Wiff Rudd

Transcript

Derek Smith:
Hello and welcome to Baylor Connection, a conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week we go in-depth with Baylor leaders, professors, and more discussing important topics in higher education, research and student life. I'm Derek Smith, and today we are talking music, teaching and more with Wiff Rudd. Dr. Wiff Rudd serves as professor of Trumpet in the Baylor School of Music. He joined the Baylor faculty in 2002, and this year was named a Master Teacher, a lifetime designation, which is the highest honor bestowed by Baylor for sustained excellence in teaching.
Throughout his career, Rudd has earned numerous accolades for his exceptional contributions to teaching and performance. 2010, he was honored with Baylor's Outstanding Faculty Award for teaching and named the Centennial Professor, a distinction that followed a grant for his first book, Collaborative Practice Concepts. That was followed by the publication of side by Side, Building and Sustaining an Effective Community in the Music studio. Both of these works have been embraced worldwide by music educators and in working with their students and colleagues.
In 2021, Rudd received Baylor's Elizabeth Vardeman Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduates. The following year, the International Trumpet Guild honored him with its prestigious Award of Merit. He's a performer as well as a teacher. He spent eight years with Dallas Brass, performs with the Waco Symphony Orchestra and has performed or taught on five continents. A great resume for sure, but even more excited to talk about your work with your students and relationships here at Baylor. Wiff, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.

Wiff Rudd:
Thank you, Derek. I've enjoyed these interviews over the years and it's an honor to be included in this.

Derek Smith:
Well, I appreciate that very much, and excited to have you on here. We can delve into a lot of fun things through your work with the School of Music and teaching. And let's just start right in with, I think, what's the obvious question, how did you react when you learned about the designation of becoming a Master Teacher at Baylor?

Wiff Rudd:
Well, honestly, it was quite an emotional reaction. I'm kind of an under the radar kind of person. I don't usually look for the spotlight. And of course, when something like this happens, you get word. I got word a few months ago that I had been nominated by a colleague, and then the people who do the nominations, they contact former students and current students and they gather the data. And so this has all been kind of behind the scenes. And I don't know, I'm just always so amazed by the colleagues I have on this campus and many others that I've visited. And when you're teaching and enthralled in that with your students, you're not thinking about stuff like this. But it's been a real humbling experience.
And when you get a message saying the provost of your university wants to give you a call, it's kind of like the principal's office calling, right? So anyway, I was able to take this call from Provost Brickhouse during a short break in a faculty retreat actually for the School of Music. And so it was a delightful conversation. And as I said, it hits me now, just the reflecting on the journey to get here. And I had the pleasure, of course, then of immediately visiting with my wife, Jeanette, and calling former students who in particular had contributed to the nomination. One of those is a performer in the United States Army Band up in D.C, and two others are now university professors, and another is one of our amazing music ed graduates teaching down in Katy. So those were wonderful conversations. And then of course, have friends and family have gotten in touch. It's been a wonderful, unexpected surprise.

Derek Smith:
Well, a deserved honor, and it's neat to see how many people have sowed into that in different ways. And you were one of four Master Teachers named this year, along with Lenore Wright, Andy Hoag, and Kevin Doherty, all well known as well here as educators at Baylor. What did it mean? It's almost like in sports, there are Hall of Fame inductions, there's classes, you're part of the class with this group, if you will. What does it mean to be a part of this class with them?

Wiff Rudd:
Well, it's delightful. And I know of Lenore's work, I don't know Lenore and Kevin well, but we've had a few online conversations now, emailing, I look forward to getting to know them better. But I know Lenore's work through a dear friend who's in the religion department and has spoken so wonderfully about their collaborations together. And one of my daughters-in-law studied at Baylor, that's where she met my son, and she was a freshman and not sure what she wanted to major in. And she was in Kevin's sociology class. And it was her experience with him that she just knew she needed to major in sociology, and he was very formative in her life and career. And I'm sure that's the case.
And Andy, I know well, we go to the same church. He's a fine guitarist. I play trumpet. Sometimes, we're playing in the group together at church. And I just think the world of Andy and Tiffany and all that they've done for Baylor. So it's a nice class, and I think that all of us feel that we are not just representing ourselves in this, but all the amazing colleagues and students, and our incredible staff and administration that have supported our work here.

