression in the oral domain. In other words, sound ways. Simple. Music is not, you know, when a brick falls to the ground. That could be an interesting sound, but that is not music. Music is the human expression to who, to other humans. In that sense, it is in the domain of interconnectivity. It has the capacity to move beyond words and beyond what is visible or tangible. Now, this is true for all the arts. When you play music for people, it is an act of goodness of service, and you are communicating something at a very deep level. Even if you were playing, you don't think the music is deep. You are communicating without words. and you're being human. And I tell my students this. You can ask them sometimes I appreciate them. Never think your work is a waste of time. Never think it's up, not up to snuff. Never think that. It's always so valuable. You know, perhaps one of the best, best musical performances I saw was last Christmas. My wife and I were up in Beverly Shores, which sits inside the Indiana Dunes. We have some relatives on her side of the family, there. And I'm not religious or Catholic, but one of our cousins really wanted us to come to the early morning mass. And so we went, I got up, and it's like, really 8.30? We've got to be there at 8.30. But anyway, okay. So, and it was like sparsely attended. They had a substitute, I don't know if they had a priest anymore because they had a substitute priest who was brought in for the Christmas service. And then this group about five or six people, and they also looked like they just woke up and they got up and they got their books out and they looked a little shy and a little nervous and they sang and largely they were out of tune all right I'm dead serious they were a little out of tune and you know not very and kind of monotone but something about that their singing just struck me is absolutely amazing you know because they were getting up there and early in the morning and they were singing to us and it was just I was so touched I was so blown away. And at the end, my cousin's name is Joe, at the end of the service, he says, so what did you think? I said, man, that choir was amazing. You're like, really? You think? Okay. All right. Another thing about people. And I'll be really quick with this one. So I was a graduate student. And, you know, I wasn't that great a teacher. I was having some struggles. I wasn't getting really great teacher. reviews people people thought i was a little too tough on the students okay i was a little too intense and i was teaching at new world school of the arts and i was also teaching at the university of miami where i was a graduate student and uh also i was like what am i going to do with my career and so i i played a concert playing mallets and delma was there and she came up and introduced myself hi i'm delma aisles very business woman hi i'm delma aisles i'm director of momentum dance and then i was shaking hands and she said hey i really liked your people piece you want to play that with our dance company i was like yeah of course i will do that that would be great and so i did a couple of gigs and i got to know her and i was just curious you know and i thought well tell me seems like she's got things together and she's really you know she's a she's put this dance company together so that maybe she could help me some advice so i asked her she'd have coffee with me and we got together and uh she goes so what's on your mind i said well i don't know i just want to, I just want your thoughts on how to, how to proceed with my career. I'm a little stuck, you know, I don't know about if I'm going to get a job, that you seem so competitive and, you know, I want to be a soloist, but it seems so hard to get started. And then she's like, oh, okay, all right, I get, oh, yeah, yeah. And then she takes as an act and she writes down this thing. She goes, here, buy this book. Okay, I got to go. I'll see you later. Thanks for the coffee. Okay. And so what was the book? That's a true story. I still have it. Yeah. Now, the funny part is I couldn't tell if she told me that because she thought I was kind of like I needed to hear that or she just tells everybody that. And I was really burning with curiosity. I wanted to like take a little further. But then I thought better. I thought, no, the mystery of not knowing is a better thing. Yeah, the mystery. Maybe she means I'm a tool, you know, or like a pushy guy, or maybe she just says that to everybody. But I bought the book and I read it, and it was really groundbreaking for me. You know, the whole first, I recommend it. Everybody, anybody, if you retired, you should read it. The first chapter talks about how everybody thinks they're right. Even people convicted of murder. They think they're right. And if you know that, you're ahead of the game. They think they're right. So don't get into a big argument with them. so anyway i worked on that stuff and i also talked to my mom and i told my mom that too i said mom i'm getting bad teaching reviews and people think i'm kind of you know and she's like scott look nobody worked as hard as you in school and you're expecting too much from these kids they're not like that you know just have fun remember how much fun it was when you were a musician in high school remember all the fun things you did you come home to be beaming just just turn that part on forget about expecting them to practice, you know, all the time. Forget about that. Just, just have a good time. So I took both advice, right? And here's the cool part. At the end of the year, my teaching reviews went up. And then surprise, surprise, at New World School of the Arts, I was voted, teacher of the year. