Full Transcript: Notes of Resistance with Sarah Connelly Makiyama

Recently, MAASIN had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Connelly Makiyama (she/her). Sarah currently serves as the Associate Director of Music at Universal Studios Japan. Sarah is an alumnus of the Blue Knights and the Boston Crusaders, where she was a mellophone. She was also a member of the Blue Devils International European Tour. This interview was conducted by Alex Rathman, the Board of Directors Secretary at MAASIN and a member of the Women’s Caucus. This is full transcript of her interview, examining Sarah’s compositional journey, her experiences as a woman in music, barriers to entry and success in music composition, and her advice for aspiring female composers.

Alex Rathmann: Describe your experiences as a performer in the marching arts, starting with… your primary instrument.

Sarah Connelly Makiyama: Yeah. As a kid, I started on piano, and then trumpet, and eventually my primary instrument became French horn, but in marching arts, like so many people, I did mellophone. And then also I did winter guard through high school [Cherry Creek High School], for a couple years, until they folded. Sad. 

A. R.: Do you believe your identity as a woman impacted your experiences as a performer in the marching arts?

S. C. M.: Yes, I do. And I can't speak to how my experience would have maybe been different if I weren't a woman, but I can say that some challenges are physical… Things like… hopefully they get more bathroom breaks now. I don't know. When I was marching, they did not. So you'd bleed through a tampon during a 4-hour block because you couldn't leave. We had these light-colored blue shorts that were mandatory. Like, short shorts, and it's like, “Am I going to have a giant blood stain on the back of these very light shorts?” That, and you can't sort of do all the tricks of the trade and be like, “I'll just wear black shorts today.” That was not a possibility. So, some things like that, where it's definitely a very AFAB experience, you know? But other things were a little more psychological, a little more systemic things like being pressured into Rookie Talent Night, or… I was once told by a visual tech that women can't march correctly because of their hips, and that's why all-male drum corps are more successful. There was [were] some times… There was a different visual tech who filmed for the purpose of filming our marching and for educational purposes, but it was filmed in such a way that it focused on me specifically, and my chest and my backside… [It] felt pretty dehumanizing. Those videos are still up on YouTube, by the way, and there's still comments under it, and it's like, “Who's the cutie on mellophone?” I was 19… It doesn't feel great.

A. R.: Yeah. I remind people all the time [that] those are children.

S. C. M.: Yeah, yeah. I mean… And that's one of the things, especially when I was teaching, because I taught at Oregon Crusaders, and when they were open class, their age range was significant. We had a 12-year-old on the same bus as the 21 and 22-year-olds, but also as the staff, because we did not have a staff bus. So you had adults on the same bus as a 12-year-old, and they're children, you know? And still developing, even the ones who are older. You know, it's a really intense environment, and even when you're going through it… I feel like I dealt with a fair amount of misogyny, especially as a section leader. I was a mellophone section leader one year, and at one point, it got so bad, this sort of peer pressure that I experienced, that I would eat alone. I was crying through every meal. And it was one of my mellophone techs, Shawn Murphy, who was one of my early mentors, and he sort of talked me off the ledge; talked me down from quitting, buying a plane ticket in the middle of Kansas. He said, “Ego is a sickness. And in the way that you can't be mad at someone for having cancer, ego is a cancer, and so you can't be mad at someone for their ego. That's their own sickness, and you just have to love them through it, and at the end of the day, this is just band.” And so that perspective… Just dropping nuggets of wisdom. It really… I pull myself back to that often, and I have shared that with other performers going through similar, you know? Cast drama that just comes up because we're human. But in hindsight, it's so much easier to offer that kind of grace when you're not the one being publicly humiliated. You know, at the time, it was other members of leadership [who] were sexualizing me on the bus, reading [and] inserting me and my name into erotica that they chose to read over the loudspeaker of the bus. And so, it's easy to be like, “Yeah, just ignore their egos,” when it's really something that hits home for you, you know?