Derek Smith:
A great group for sure as we visit with Wiff Rudd. And we talk about your role, I think a lot of us know your work as a musician, professor of trumpet, but I'd like to delve into a little bit more broad, a little bit more deeply I should say. So if you're making conversation at a coffee shop or in line somewhere and someone says, "So what do you do?" How did you respond to that question?

Wiff Rudd:
Well, I'm a teacher, so the first thing I say... I mean, I love performing. And there was a chunk of time in the middle of my university teaching career where I did not teach. I was a full-time touring musician, performer, and that was a dream come true. But my true calling is focusing on teaching. So I very often just say simply, "I'm a teacher." Depending on the situation, I might say I'm a teacher at Baylor or a music teacher. And then very often they'll go, "Oh, what kind of music?" And that'll lead to trumpet. I hope to be remembered as a musician and a teacher that just happened to play the trumpet. That's my vehicle. But it's fun and people respond differently. If they're music lovers, they will ask more about that, and then they start finding about touring experience and teaching experience. And it usually leads to a nice conversation. People seem to have a lot of respect and intrigue very often for what musicians are trying to do. And it's delightful teaching music, I have to say. So it usually turns to my students and what we're trying to do together.

Derek Smith:
When did music first capture you, the trumpet capture you, and how closely did teaching align with that in your own mind?

Wiff Rudd:
Yeah, so I grew up in a family, there were six kids. We were really spread out. I was number five. And everybody took a year of piano. That was kind of the thing. At least a year, some of my sisters did better. I wish I'd stuck with it, but I was six years old and I did not like it at all. I didn't practice. I would cram before lessons, lessons were miserable. And I wish I'd stuck with it. But then it was time to be in band around the sixth grade. I'm a Texas boy and went through the Texas system. And just kind of following the tradition of my sisters, they'd been in band. My parents are not musicians. So I wanted to be a drummer, a percussionist. But when I got to the meeting, they said, "Oh, we signed up as many of those," and they said, "what else interests you?" And I had always liked the sound and the look of the trumpet.
But it really was late in high school, what am I going to do? And I was getting so involved in music and meeting with some basic minimal success, but there was just something inside that I just need to do something in music. And I was fortunate to be in the San Antonio Youth Symphony, and the director was the former principal trumpet of the San Antonio Symphony. And he set up what is now called a side-by-side, excuse me, where youth orchestras come in and play with the professionals. And so this was my senior year, and I sat down next to the principal trumpet player of the San Antonio Symphony and just a wonderful gentleman. And we started to play and my jaw dropped. I'd never heard anything that beautiful through my instrument that close.
Little did I know that Anthony Plobe would become a dear friend and mentor, and we have coffee talk once a month with a group of musicians. He lives in Germany. We've had this years-long relationship, and that's where it started. I just fell in love with what he could do. Then that led me to Baylor, not through Tony, but just the process of auditioning for schools. I ended up at Baylor the next year, and I was studying with Michael Ewald, who was brand new at Baylor. And he's the one that showed me how joyful a combination of performing and teaching could be at the university level. So those seeds were planted by great musicians who also were great people demonstrating what my life might look like.

Derek Smith:
This is Baylor Connections. We are visiting with Wiff Rudd, professor of trumpet in the Baylor School of Music, named this year as a Master Teacher at Baylor. I'm curious, we talk about teaching, so you've got to teach subjects that you know very well, like the trumpet, you had to teach at Oklahoma Baptist subjects that it sounds like you were learning a little bit ahead of your students. What did both of those sides of the coin, if you will, taught you about teaching and teaching effectively to help young people gain an appreciation of the subject?