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'll keep that the rest of my life. That was really amazing. So what I tell my students is, and I tell them every year, every single year, I say, the best thing you can do for yourself, now you've got all this knowledge and you've got your mastery, the best thing you can do for your life is cultivate, and I've thought of, I made this up, okay, this is my phrase, this is Scott Deal phrase, cultivate positive relationships, those three words, cultivate positive relationships. That doesn't mean that you try to get political and kiss up to people. It doesn't mean you're trying to take advantage of people and put a smile in your face. It means that you see a new relationship as something that's just barely sprouted and you want to be ever so delicate with it. It means you want to teach yourself, be a continual student of learning human nature and then being a positive force. It means that it's about making a positive contribution to the collective synergy of the community that you engage. You're the positive person. And I tell them that if you do that, and this is serious. Okay, I really do say it this way. I say, you know, some people are incredibly talented, like amazing, they're going to be famous because they're amazing. They can sort of like, they don't have to pay attention to this. Okay. They can be like bad people. They're still going to be famous. Okay. And we've all known those people. Actually, some of the most interesting people in my career have been those people, but they're very interesting also. But you're not that person unless you're flying into Indianapolis and you've already gotten several calls from newspapers that they want to interview you, you know, before your concert. If you haven't gotten those calls, you're not one of those people. So for the rest of us, and even, and there's also people that are barely competent. You know, you see them in college or in jobs, you know, they barely get their job done, right? Or they're just not really that. Okay, you can be one of those people we can be average. But if you practice positive relationships, you will go far. You will go far even if you're incompetent. But it's the truth, isn't it? I mean, think about it. Think about your office workers, you know? I mean, really. Okay. All right, big things from a small space, small place. It's a bit of a serious thing. Okay, so this first time I've talked about this publicly. Oh, wait, that's not there yet. Okay, when I went to Cameron University in Oklahoma to study to be a percussion major, I went there because my parents, my dad in particular, who told me that I could not be, they would not pay for my college education unless I came home. They had moved to Oklahoma, southwestern Oklahoma. that they would not, that I had to go to school there at Cameron University, a little university right there in Lotton, Oklahoma, which is where Fort Sill is. And so hearing me being from Pittsburgh and sophisticated musician, playing six nights a week all over the eastern seaboard, it was like really disappointing. But I went there and I learned one of the biggest lessons in my life, and that is that if you just practice and master your instrument or master whatever, if you just focus on what you're doing, it doesn't matter where you live. It doesn't matter. As long as you have the right people around you, you can do big things from a small place. And that's my teacher. That's my professor, Jim Lambert, just a few years ago. We're still great friends. And so he got the idea. I mean, I was practicing ridiculous because I knew I went in there as a musician already, fully developed as a professional musician. I just needed training, you know, I didn't know how to do a lot of things. And so when I was a junior, he said, Scott, he was always thinking of things to keep me interested and busy. He said there's this competition. And I think it's the MTNA, Music Teachers National Association, Collegiate Artist Competition, and it goes to the national level and they have a percussion category. You've got to play an hour's worth of music. And some of it by memory. You have to play concerto by memory and then a 40-minute program. I think you should do that. And so we worked together. practice. You have to go to the state level, the regional level, and go to the national. And I did all those things with the national level. And then I got my head handed to me. Why? Well, because one or two of the pieces, I just, I hadn't liked. I thought they were kind of dumb. And I was, you know, and I could play him for him. But they weren't really intensely. I didn't own them. And when I got into the pressure of a national situation, I just didn't play him that well. And I didn't win. So I came back and I was pretty, you know, kind of sad. And we talked and he said, what do you think, what should we do now, Scott? And I said, I think I should go back next year. I learned my lesson. And so I went back to the next year and it was Washington, D.C. Same thing, state level, regional level. But this time I was really, really ready. I knew exactly what I needed to do. I needed to master that music. I needed to own it, own it, own it. I need to be able to play it backwards upside down. I could breathe it. I need to just have it down. And I told myself, I said, self, if you can do it. that, it doesn't matter if you win. That was my attitude. And so I went as in Washington, D.C. I was the first to play. And I walked out of there after my program. And I thought, yeah, I played that program. I nailed it. I played the daylights out of it, in fact. It doesn't, I don't care if I won. It's not I went this really long walk in Washington. I got lost. And I was walking around all day. I was in Georgetown, I think, but just, you know, beautiful houses. I was just kind of spacing out, you know. And I went back at the end of the day to the hotel and I walked up to see who won or they had the results and I said oh my goodness I was the winner and uh and then suddenly the head of the competition community where have you been we've been looking everywhere for you I called your parents in Oklahoma we've been searching we thought you went home we got a concert dude and I you're on the concert how could you do this what's going on and so I said I'm sorry I just took a walk you know and so anyway it all worked out but it