A. R.: Yeah, sexual harassment goes beyond egoism, right?

S. C. M.: Yeah. Yeah. And I think because of a lot of that drama that's sort of surrounded me, that I didn't feel was… I'm not a pot stirrer, I'm pretty on the inside, I'm quite an introvert and not someone who really walks into drama, but I think because of all of that, and what the staff saw as me being surrounded by drama, or maybe they saw me as being the cause of it. I don't know. But in my age-out year, I was passed over for leadership. But not just me, all the women on the current leadership team were passed over, and told in not a very…in sort of no uncertain terms that it was because we were women. And that pushed me towards a different corps for my final year, and in the end, I'm really grateful for that. It was an amazing experience. I love where I ended up, but I wonder, because I was so dedicated to the corps that I was with, and had put a lot of years I did winter guard with them, I did three years of summer, and I wonder…what would happen if we lived in sort of a kinder, more equitable world? What would my age out have looked like? Or what would it have looked like if I weren't a woman, or if I didn't have to sort of manage other people's egos and unchecked behavior?

A. R.: Yeah. That’s a really big wondering, and I think a lot of us that have marched and have been marginalized in some way have walked around with that, with all that what-if, you know?

S. C. M.: Yeah, exactly, yeah. And what would my opportunities have looked like after marching as well? Would there have been other opportunities that came up if I didn't sort of have this corps that felt like a family, but no longer? So we sort of had to keep our distance for months or [a] number of years, until many years later, and they interviewed me a couple years ago, and I was like, “Oh, cool. Well, I'm glad we're friends again.”

A. R.: And that's neat. I think a lot of us recognize that things are [were] very different when we were marching together.

S. C. M.: Yeah. What years did you march?

A. R.: Yeah. Oh, I marched at Jersey Surf in 2016 and 2018, so a few years after you. I can't speak to the way things are now, but…some of the things that you were talking about sounded very familiar.

S. C. M.: Yeah! Yeah, I think some of the things… Maybe we'll never completely get rid of the human drama? But I think we can make it, and hopefully it is a much safer space than…maybe it was when I was performing and teaching. Yeah, hopefully.

A. R.: I do have hope. From what it sounds like, some things are getting better in some groups, just through my work in MAASIN and what I've heard. Not perfect, of course, but… 

S. C. M.: Yeah. I was talking to a friend who teaches with Blue Stars, and he said they have training now about harassment and sexual harassment and boundaries and all these sorts of things, and that was sort of non-existent. I didn't even interview when I went to go teach at Oregon [Crusaders]. It was word of mouth. I had one of the graduate students who was on horn when I was in undergrad. She had marched [with the] Cadets, and she recommended me because they tried to get her, but she was busy teaching Cadets, so she was like, “I recommended this person.” They had never met me. They were like, “Hey, yeah, fly out… We'll see how you go for a week.” And then, after a week, they're like, “You want to just stay?” And it's like, “Yeah. I'll stay. Thanks.”

A. R.: I get it in some ways, because they want to see how you actually perform as an instructor, right? But then… Who are you bringing around these kids?

S. C. M.: Yeah. There was no background [check]… I had more barriers to entry for my job at Target than I did for teaching literal children. Now, I was in music education, and they probably…maybe they ask around or whatever, and hopefully you can trust the word of those that you have worked with in the past, but…hopefully I was a good fit, but you never know.

A. R.: They got lucky, they got you. Speaking of music education, of course, what was the most valuable or influential experience you had as a music student regarding your music education or your composition career?

