Name: Erin Pearson
Class of: 2016
Degree: M.Ed. in Learning and Organizational Change
Hometown: Prior Lake, Minnesota (currently lives in Nashville)
Current Employer: Erin Pearson Music & Art
Current Position: Educator, artist
How would you describe your Belmont experience?
My experience at Belmont allowed me the freedom to work while earning my advanced degree. To an older, working professional, that’s everything. I was allowed freedom in my program, and I was able to make it work for me – being able to parlay a project to real-world application like [writing a book]. I was not a person who could afford to take time off to go to a full-time program during the weekdays. I was able to take Saturday classes and still make my life happen while earning my degree.
How did Belmont help you grow and develop your network?
It was nice to be in classes with professionals from all walks of life and meet other leaders who were preparing for more advanced roles in all kinds of different careers. I felt there was a lot of diversity in the work my classmates were doing, which means there are a lot of wide and varying types of contacts as we all get deeper into our careers.
Congratulations on the release of your album, "FIRE." Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind this project?
Originally, I was going to call the album “real things.” And “real things” are the inspiration behind the project. I really wanted an album that reached beyond typical love songs to delve deep into the many real topics that people are facing in these very challenging times. Emotions that add up as we age. Failure. Betrayal. Being Controlled. Friendship. Getting Mad. And Breaking Through. I wanted to use real instruments and real musicians. I wanted it to sound like me, even though that’s not necessarily what other popular musicians are doing right now. When the album came back, it was a little more pointed and feisty than I originally realized it was. And I felt like the song, “Fire” what is the obvious title track, embodying the ideas at hand. So, I changed the title. The many aspects of fire: lighting one, being one, what happens when one goes out, and feeling fire or fiery about many topics.
You earned your M.Ed. How has your background in education influenced your music and this album in particular?
My master's degree was largely psychology-based, so much so, that we almost changed the degree emphasis formally to educational psychology. This directly impacted this album's content.
In grad school, I focused a lot on how people learn as I’m a teacher in a private music studio. I wanted a hybrid type degree that focused on the inner workings of the mind versus just the technical study as I’m always trying to figure out how to help people learn and learn to the best of their ability. I work with all kinds of people: younger, older, neurodiverse, naturally talented and many not naturally talented!
There is a lot of psychology involved in educating well. There is a lot facing creative artists that really block the process and prevent people from putting out work, and/or putting out their best work. This includes me. Studying these issues for other people (my students), allowed me to understand them for myself and face my own resentments, responsibilities and barriers musically.
Writing my master's thesis changed some things for me and was truly a culminating project of what I learned in my study at Belmont. I wrote a book as my master's thesis entitled “10 Reasons Your Kids Don’t Practice Their Music and What Parents Can Do About It.” It helps parents of students I teach, but it also helped me sort out my own issues and current goals around music beyond the teaching aspect of my career. I believe that creativity and teaching and musicianship and learning are a fluid process – one always informs the other. This study allowed me to be really honest, in a way that I hadn’t been before after my undergrad. This directly impacted my music and the specific album, particularly by the way of topics that involve how hard this has been and wanting to be real about it.
We understand that you won the inaugural Avivo Prize, which recognizes outstanding music educators. How did the prize contribute to your music education endeavors?
The inaugural Avivo prize afforded some award money for me to be able to re-edit and update this book to be current with the times since it has been a few years since it was originally published. In addition, the remaining money catalyzed the album to move forward a little faster because it supplemented some of my lacking teaching income from the summer months, and it allowed me to get started or I wouldn’t have been able to do so.
You wear many hats – educator, musician, author. Can you tell us about your current activities and your life in Nashville?
As many creative artists, I have to do a lot of things to sustain my business. My bread-and-butter is music teaching (voice, piano, songwriting, theory, beginning guitar, ukulele and violin). I have had my own studio of students for the past 20 years (I can’t believe it's been that long), and I also recently started teaching voice lessons with the Ensworth School of Music at the high school campus here locally.
As a part of my teaching, I most recently became a certified personal trainer and neurokinetic therapist to help with injury prevention in musicians (because they are like athletes when it comes to muscular problems) – so I have also had it in a bit of a rehabilitative direction as well.
Also, with teaching, I have always created my own supplemental products to go alongside my music teaching like arrangements, practicing assignment notebooks, curriculum and various teaching related books like the one I wrote at Belmont.
In addition, I am a songwriter and do a lot of writing around town and collaborate wherever I can. I also perform, record and release music! This fuels my heart and puts that fire in my belly.
But I also have a visual artistry side of things that keeps me alive during the summer months. Teaching income is more sparse. I paint, draw/illustrate and then I create jewelry out of guitar strings! I’ve been doing all of this for most of my life.
Yep, it's a lot…. But I have found that I simply have to hustle during these trying times for artists. I have been full-time on my own since 2011, and this is just what it’s taken! I knew what I signed up for in this career, and I made a choice that I would rather be doing what I love even though it’s really a lot of work.
Message to Fellow Alumni and Students:
I want to encourage prospective graduate students to go for it. We all have very busy lives, and it can be very difficult to go back for your secondary degree… But there are ways to do it, and in community with other great people who can make you better, and I found that was possible at Belmont, where I didn’t find it possible with many other programs I looked into. There is freedom. There are great people. And you can still get where you want to go!