was It was great, and that was the big lesson, you know. The town, it really meant a lot to the town. Just amazing. I'm going to skip over this one because we're getting close on time here. So this is all my, that's the other thing I would say. This is the University of Alaska. Big things. Which slide are we at? Okay, big things. I was the first professor of percussion at University of Alaska in 1995. And that was really fun, and I built that program. But also I continued my technology work, and this is at the beginning of the Internet, being something that you could use for artistic purposes. And I had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time where the university had a super computing center with big screens, as you can see, and we did a lot of work. And they came, I'll just say this real quickly. I was playing electronic music a lot, teaching music, percussion lessons traditionally. And they knocked on my door and they said, we want to show you something. So they took me to this and it was the discovery lab. It was impressive. Those, these walls are, that's all screens. Those walls there are all screens, you know, 4K. And even the floor was a screen. Really impressive. And there's all this gear. And I said, wow, that's really cool. Wow, congratulations, guys. What are you going to do with it? And they're like, well, we were hoping you could do something with it. And so that's where, you know, that's where the synchronicity comes in, you know, or events that in Alaska of all places suddenly had this great opportunity, and it turned into big things come from very small places. And the small places, I had no idea what to do. And there's no time to explain, but where is the real small place? The real small place, and I tell my students, it's right here. That's the real small place. And you have an idea, and it germinates from a tiny, A tiny, tiny like electrode on a synapsey or whatever they call them is tiny. You couldn't even hold it, you know, atomic weight is zero. And this idea germinates and then you cultivate it and you nurture it. And it becomes a better idea and a bigger idea. And that has carried me through a whole career, a really rewarding career, just coming up with ideas in the small place. Because I learned first that the location doesn't matter. You can do big things and then you're unstoppable. It doesn't even matter where you are, and you pay attention to the small place in your head. Yeah, and my colleague, we've done this telematic and network things. We started a company, Deck 10 Media, and just going through photos. It's been really an amazing ride tree, and Mung and I were partners in that company. And we've done festivals, we've done workshops, we've done concerts for years and years and years. I started a graduate course and foundations of abuse of technology to help students get it, open their eyes for the vistas. We've done interdisciplinary things where, lo and behold, I even got a patent with the team of electrical engineering students. We reinvented the resonator that was originally been created by Donald Taville with an interdisciplinary team. There's my wonderful PhD student, Harry Chabee in the middle. There is Elaine Cooney, Bob Russar Sour Soul. She passed away, engineering professor. and Chris Kincaid. And then the most recent big thing from a small place and everybody's invited, I've been working on this two years, is an opera, an AI opera, an artificial intelligence, because that's also work I do with my partner, Jason Palomara. And I've created, I've composed an artificial intelligence opera, a science fiction opera, okay? It's premiering January 11th at the Phoenix Theater and you're all invited. Okay, seven o'clock, January. Okay. All right. So I'm just going to talk about making the leap. I was very confused as a graduate student early on. My first year time as a graduate student, a young man. I spent so many years in the practice room, I felt like it was a selfish way to live. And I was confused about it. And I made a decision, and I took a turn in my life's journey to in a different direction. I became a leader in a religious group. And it took me away from music all together, all together for nine years. I didn't play a note for nine years. And that time went by and there was some reward in those things. It was rewarding. I had my children. I have millions of friends from those years. And also I learned a lot about life. I learned a lot about how people live, all kinds of people. The true, I did not, would not have lived. learned in a practice room. And so I do not regret that. But one day I started noticing, you know, this tugging, this tugging at my side, and it was music. And just, it got more frequent, tugging, tugging. And I just got this sense that I needed to go back. And so I called my teacher, my old teacher, Jim Lambert, you saw his picture. And it was the spring of 1995, 1991. And I said, Jim, I'm thinking about coming back into music and maybe going to school and getting a doctor. I didn't have any instruments anymore. It sold all my instruments. And I said, I just want to know what you think about that. And he said, well, that's a long time, Scott. That's a long time to be out of music. And you also have, you know, you haven't played and also you haven't built up a repertoire, you know, activities that you've done. He said, but I know you. And if this is what your gut is telling you, I think that why not? Why not do that? You should do it. So that gave me what I needed. And then here's where the synchronicity of this story comes in. I called schools. And you can imagine calling a nice, like a really outstanding university to try and get an doctor program in April for the following fall. It wasn't going to happen. But I've been out so long I didn't know those things. And this was back when you wanted to apply. You had to call the school and they send you a big catalog with the application in it. It wasn't just doing things on the web. And so one by one, they said no, but I called the University