S. C. M.: I'd say the most valuable experience I had as a music student was probably in my student teaching, so sort of at the end of my undergrad experience. I was really lucky. I had two mentor teachers who really trusted me more than I trusted myself at the time. So, the way my student teaching program was set up, we had a big schedule, and it said you observe for this amount of time, you teach one lesson a day for this amount of time, you teach half a day for this amount of time, and then you teach solo for just the last one or two weeks, really. And on my first day with both of them, they did not know each other, [and] they both were this kind of mentor. They said, “Would you like to instead just jump in and teach solo the entire eight weeks instead of one?” Which was terrifying, but they promised they'd be there to catch me if I fell. And they weren't gonna let me fail. But that they both really believed that experience was the best teacher, and it was… I said yes, and I mean, maybe there are some people out there who don't wrestle with anxiety or self-doubt, but I am not one of them. So, saying yes to that challenge meant that I was teaching while I was scared, but just doing it anyways. And at the time, as things went on, I got less scared, and I thought, “Oh, I'm losing my fear.” But that's not really the case. I was just sort of getting used to my new normal, and those specific fears of that specific experience were going away. But the next time something new came up, I was like, “Oh, I'm scared again. Um, why? I thought I'd overcome this.” But what I kind of realized was there will always be new experiences, and some of them will terrify you. But no one's gonna wait until you feel ready. I rarely feel ready when I'm doing something new in my music career, but it's just about not fearing the fear, and sort of pushing yourself into it anyways.

A. R.: I think that's a really beautiful thing to say to anyone trying anything new.

S. C. M.: Yeah, yeah, it can go for anything, not just music. But I think…music is sort of an…and composition and teaching, they're all really vulnerable things, more than maybe an accountant doesn't have to be as emotionally vulnerable, perhaps, in their everyday life. But when you're in front of students, when you're in front of talking to parents, when you're creating something from your soul and showing other people: That's really difficult and scary, because we always fear rejection, but you cannot grow if you are too precious and just keep it in. So, just let it out there, feel the fear, it's okay.

A. R.: Yeah, you're totally right about the vulnerability…[of] the experience in the music field. How and when did you start composing?

S. C. M.: I have been writing and arranging and transcribing music probably as long as I can remember. I think at the bottom of my old piano practice logs, they had two staves of music, and I think I probably still have some of me just…having no, really, idea how to compose, and practicing treble clefs and stuff, and just writing whatever. But it really clicked for me when I was in high school. I was taking AP Music Theory and a GarageBand course at the same time. That GarageBand course was brand new to the school. Nobody really knew what music… I mean, GarageBand was new. You know, it was brand new technology. And that's really when music creation came alive for me. I was absolutely obsessed. I'd arranged things like the Final Fantasy VII battle theme, and I petitioned the school admin to play it in the hallways during the passing periods. Um, it's like, “Look at this cool thing I did! Please make sure that everybody hears it for the next 7 minutes.” I also petitioned my English teacher to let me submit a nine-minute woodwind trio for my Shining [by Stephen King] paper instead of a paper. At some points in my career, I've used those skills less professionally, but when I'm not using it for a job, it's something that I maybe turn to for joy, and then now it's full circle. I arrange vocals, I create demos, I write original songs. I transcribe and orchestrate and everything for my job. I've started producing some of my own tracks, so now, instead of GarageBand, I use Logic, but it's like Daddy GarageBand, so it feels like I've come back around.

A. R.: Wow. Yeah, I had been wondering if you write your own material from scratch for your job, too.

S. C. M.: Sometimes, yeah. When we're doing a stage show, for example, we have a stage called In Front of Mel’s Diner from American Graffiti. And we'll use a lot of popular songs for that, obviously, but it's about finding the most interesting, the most unique version of whatever that song is. Right now, we're doing a rock show, and so we had to… We wanted to do a pop song that was traditionally a pop song and turn it into a rock song, and just when we were sort of hitting our heads against a wall, “Espresso” came out, and we really wanted to do it, but couldn't find a good version, and just couldn't make it sort of happen. And then this band from Australia released a rock version that was so much fun, and so we took that. We have music producers, really talented music producers, who recreate the demos that we make, and then either they end up arranging the vocals, or I do. It's different for every show. But, for that same show a couple years ago, we wrote an original song that we've played for the last couple years, so it really depends on the show [for] my amount of original creation versus arranging.

A. R.: Yeah, and I imagine there's a lot of vulnerability in putting out your own material, too. But that's awesome.

S. C. M.: Oh, 100%. Yeah, especially when it's… I think the first time that I had music that the director really trusted me with, and said, “Go nuts,” you know? “Here's my image. And here's the sort of bare bones of it, but feel free to change the lyrics, feel free to change melodies, harmonies”… I had to create all of the backing vocals for us to record, so that the live singers feel supported when they're on stage, and being able to take it and make it my own, and then seeing it on stage and on YouTube I was like, “Oh wow,” you know. I did that. 

