Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jenna Boone. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jenna, thrilled to have you on the platform as I think our readers can really benefit from your insights and experiences. In particular, we’d love to hear about how you think about burnout, avoiding or overcoming burnout, etc.
I overcome burnout by maintaining a proper balance of activities in my life. You can’t keep doing the same activity repeatedly and not get tired of it, even if you love it. You have to balance that activity with other activities in your life. Acknowledge that you will still need a break from that activity too once in a while.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I was born (b. 1998) and raised in California and I knew by my junior year of high school that music would be more than just a fun elective. Thanks to the great music educators I had, I was able to earn both my BM in Percussion Performance Music Education and my MM in Percussion Performance from California State University, Sacramento. Throughout those two degrees, I performed in various masterclasses, the Northwest Percussion Festival, and won the Festival of New American Music Student Performer’s Competition three times. Outside of school, I also performed with Northern California groups such as Modesto Opera, Sacramento Master Singers, and Vox Musica and Austin groups such as the Austin Civic Orchestra and Austin Brass Band.
Based on my experience with gender inequality and inaccessibility in the field, I push for performing more works by women and creating more accessible music for those with injury and disability. My notable achievements include the U.S. premiere of Concerto Grosso for Timpani and Piano by Maya Badian, the only timpani concerto written by a woman, commissioning and premiering the first one-handed timpani solo and composing the first one-handed timpani method book.
I’m pursuing my DMA in Percussion Performance at the University of Texas at Austin with a teaching assistantship for an undergraduate film music and sound class. Compositionally, I am writing a large work for solo marimba to be premiered in the fall.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Patience, goal setting, and resilience. You can’t master a solo in a day, so why try to rush the learning process? Figure out what your learning process is and then trust it! If you make mistakes, pause, take a deep breath, remember that you don’t suck, figure out what went wrong, and then try again. It will come together. What helps it come together is goal setting. Figure out what your deadline is for learning the solo. If you don’t have one, make one up. Set small and reasonable goals so that you don’t become overwhelmed. The last skill is the most important: resilience. Life happens all the time, especially when you don’t expect it. Knowing how to keep moving forward even when life knocks you down is important, not just in music. When it knocks you down, it’s okay to feel hurt. When life hits you, it will hurt. Allow yourself to feel those negative emotions. Once you’re done experiencing them, pull yourself back up and keep moving forward. Learning these skills is easier said than done. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or accountability, especially for resilience. Life is hard enough as it is, but it’s harder to go through it by yourself.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
The most impactful book to me is Winning the Injury Game: How to Stop Chronic Pain and Achieve Peak Performance by Jessica Kisiel. After the journey of going through tendinopathy in both wrists and feeling like I was going to feel this forever, I found this book and it changed. my view on pain and what we can do to fix it. This book taught me to learn my body. If something is off, what is causing it and what can I do to fix it on my own? How can I hold myself accountable for my body’s health? It also taught me how to address my mental health. Physical and mental health are connected more than I thought, so while it is important to address physical pain, the mental pain must also be addressed.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jennaboone.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tiptoptimpanist/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tiptoptimpanist
Image Credits
@vanillasacs on Instagram for second image. Thea Venturanza for third and fifth image. Erwin Wibowo for fourth image.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