of Miami, and I called, I got in touch to percussion professor, Fred Wichstrom. And I said, Mr. Wuxstrom, I'm really interested. I heard University of Miami was great for music and also innovative. And I wanted to, one thing I wanted to do, I already had the seeds of I wanted to get more into electronic music when I came back. He said, that's pretty cool. He said, okay, so where did you go to school? I told and said, wow, amazing. That's awesome. I'm sure you play great. What have you been doing since you graduated? And so I was like, okay, here it goes. I said, I was the minister. And he got really quiet. And he paused for a moment. He goes, you know what? I know exactly who you are. He said, you won't believe this, but six months ago, I was at a conference and just happened to have lunch with your former teacher. And he told me everything about you. He's you that guy that like did all this stuff and won this thing and that and that. and then you just like left music and left like you fell off the face of the earth and that's what he said I was like well I don't know if I fell off the face of the earth but yeah that's me he said well I tell you what I don't know if I have something for you but what I think is I think you should fly down and we should visit and that was the best offer I had and so I flew down the next week and we spent the day it was great you know I saw the facilities I went to a gig with him And at the end of it, he said, well, look, you know, this is awesome. I like the vibe between us. I tell you what I'm going to do. I don't have any money for you. I don't know. You know, I just can't. But if you move to Miami, at night, you can come in and practice on the instruments so you can prepare. Maybe somewhere else. So that was the best offer I had, and it was a leap. And I took it. I moved my family down there and I was practicing every night he'd come in and see me we'd talk and he's like I notice you've been here a lot and says well yeah I got a lot to catch up on and then the day before school started he came in and that night he said okay guess what we move some numbers around we put the package together we can give you an assistance ship we can give you a scholarship but you have to start tomorrow you have to commit will you do it and I said I will do it. And that changed my life. I can tell you. But it was that synchronicity, like these unrelated events, who was to know that my professor would have talked to him? And who is to know that I was going to call? And I've always just been quite amazed by that. You know, here's some quotes about taking that leave. Martha Graham, there's a vitality, a life force, a quickening that translates through you into action. And because there is only one of you, in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist in any other medium and will be lost. Okay, here's another one. Leap and the net will appear. That used to be my favorite one. When I was a young man, that was a really fun one, like, leap in the, you know, like, I can do amazing things, but if I fail, the net will catch me. Okay, yeah, but really, I was supposed to, there it is, there's the waterfall. That's supposed to be like leap and the net will appear. Okay, that's the metaphor there, all right? Okay, but guess what, folks? Yep. Sometimes when you leap. Awesome. There he is. Okay. It doesn't always work out. And of course, in the arts, you know, you're always falling on your face. You're always, things are messing up. Especially in technology. You have to, it's really, really tough. You know, when you learn over the years, you have all these crashes and burns, career, career, whatever. It's hard. But you just got to stick with it. You take those falls and you just get right back up like that bird did. And here's one of my favorite quotes. Check this out. Until one is committed, there's hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative or creation, there's one elementary truth, the ignorance which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves to, all sorts of things occur to help one that would other. otherwise never have occurred. A whole stream of events, issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man would have believed would come his way. W.H. Murray. And Gerta, the famous German poet, said, whatever you think you can do, believe, or you can do, begin. Action has magic, grace, and power in it. Here's a short video. a student in mine, he's told me this several times over the years, and so I thought it would be nice to share with you guys really quickly. There's no sound. We're not getting sound. Okay, we're just going to move on, but he was sharing about... I was struck by how. passionate Dr. Deal was about music production and new ways of thinking about music making, new ways of bringing creativity into music production. Anyway, I would book office hours with them often to talk about career advice. I was a young band director and teaching junior high band, and I had started a music technology class, and the music technology class had been expanding and getting a little more popular. And after a couple years, I was given the opportunity to stop teaching band and start just doing music technology. And it was scary. I would be one of the only people in the state and possibly even the country teaching music technology full time in a high school setting. And I asked Dr. Deal if this is a good idea. And Dr. Deal said, to me. I'll never forget what he said to me. He said, Will, just go with your gut. It's not off and wrong. And I'll never forget that advice. When Dr. Deal told me that I had, I kind of could summon the courage to say, you know what, I'm going to go for it. This is a unique opportunity. And I may never be a band director, but I'm going to do something different now. And it's going to just as significant. And it absolutely was the best career decision I made. Because of that conversation, I was able to get involved with groups like time, which I'm now the president of. I was able to get involved