A. R.: Yeah. Gosh. I love that, and hearing you talk about it. You had mentioned finding joy in writing some of the time, too, aside from doing it for your job? I…you know, as somebody who didn't go into music, I can't help but wonder how you strike that balance, how you still find the joy in the…I guess, the stress of it.

S. C. M.: Yeah. There have been times in my life where it was too much for my art to be my bread and butter. You know, the thing that was paying my rent being music was difficult at some times, and to the point where you start to question, “Is this really the career path that I want?” In those times, I had different jobs, like my first job here in Japan. I was teaching English, mostly to get my visa to come over here, but even though I sort of had this vague idea that I wanted to do music in Japan, I honestly didn't think that it would happen. I thought I would teach English for a year, and then go back and settle down into a traditional music classroom. But in that year, I sort of found that when it wasn't paying my rent, I was a better artist because I had the rest from that emotional vulnerability. I was stable, I had a paycheck month to month that didn't sort of ride on, “Did I practice enough today?” You know? “Did I sit at the piano and write enough? And is my art enough?” It was like, “I'm okay, I'm living on these expenses from this totally separate thing.” So when I went home at night, I could practice. I joined a band in the countryside where I was living. I joined a taiko ensemble, which was just too much fun. So those things made me go, “Oh yeah. I do love this. And I'm happy to keep going in this direction. But I need a balance, um, and I need to find positions that will support me enough financially that I'm not living paycheck to paycheck.” Otherwise, it’s too much, that sort of stress… They say money is not everything, but to a certain extent, it is. Until you can feed and clothe yourself, especially when you're just starting out. I had student loans, and that's why for a time, I taught skiing to three- to six-year-olds in Colorado, and that sort of allowed me to make some money to pay back those student loans. But also, it was seasonal, so I could teach Drum Corps in the summer, and marching bands in the fall. But at the end of the day, looking at the entire year, even though I was having a blast, everything about those years was really joyful, but it couldn't keep me afloat enough to pay back those student loans. I would have been paying for forever, you know? And so that's when I was like, “Alright, I need to look for something that's a little more stable.” And, then I've sort of pieced things together until now I feel like I'm in a really good place, and it snowballed into, you know… I do so much with music in my job, but I want to get better, and I want to do more. And so, I had time. I was on maternity leave for all of last year with my twins, and so when I came back, I just needed human connection and musical connection. I started songwriting again while I was sort of refueling on my leave, and that songwriting led into, “Well, maybe I want to do production. Okay, I want to do production. Well, I have to get good enough at Logic that I can make the things in my head sound the way I want them to in the computer.” And so when you want to get better, and you're really striving for a future, then you end up coming back to it. You know, I put my kids to bed, and then I'm back at it. And I don't feel tapped out in a way that I did when I didn't have the financial stability.

A. R.: Yeah. That sounds like a great path. I'm very awkward, so I apologize, but I'm glad for you that you were able to find that.

S. C. M.: No! It's great! Yeah, me too! It's a huge blessing, especially being able to support a family and live where you want to, and do the things you want to. I feel very lucky and very blessed every day.

