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Welcome to the first of our teacher interviews! One of our goals at Loud & Clear is to create a connection with our students, teachers, and community. Every now and then we’ll be sharing on our blog an interview with a Loud & Clear teacher so students and our community alike can get to know about our incredibly talented staff.
For our inaugural interview, we sat down with Emilee Sanor, who teaches piano, general music, and saxophone. Follow along as we learn more about Emilee and her passion for music!
Question: Hi Emilee! Can you Tell us a little bit about yourself?
Emilee: Hi! My name is Emilee Sanor. I am 23 years old and music is pretty much my whole life! I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from Malone University in 2022 and I am currently in the final year of my Masters Degree at Kent State University studying Saxophone Performance. Saxophone is my main instrument, but I also play piano, bassoon, electric bass, and a few others. (I play a real mean Kazoo.) When I’m not playing instruments, I enjoy discovering new music, creating Spotify playlists, playing games on my Nintendo Switch, and watching movies!
Q: Who are some of your musical inspirations?
E: Amy Lee from Evanescence and the Broadway actress Linda Eder have always been two of my biggest inspirations from the vocal world. I love the emotion they put into all of their performances and they’ve always been two of my biggest role models for singing. I have so many favorite instrumentalists and composers, but the most inspirational musicians overall would have to be my long-time favorite bands, Panic! At the Disco and Set It Off.
Q: What was your favorite class in school and why?
E: My favorite class in school was always jazz band because I had such a blast playing that style of music and getting to be creative with improvised solos! Soloing in a jazz band when I was in 7th grade was the spark that really ignited my love of performing and it’s been burning ever since!
Q: What is a piece of advice you like to pass on to your students?
E: Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent! Don’t just practice til you get it right, practice til you can’t get it wrong.
Q: In your opinion, what makes a good lesson?
E: I think the goal of any good lesson would be learning something that you didn’t know before that lesson. I think every lesson should be an opportunity to learn new musical concepts, be creative, and just have fun with music!
Q: Tell us a little about your musical background.
E: Music has been a huge part of my life since I was a small child taking my first piano lesson at the age of 7. I liked piano, but I really found my passion when I started playing saxophone. and being a part of the school musical when I was in middle school. I also always loved to sing and started taking voice lessons when I was about 13. Being heavily involved with the band, choir, theater and several other extracurricular bands in high school was what prompted me to pursue music professionally, and now 6 years later I’m one semester away from a Master of Music degree!
Q: What are your personal goals as a musician?
E: Currently, my personal goals are perfecting a very challenging repertoire for my final Master’s Recital on saxophone and honing my skills more on other instruments like clarinet and electric bass! I would love to play in more professional groups, especially pit orchestras for musicals! I am always working to improve my playing, teaching, and just continuing to learn more and more!
Q: Did music come naturally to you or did it take some time?
E: No matter how naturally music comes to you, it still takes tons of time and continuous work! I think I was naturally inclined to like music, growing up in a musical family, but I still had to work very hard to build the necessary skills and techniques to play music well.
Q: What do you enjoy outside of music?
E: I love to watch movies, especially horror and thrillers, play video games (my favorites are Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and Guitar Hero), and spend time with my friends, family, and cat, Gallagher!
Q: Do you have any hidden talents?
E: My hidden talent is being freakishly good at the iPhone game “Unblock Me.” You just have to move blocks to solve puzzles. I have always been able to solve them so fast and I have no idea why!
Q: If you could learn any instrument besides the ones you already play, what would they be and why?
E: I would love to be really good at guitar or drums and play in a rock band! I’d also love to be good enough at playing the bass to play in a band.
Q: Describe your dream vacation.
E: My dream vacation probably would be a theme park in Japan! I love rollercoasters and I’d love to visit Japan.
Q: Final question! If your life was like a song/album/musical/etc., what would it be?
E: It would be Panic! At the Disco’s album Pretty. Odd. I have a tattoo of that album title on my arm, so I’d say it’s pretty significant!
Thank you Emilee for taking the time to talk with us! We hope you’ve enjoyed this Teacher Talk and we look forward to our next one.
Interested in lessons with Emilee? Follow this link to book a trial lesson today!