Meet Travis Marcum

We were lucky to catch up with Travis Marcum recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Travis, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

For me, finding purpose is the two-fold process of connecting with community, asking if there are ways that I can contribute as well as looking inward to decide if and how I can bring my whole-hearted self to this journey. I have worked as a community arts leader for eighteen years now. The job, the relationships, the world in general have all changed dramatically across my time at Austin Classical Guitar, but what has endured throughout is my commitment to listening and serving through deeply meaningful creative engagement. I have learned that my purpose is very simple… to be with people and music.

As ACG’s Director of Education and Music & Healing Program, I find purpose being with young artists and members of the community experiencing extreme challenges like cancer diagnosis, homelessness, and emotional trauma. I have the opportunity to ask: What do you need? What do you want to say? What sounds can we make together that help you express who you are in the world? How can we celebrate you as an artist?

Relationships drive my purpose each day. The experience of looking into someone’s eyes and feeling connection and  the possibility of collaboration pushes me to serve. There is always a moment where I ask myself, can I do this thing responsibly, successfully, and with intention. Sometimes the answer is no. But more often the arts work that I do in the community is incredibly fulfilling, engaging and the work almost always restores the energy I need to continue to serve.

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 am Director of Education and Music & Healing for Austin Classical Guitar. This is my eighteenth year in the position. Time flies! We are a nonprofit arts service provider in Central Texas focused on facilitating opportunities for deep creative connection in our community. We are the largest classical guitar nonprofit in the country which includes a groundbreaking education program serving thousands of students and families locally. I, along with the Education Team at ACG, have developed and support over one hundred school-based guitar programs worldwide. At the center of our work is a comprehensive classroom guitar curriculum at GuitarCurriculum.com. It is the first and only complete resource for teaching guitar in the public schools and there are over 600 program partners worldwide. In 2010, I began the first ever for-credit guitar education program in a residential Juvenile Justice facility. We now have five programs directly serving young artists who are incarcerated or in rehabilitation programs.

Also at ACG, I often get to share duties as artistic director for certain projects. We host around one hundred professional concerts each year ranging from small intimate performances with world-class guitarists in our venue  “The Rosette” to large-scale, year-long artist residencies that involve 80+ performers from the community collaborating with amazing composers and musicians. Each of these big projects involves connecting our Austin community to professional artists to share in experiences of deep personal significance around music. A recent example is a long-term artist residency with the amazing Brazilian composer and musician Clarice Assad.

 

 

 

More recently I have developed ACG Music & Healing which serves individuals in the Austin community facing extreme challenges such as mental or physical health diagnosis, homelessness, and trauma. We have over a dozen community partners such as hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation and social service organizations that help connect us with individuals who would benefit from creative and expressive opportunities. We connect professional artists of all instruments and genres with people to collaborate and write a beautiful, often empowering song based on the personal narrative of the participant. We write songs with folks going through cancer treatment, women coming out of situations of abuse and trafficking, young people in long term care at the local children’s hospital. And through a specific program with Carnegie Hall, we have artists collaborate with new moms to write original lullabies for their baby. You can find some examples of the Music andHealing work on our soundcloud page:

 

You can also see a beautiful piece written and choreographed by our Music and Healing participant Sharon called Not/Yet/There in partnership with Texas Oncology.

As a musician and composer, I am often playing guitar and singing be it for work or pleasure. I love to write guitar orchestra music for large ensemble and I am currently working on a project writing a short piece for guitar and voice in collaboration with LA-based composer Reena Esmail for ACG’s 23/24 international concert series.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. Kindness: Wrapped up in this common word is a universe of ways to be. Kindness requires patience, listening, and empathy. Kindness can also mean making the hard decisions because it’s the right thing to do. Focusing on kindness often means that the relationship is more important than the project or the work outcome. It often requires much more time and emotional labor than an analytical, results-based approach to life. I am constantly surrounded by some of the most talented, creative, and brilliant people in the world. I get to work with them and build friendships… all because I am kind. I genuinely care about them. Our time together feels meaningful and trust permeates everything we do. It is the reason members of the community trust me with their intimate stories and allow me to create art with them. It is why my students feel safe and motivated to improve their skills. Kindness is so many things. It’s why I am successful.

2. Make a lot of mistakes. Perfection is stale, boring, and unattainable. You’ll be happier and a much more interesting person if you jump in and mess up. When I was nineteen, I was performing a solo in a classical guitar master class for a famous musician. I worked for months and months to perfect every note and the worst outcome I could imagine involved me making a bad sound, playing a wrong note or rhythm. I played the piece perfectly (from my perspective) and as I put the guitar down in my lap with a smile, the professional artist said “You practice a lot don’t you?”. I said “Yes!” with a confidence. He then went on to tell me that the music I play sounds like all I do is practice. It sounds like I haven’t lived. There’s no struggle or experience in the message I am conveying. There’s no humanity in the expression. He told me to go out, fall in love, get my heart broken, take risks, say the wrong thing, tell people how I feel…practice sure, but live too. These days I love being on stage and making a little mistake. I love owning up to my mishaps when I am teaching. I am a very reserved person by nature. So it takes a lot for me to put myself out there. But it is always worth it. I always feel more connected to people and safe to be myself, especially when I decide to be vulnerable.

3. Fascination and gratitude. Life is hard. The older I get, the more I realize how hard it can be at times. This is true for work and career too. The thing that gets me through tough patches is taking the time to be fascinated with the things we accomplish. It’s so easy to quickly move on immediately after a big project or life event. These days I never miss an opportunity to stop and notice what’s actually happening… all of the amazing people that contributed their heart and energy to an endeavor, all of the friends and family that were there to celebrate, all of the life we shared together. It’s magic. That’s gratitude. It can involve telling a friend or colleague what an incredible job they did or stopping and telling that to yourself.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

Feeling overwhelmed is a natural part of my life. I’ve learned through the years that it comes and goes often. The responsibility I feel towards the communities I serve in my job leads me to work really hard and to do a lot of listening around the challenges other people face. Often there are big creative projects where a lot of people are relying on my creative output. I’m also helping people create art from their personal narratives which can often involve trauma. There are ebbs and flows of stress, anxiety or burnout that are expected.

My first rule when I start to feel these feelings is to stop and be alone. I’ve learned that I need time in my life that is unstructured, unproductive in the traditional sense, and solitary. The only way I can begin to manage the feeling of being overwhelmed is to be alone.

To process the feeling of being overwhelmed, know yourself. Part of my personal journey has been to learn how to precisely identify my emotions. I think so many people walk around each day expressing that they are stressed or anxious or burnt out or overwhelmed. But these words are quite empty. They communicate that we are unhappy but offer no insight into our true experience. I can feel overwhelmed for a million different reasons. Through therapy and other tools, I’ve learned to dig deeper and ask questions that help me identify and communicate my emotions precisely. It’s like having a super power honestly. When I know my feelings and where they come from, it’s actionable. I can ask for help or simply tell people about my experience and they can understand.

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