A. R.: Yeah. Have you had any mentors in the music field along the way?

S. C. M.: Yeah, a ton. You know, it starts with the first person who you really click with, you know? My uncle was incredibly inspiring. He was just a gorgeous pianist. And my piano teacher in childhood, my high school band directors, my college horn professors, my grad school professors, all of the creative directors and creatives that I work with now at Universal Studios Japan… I would not be where I am without every single person, and what's amazing to me is that every mentor sort of leads to the next mentor, and the next chapter, and so for example, I was finishing grad school, and I was teaching elementary music. I was expecting my first child. I saw the posting for the music director at Universal, but I immediately sort of wrote myself off… That self-doubt that we all have. And I was just thinking, I was twelve weeks pregnant, had sort of just had this news come up. And I really assumed that they wouldn't want to take a chance on someone who had to go immediately, “Hey, can I have maternity leave? So sorry. Um, I will work for you for a bit, and then I'll go away, and then I'll come back,” you know? I didn't think they'd want to hear that in the interview. Fast forward to when I was eight months pregnant, the job was still open because of COVID restrictions. They couldn't get anyone who wasn't already in the country into the position. So, a friend pushed me to apply, and at that time, I was in the sort of last legs of my graduate studies. So, I've reached out to all my professors, and was asking for advice. I was in my vocal arrangement and pedagogy class at the time. The interview leaned so heavily into vocals, because it's sort of the bread and butter of what I do, and because I had just taken that course with her, the answers were really fresh and instinctive, and I think that helped sort of convince them to take a chance on me. But even then, they were sort of not fully sold, because my resume had a bunch of elementary music teaching, and zero theme park experience. So, they brought me in just for a Christmas show to see how it went, and that's when I met my, sort of my next big mentor, who [was] the show director at the time. And he really showed me what it means to direct with a full heart. He made space for me to grow, and now he's doing amazing things at Disney Orlando, but every person that I've been able to collaborate with has just led me to new skills, new experiences, and new mentors. So, for me, mentorship, both receiving and giving, is all about being a student of life, staying open, showing up prepared, and surrounding yourself with the people who inspire you.

A. R.: Yeah, and I mean, in drum corps we talk about being a sponge, right? So I think all of us, as long as you have that sort of mentality, you take in a little bit of everyone who's kind of been on your journey.

S. C. M.: Yeah, exactly. You know, you'll… They say one day you'll wake up and you'll hear your mother or your father come out of your mouth. I've especially experienced that, parenting young children. I'm like, “Ooh, she slipped out,” you know? But in teaching, it also… I've been astonished to have something come out and go, “Huh, that's from that one brass caption head that I had.” At this point, 15–almost 20–years ago, and it's good to know they're still a part of me.

A. R.: I know exactly what you mean. So, you've been talking about how you broke into your job now, and how that kind of led you into having your career in composition. And of course, our next question is pretty much talking about how you broke into the field of professional composition… Did you ever think…you would make it a career?

S. C. M.: I desperately wanted to, but until it happened, I did not think it was gonna happen. When I was in high school especially, I was really getting into composition. But even though I've had so many wonderful mentors, sometimes we don't know what we don't know, and you don't know, or you're not surrounded by the people who can give you the best advice, or the best mentorship in the thing that you want. I had a lot of people who could direct me if I wanted to go into performance. I had a lot of people who could help me if I wanted to go into music education. I had some people who could help me if I wanted to go into traditional composition, and I really was very passionate about film scores, and I saw myself… I wanted to be a film score composer, in the worst way. And so when I was applying for college, that's really where I put my focus. But I didn't know how to sort of curate those materials, and no one in my life, no one in my family had ever done something like that, and everyone in my music world at the time were private music teachers or high school band directors, you know? People who had not also gone into that, and they didn't know how to help me, and I didn't know who to ask, “How do I best present myself when I'm applying for these things?” So, I got rejected for every composition thing that I applied for. And I was like, “Cool, I will go into performance,” and…it was not the best fit for me. I was not disciplined enough at the time to be able to sit in a practice room for 8 hours and manage myself. Also, YouTube and Twitter and Facebook had just been invented, so, you know…I will push the blame onto that in some ways, but it was definitely…I was just not ready. So, I went into music education, and [was] just thinking, “Dear God, all I've ever wanted to do since I was seven was go into music. This is the only career path I have ever seen for myself. If I don't like music education, what am I gonna do?” And luckily, I did love it. I had to sort of catch up because I was transferring schools, and so my schedule was just boom, boom, boom, and because of that, I didn't really have time. I had to get good at scheduling myself. I had to get good at time management just to make everything fit, and so I gained those skills through that sort of trial by fire. But yeah, I wanted to be in composition in just the worst way, but when I got rejected for college, I was thinking, “Well, I must not be good.” And so I gave up on it as a career thing for many, many years, and it just became a personal thing. But I think for a lot of years, even though I had been obsessed with doing things in GarageBand at the time, it… At the time, it wasn't looked at as [composition] by the people around me, when I was saying I wanted to do composition. They're like, “That’s not composition. You need to get into Finale and Sibelius.” And I didn't have those skills yet either, because they didn't let me into the college classes that would have taught me enough of those skills, but really what I wanted to do at the time, and just didn't know it, didn't have the terminology or the support around me, was music production. And the producers that I work with now, who can take my ideas, um, and my really sort of terrible demos, and turn them into things that sound stunning on the stage, those producers I look at…and I see what we pay them, and it's a significant amount, but now that I have started doing it myself, I understand why. It's an incredible amount of work. There are an incredible amount of skills when you're learning [for] any DAW, which is a Digital Audio Work station. It's a mouthful. I just knew, “Oh, you can do this on GarageBand,” and I was mildly proficient at it. And then when I got Logic through my job, I was like, “Oh, Logic is just GarageBand Plus,” which it very much is… but plus plus plus, maybe. And so, if you're able to work with a Logic or an Ableton or any of the DAWs, that's its own skill, and it's not less than composition. You're still doing composition, you're just maybe not writing it down on paper. Although I sort of retroactively also do that, but I create it into the computer, and then take it, and am creating lead sheets, or backing vocals, or whatever I need to from there. But, yeah, learning it is a whole different skill, but I didn't have anyone around me who even knew what music production was. I don't even feel like I knew what music production was until I saw it being done. I was like, “Oh, cool, that's how they make pop tracks.”

