T-M-E-A.  The Texas Music Teachers’ Association Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas (home of the Alamo).  That’s where I spent four days last week, and I simply have to tell you about it.

My head is still spinning.  Thousands of accomplished high-school musicians, their families, plus their band, choir, and orchestra conductors filled the huge Henry B. Gonzales convention center and neighboring hotels.  They swelled through the streets and down the picturesque River Walk of San Antonio (yes, it was yucky cold, but we missed record snowfalls and power outages farther north, so we can’t complain).

For the kids who survive the highly competitive auditions, rehearsals for “All-State” choirs, bands, and orchestras start unmercifully early (try 7 a.m.) and end late.  In between are clinics, presentations, and a huge exhibit hall to explore.  The hall is filled with vendors, from music publishers to instrument makers.  You’ve never heard such skilled cacophony as hundreds of students try out tubas, violins, clarinets, marimbas, and gongs.

And that’s where we were, right in the middle of it all, exhibiting Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Art, History, and Culture. On one side we had a percussionist and on the other, a Drill Team Software company.  It was a happy spot, especially when so many of my former SMU students began to visit and examine our new curriculum.  A lot of memories came up, especially since these very students had heard me tell many of the stories you’ll find in Discovering Music.

They’re locked in my mind as “20-somethings.”  But the fact is, these former students are grown-ups now, accomplished, professional educators and conductors.  It is fascinating to hear their stories.  And a little overwhelming: you try looking at a “kid” you haven’t seen for 22 years, and finding a grown man with more than two decades of teaching already behind him.  Wow.

Usually in these posts, I write “about” something.  I share information, create content, in the blogosphere as it’s called.  But today I sing my admiration for all of those at TMEA, starting with my (and all) former students who have forged their own paths.  I applaud the swarms of teenaged musicians, some of whom will become doctors, engineers, lawyers, carpenters, mechanics, and mathematicians.  But some of whom will stay in music and the arts to become both performers and music educators.

Their eyes are shining.  They’re gearing up, ready to go.  Their future students haven’t been born yet!  But at TMEA, the hallowed cycle of learning and teaching was turning, preparing  . . . right now.