Wiff Rudd:
Yeah, I think I was humbled certainly in that first job and a bit fearful to be exposed. The old imposter syndrome, because I was so young and I was asked to teach things that I had only taken as a student. So I learned pretty quickly that I needed to be honest and vulnerable and to learn to say, "I don't know." I mean, in my first lectures, first semester of lecturing in humanities, I was not a good teacher. I think I was a good person, but I learned to lecture and teach in a way that nobody could ask a question. Because I didn't know answers. And my first lecture, which was supposed to be 50 minutes, was about seven minutes long. And I left there going, I need to study, I need to...
So I embraced that and ended up going to play in Italy a couple of summers later in an orchestra and got to go to the Vatican Museum maybe 10 times in a month, and all the other amazing things in Florence and all over Rome. And it was such a rewarding thing to come back and have had experience and to show my slides and to talk about my experience. I think that's where I learned that we teach from our experience, and when you're young, you don't have a lot of experience, but as soon as you jump in and claim that responsibility, you just start to grow and you don't want to stop.
So that first job was such a blessing because I was pulled way out of my comfort zone, and it informed all those things, informed my trumpet teaching very well, I think, because I learned about context and why is this music written, who wrote it, what was going on in the world in their life. Oh, that was during the pandemic around World War I and all that, those kinds of... It's like there's so much in the arts when we start diving in, and I'm a firm believer that the state of any culture is reflected in the arts and what's happening there. So I'm determined to remain an advocate for the arts and encourage other people to add that to their lives that they feel like that's lacking.
And that's what we do with our students. They love music. They're here for a reason. They got hooked like I did. I understand the journey. Their journey will be different, but I want to help them find how music is so important in the context of everyday living.

Derek Smith:
That's wonderful. Visiting with Wiff Rudd here on Baylor Connections. And you describe helping students appreciate the arts and lectures, and I know you also get to work with students one-on-one on technical aspects or preparing them to perform. Take us through some of those different roles, if you will. What do you enjoy most about the challenges and the opportunities of working with students in kind of those different settings and opportunities?

Wiff Rudd:
That's a great question. And our students here are so capable, and they also come from this culture of perfectionism that they've grown into naturally because of the digital age. I remember all the analog stuff. They have had a digital experience. And so this perfectionism can invade every aspect, especially those who are trying to perfect their art. So we speak more in the terms of excellence, striving for excellence, that perfectionism, that's fine, but why don't we focus on upping our batting average, becoming excellent and having those great high moments that can up our batting average, but not to expect that we're there all the time, just this constant journey.
So my teaching and the teachers I've admired the most are focusing on fundamentals and principles. And I think part of my longevity as a player has come from that I'm constantly going over these fundamental things with new students every year and continuing with them as they go through their time at Baylor. There's so many methods to how we learn anything, and there are opinions about that. And a quote by Harrington Emerson, he was an engineer, oh, back a hundred years ago. He said that the methods may be in the millions, but the principles are few. If a person, and I'm paraphrasing, someone who pursues methods but has no principles will be lost, the person with principles can choose their own methods.
And so if I could show you, and in my office, I have so many trumpet methods. I have all the trumpet methods, I have all the books, and there are more coming out all the time, but my goal is to teach certain principles to my students so they can draw from these methods and go, this is what I need. They can learn to self prescribe and to have this constant growth. And that's what we're after. I think back to humanities, I had to get to the fundamentals of what was going on. And all that has seeped into my teaching. So I try to create a calm atmosphere, a curious atmosphere, a sense of surprise in the studio and exploration, and try to put them at ease to reduce their fret for the day and enjoy the learning process. Having fun is a big part of this. I want to have a lot of fun.

Derek Smith:
You probably wouldn't have been doing this for all these years if you weren't enjoying it as much as you are.

