First and foremost, welcome to my website and thank you so much for investing the time and energy to learn more about me and what I LOVE TO do!
Something I aspire to instill in every student is to dream big. This mentality attracts many lessons that occur through change and challenges...basically, it's what makes life fun, exciting, and eventful!
Here is how I feel about challenges:
With every challenge life tosses your way, there is an opportunity to grow. Often times, these challenges aren't pretty and test you to your core. Other times, the transition from one period of your life to the next, is smooth sailing. Either way, you are bound to be born anew like a flower growing through the snow after a long, barren winter. (By the way, I will likely be using as many nature-themed metaphors and similes as possible because I am a flower child... AKA my parents are rad, music-loving, hippies who raised me to respect the land and taught me how to garden).

Anyways, I am sitting here (at 1am after an amazing night of music *Thanks to Blues on the Green, Wild Child, Los Coast, and Austin, Texas!*) writing up this blog entry because I decided to take a leap of faith and dream big.
After all... if I preach it to the Choir (literally), I better be an example.
I try to live a passionate life and live with integrity and sincerity. Ever since I was a child, I was beyond passionate about music. Singing has always been my therapy and primary creative expression. I thrive, and am driven by music. Singing is like medicine that heals the soul. This passion and desire to create, learn about, and share music has led me to become a certified music educator with a Bachelors degree in Music Education (Voice)...I will write a different blog post about the good ol' UNT college days later. I believe I am here on this earth to be a facilitator of music.
Teaching has, is, and will always be my passion. It is the most rewarding and fulfilling thing to watch a student have a realization (lightbulb moment) and to know that you were a part in helping them gain this knowledge and newfound confidence. Knowledge is power. It has been such a blessing and gift to be a teacher and I am excited to continue to explore the career and expand my own knowledge on music and music education.
I left teaching in the public school environment so that I could have a schedule which would allow me to explore music education from different angles, and also pursue performance. I manage, sing, play guitar, and keys for a local Austin band, Much 2 Much, and we are trying to take this thing as far as it will go. Another words, I took a leap of faith and knowingly left things like stability, consistency, and comfort, to grow as a person. "Leap and the net will appear"- John Burroughs.

I realized after 2 years of teaching in a wonderful public school as the Assistant Choir Director that, although I loved so many aspects of that job, there was a creative part of me that was unable to live to its full potential... so I decided to trust in the universe, and DREAM BIG.
In my posts to follow I will dive deeper into my musical experiences and education, more about the band, detailed descriptions of what to expect in a typical voice, piano, and/or guitar lesson, my inspirations and goals for the future, life as a performing musician, and much much more. Stay tuned.
Gratefully,
Erin Thelen