The real deal

Earlier this week, we were lucky enough to host Ryan Star (www.rstar.net). What an amazing talent this guy is. Among other things, if you know the show "Lie to Me," he wrote and performs the theme song. I cannot say enough good things about him. He was incredibly gracious to both me and my students and it was just a wonderful afternoon.

As an educator I was really glad to have someone of his caliber talk with my students about his experiences in the music industry. It was also very cool to see many of my students step up and ask some really great questions - not only of Ryan, but also of Ken Lane (Senior VP with Atlantic) who was also there.

Ryan was very good about pulling no punches with the students. After performing for a bit, he took lots of questions and was very open about how hard he has had to work and about how much focus his journey has required. It was very inspiring, but also very good for the students to hear about the realities of the industry. Neither Ryan or Ken were overtly negative, they were just very honest and it made for a great educational afternoon. Plus the music was awesome.

On a personal level, I learned a ton. It was very cool to hang for a bit and make a new musical friend - someone in my own age demographic. In fact, Ryan, was really kind in his comments about the program and me. He kept telling me how much he wished he'd had program like this when he was in school. Funny thing is, as I told him, that was the very point of creating it - I had had the same thought years ago.

Ryan is clearly very grounded and, like I said, I cannot say enough good things about his music. More than that though, he struck me a very decent person. The kind of guy you'd wanna be friends with regardless of his occupation or success.  I'm really glad to be able to call him a friend.