Wiff Rudd:
It is so fun. I think my other job along with teaching the principles is to get people to laugh. And I don't mind making a fool of myself. And it's so important. Victor Borges said, "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people," and it's so true. You can just break down so many barriers if you just enjoy each other's company.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Wiff Rudd here on Baylor Connections, and as we head into the final few minutes of the program, I've got a couple more questions for you. I want to ask, and I'm sure we could take up another whole show with just this question alone, but I'll ask you, the Baylor School of Music, your alma mater, why has it been the right place for you, and what has it meant to you to kind of sow into that and see it grow?

Wiff Rudd:
Oh, it's been unbelievable. And as I said, it was such a surprise to get a phone call 23 years ago now to apply for this position. It's been incredibly rewarding because... Well, I'll be honest. I should be honest, right? When I got the call, I really wasn't interested because I was happy in my position where I was. And we were remodeling our house and we planned on retiring in that community. We had put down roots like we'd not been able to do when I was touring full-time and we were raising our three children. But here I was back in university teaching, and this is around 1998, and we really put down roots, and I wasn't traveling as much, and suddenly Jeanette and I could have friends. So we were so happy and invested in that place for four years and planned on...
I think any teacher should teach and work like you're going to be there forever. If you're always looking for a better opportunity, you're probably not focusing on the task in front of you. But it was a strange thing to get a call from a former teacher on the committee here at Baylor to encourage me to apply. And honestly, I was like, that sounds cool, but I'm just hitting my stride here. But I came for the visit and it was towards finals time in the spring, and I remember not being able to sleep one of the nights I was here, so I just walked the campus and just watched students in the library studying, got nostalgic about the Baylor swings where Jeanette and I used to swing. And there's a famous photo of us back from 1973 of that.
And there was just something about this seems like a real possibility. Something good could happen, something good could happen. So to see the growth in the School of Music and to be asked to help take it to a deeper sense of legacy for our students was a real honor and a challenge. I had my challenges, but that's what transition's all about.

Derek Smith:
Now, it's worked out pretty well over 20 years now and the Master Teacher designation, and a lot of ways we could go after that. But my final question for you is, who knows? Maybe there's someone who might follow in your footsteps in your classes now or at another university, but I'm curious, as a Master Teacher now, what are a couple of pieces of advice you might give to a young trumpet professor, just a young teacher in general who might come here someday?

Wiff Rudd:
Oh yeah, absolutely. And actually, I wrote a book to them, that was the whole purpose of this book Side by Side. And I was pretty nervous about publishing it, but it's been embraced by especially many, many young professors at other schools. And I visit a lot of these schools every year. I do residencies at other schools. And so the advice is keep it simple. Love your students, listen, accept the possibility that they have within them the answers they're looking for, and to help evoke that or elicit that from them, to have them be embraced and to have them embrace the possibilities that are God-given in their hearts and minds.
Laugh. And when somebody is sad, be sad, and make them feel safe and loved. I have lots of stories about that. I keep a couple of boxes of Kleenex in here. One-on-one teaching, it's a very personal relationship. And then the fact that all my one-on-one work is we do group things together. So we have all these stories and every person becomes a piece of this beautiful puzzle, and we don't want two pieces that look exactly the same. So my advice would be to don't push it. Welcome it, explore, be consistent, be consistent, and focus more on student opportunities and success rather than your own.

Derek Smith:
Well, that is a great formula for sure, and we can see where you've lived that ad along with your colleagues who are named Master Teachers as well this year. Well, thanks so much for taking the time to share with us. I really appreciate it. Congratulations on the honor and excited to see the ways that you and your colleagues continue to pour into your students in the years ahead.

Wiff Rudd:
Great. Thank you so much, Derek. A real pleasure.

Derek Smith:
Great to have you with us. Wiff Rudd, professor of trumpet in the Baylor School of Music and a Master Teacher at Baylor, our guest today on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith. A reminder you can hear this and other programs online at baylor.edu/connections, and you can subscribe on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.