with state organizations giving conference talks about my program. I've been able to author books that have helped other teachers start programs like this. And Because of his great advice and his passion for electronic music production, I've been able to share that with hundreds and hundreds of people. And that's just the privilege of my career being able to do that. And I have Dr. Deal to thank for that. And I could not be happier that he's being celebrated today. I wish him all the celebrations and nothing but the best. And, you know, Dr. Deal, thank you again. for all that you did for me, personally, with all of those office hours and phone calls, it's been an honor to be a part of the program at IUI. His name is Will Coon, by the way. His name is Will Coon. He's a very famous now music technology teacher based in Cincinnati. Okay, finally we end. We end with the beginning. Here's a short but crazy story. Last year, my wife and I are season ticket holders to the Indianapolis Symphony. And also one of my closest friends is the timpins. Jack Brennan, Jack, take a stand. There he is. Jack Brennan, Timpenter, the Indianapolis Symphony. Anyway, we're enjoying the opening of the Beethoven's Egmont Overture. When my on-silent cell phone started vibrating my pocket, I keep the silent, I keep the vibration on it. And it was a message from the manager of the Indianapolis Symphony. Hi, Scott. This is Philomona, Philomena, from the ISO. A bit of a strange request, but I'm told you're in the house tonight. We have an extremely last-minute need for percussionist. Any chance you might be able to join us? I was like, this is such an unusual request. Can we talk in person about her? I'm not sure I can help. Totally understand. We can meet you in the lobby if that works for you. And I'm like, now? Okay. So long story short, she knew Jack and Kunda, our dear friends of Claire and I, and then this other couple were friends, and we like to go to the symphony and go out for dinner. So as we were playing, do that night. So he knew I was in the audience. And their principal percussionist had a car accident. And so he couldn't play. And on the second half is Prokofia Fifth Symphony. I'd never played it. And the last time I played under conductor, it been 20 years before. So they talked to me, and they said they understood that. But I remember she said, look, it's totally cool if you don't want to do it, but maybe. And so I said, I will do it. Much to my terror, it found me an oversized black suit, and we used intermission to go through the score and away we went. What a wild ride. I love the ISO, but never my wildest dreams that I ever imagined sight reading an entire symphony with them before a public audience. And there's me with an oversized suit, and there's the section. Okay, so our journey ends down the river. It's gone a little too long. I apologize. We've traveled far and wide. We've mastered something. We've talked about mastering something that you're really good at. This unique to you. We've used intuition to recognize what's going to be right for us. We've kept our eyes open for synchronicity. We've grown large things from a small space. We've taken the leap and discovered we can do it. When life knocks on our door, we say, yes, I will do it. And when all is done, we begin again. Thank you very much. Do I sit down? No. One moment while the screen goes up. Thank you, Scott. Thanks so much. At this time, I'm going to ask you to remain on stage. And I invite Mark Gaines to join us. So Mark serves as the Vice President for Development at I, Indianapolis for the Indiana University Foundation. So please help me welcome Mark Gaines to the podium for a special presentation. This is one of the most exciting things I get to do all year. It's always sad because when I get to see these wonderful people that I don't get to know, I don't get to spend any time with, and then all of the stuff I missed out on. But I do get the pleasure of talking to a musician and giving them an honorarium, which makes this a pain gig. Thanks for all that you've done for you in Indianapolis. Thanks for sharing your story. Thank you. It's incredible, incredibly moving. It's also inspirational. And on behalf of the Nanny University Foundation and those who believe in what we do here, I'd like to present you with an honorary. Thank you so much. Scott, the Senior Academy would like to award you with a plaque in appreciation with our sincere thanks for your presentation as this year's last lecture. Wow, so beautiful. Yeah, we'll put it up. There it is. I'd like to present to you on behalf of the Academy. This certificate verifying your lifetime membership on the Senior Academy at I. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So please join me again and thanking our last lecture, Professor Scott Diehl. And before we move to the reception outside the theater, I'm pleased to share that we have confirmed the date for next year's event. The 2025 last lecture will be held on Friday, November 7th. So please save the calendar. Save the date on your calendars. A call for nominations will be sent out later this month. It's your nominations that make this event possible. And we're grateful to William Potter, Associate Dean O'Harran for nominating this year. wonderful speaker. Let me thank the Office of Academic Affairs and the IU Foundation for their support and participation in this year's gathering. Members of the last lecture selection committee chaired by Gene Robertson, Jean. She is. The selection committee has the challenging task of selecting the last lecture. So please join me in recognizing and thanking all who contributed to making this last lecture a success. And finally, I want to thank the Senior Academy Board members please raise your hands and senior academy members here in abundant attendance all of the current faculty and staff students and guests for attending today's lecture i invite all of you to join scott as we adjourn for conversation and refreshments right outside the theater thank you