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Education Student Receives Western Canadian Music Award
October 31st, 2008
The Liptonians, fronted by Education student Matt Schellenberg, received the Western Canadian Music Award for Outstanding Pop Recording for their self titled album. Other Canadian acts to receive awards at the WCMA include Fiest, K.D. Lang, Nickleback, and Spirit of the West.
The 2008 Western Canadian Music Awards (WCMA) was held in Edmonton, Alberta on October 19th, 2008.
The Liptonians have been described as “A raw talent that synthesizes everything from McCartney’s ribald blues rock piano with The Beatles to the jazz-noodling minimalist composition of Wilco to the frenetic charisma of The Pets.” by The Alex P. Keaton, a gastro-pub in London, Ontario that has featured artists like Tokyo Police Club, Cadence Weapon, Shad, and Elliot Brood to name a few.
Matt Schellenberg, a first year student in the Senior Years stream is exceptionally busy. Like many education students who are juggling fulltime workloads, jobs, family, friends, and other activities and passions it can be challenging to be active in all of their interests.
Matt had the following to say about balancing life as a performing artist and student, and incorporating his musical interests in teaching.
Jackie: What is your role in The Liptonians?
Matt: Myself and fellow Liptonian Bucky Driedger are song writing partners. In the band he plays guitar and I play piano. When we recorded our album Bucky and I played most of the tracks. There are a couple instruments we got some help on, as we both are unable to play the violin or saxophone.
J: How long have you been creating music?
M: I entered a program called Music for Young Children when I was three years old. There I learnt the basics. I think I wrote my first song when I was seventeen or so. It was really bad.
J: How does music inform your teaching?
M: Well I haven’t really got into the classroom yet, but I find that when I am explaining things to anyone I often end up using references to music as a way of understanding the concept.
J: Do you use music as a teaching tool?
M: I haven’t really had enough experience to say that I do, but I will comment on music as a teaching tool. Music is incredibly effective for generating an emotional response. Just think of how you felt the last time you heard a sustained low note on the strings in a thriller movie. Turn off the sound… and the emotion is gone. In the classroom, students are more likely to remember the material with which they have an emotional attachment. Therefore music as a tool for creating emotional attachment is incredibly effective. How many times have you had to quickly sing the ABC’s to find out the exact chronological position of a letter? Even little rhythm based saying like “I before E except after C” illustrate the role that rhythm and music play in our learning process. So though I have not been in the position to use music as a teaching tool yet myself, I am sure that in the future I will incorporate music into my teaching style.
J: What inspires you to teach?
M: My mom teaches kindergarten and my dad is a university professor so teaching has always been familiar to me. I also had a couple of great teachers in high school that I felt really respected me. They inspired me to continue to get kids like me to learn.
J: What inspires you to create music?
M: There is a lot of music being pumped into our ears these days.There is music scratching at the back of our heads in the supermarket, commercial jingles keeping products on the periphery of our every unconscious hum, and music filling in the soundtrack to every commute, bike-ride and morning jog. Music has a lot of purposes and a lot of agendas. I want to create music whose purpose is to tingle the tired ears of an over-saturated public, and whose agenda challenges the standardized art that our mainstream music industry breeds. I suppose that is my inspiration.
J: Is it difficult to balance your education, work, and your music career?
M: Sometimes yes. I do a lot of things. Sometimes that choice makes me stay up late, but it’s all worth it. Putting all of my eggs in one basket is sometimes incredibly appealing, but for now I think I’ll continue to multitask.
J: How does your bands success impact your career choice?
M: I have always thought that teaching and music would go well together. You teach during the week, you play music on the weekend. You teach during the year, you tour in the summer time. I’m sure this is an over simplification. Marking papers will come into play somewhere there, but for now I am just going to believe that both professions can coexist, and we’ll see where that takes me.
J: What’s next for you?
M: Got class at 1:00. Wish me luck!
To hear The Liptonians and find out when and where they will be playing next check out their website, MySpace page, or become a fan of The Liptonians on Facebook.
http://www.myspace.com/theliptonians
In addition, The Liptonians can also be seen at Canadian Music Fest ’09 in Toronto on March 11 – 14, 2009. http://www.canadianmusicfest.com
The Western Canadian Music Awards is a new event hosted by the Western Canadian Music Alliance whose vision is to develop a n infrastructure of a regional music industry (that) is intact and shared across western Canada www.westerncanadianmusicawards.ca/awards
Jackie Duhard is the Communications Coordinator for the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba.
http://www.umanitoba.ca/education/
Posted in: Education