A. R.: Yeah, it sounds like an interesting process.

S. C. M.: Yeah. I think now there's maybe more visibility than there was at the time. People like Benny Blanco or Jon Bellion are really…they're not just popular artists or celebrities, they are popular as producers, and just knowing that a lot of the most popular music that you listen to… It's done by a very small pool of music producers who are making that happen.

A. R.: Yeah. Have you encountered any barriers in your professional music career that you'd see as a barrier? From what I'm understanding about you, it sounds like you view a lot of those things as barriers, but everyone's different.

S. C. M.: Yes, definitely. I think I… Well, I touched on getting DAWs and software and stuff, so financial ones? You know, obviously making enough to sustain yourself is a barrier, but also, when you're young, and especially when you're not the person who holds the purse strings, maybe you're really young and wanting to see where something takes you. But taking music lessons, attending festivals, marching drum corps, buying software, all of those things add up, and at some point, especially for me, it became… “You have to choose. What is most important to you? Is it taking lessons? And maybe you can take lessons and still we can afford to have you march drum corps, but you can't go to that summer festival, because that's too expensive. And the audition fee is expensive, and then going is expensive. If you want to buy GarageBand and all of the instrument packs, well, that's expensive.” Or buying Finale [was] really expensive, and back then, it was sort of like a one-time fee of, I think, Finale, when I was in high school, was $400, which was an incredible amount of money to me, but now it's a subscription service. I don't know if Finale is, but Sibelius is. You have to re-up your subscription every year, and I am lucky enough that my job pays for my Sibelius subscription. I feel terribly lucky for [that], because even now, that [is] a huge expense to pay whatever, 120 bucks a year, and then you don't even get to keep it after your license has expired. Whereas, I really wanted Finale. I never actually ended up getting it, but I did sort of bootleg a copy from a friend. Police, don't come after me. Yeah, I just begged, borrowed, and stole whatever I could to try to make things happen, but when you're trying to convince your parents or whoever, or even yourself, this is an investment that's worth it… Oh, but also, I don't know how to use that software that you're gonna buy me, and maybe I won't even like it, but there's no trial, you know? You just gotta jump straight in, and at the time, the learning curve was huge. Like, ProTools, man, still the learning curve is huge, but now we have things like YouTube, and YouTube University has been a huge help to me on my production journey. But at the time, there was nothing like that, and so I could sit there, and, “Am I going to convince my parents that I'm going to sit and read this 500-page manual on how to work this very expensive software?” And…“Oh, I didn't get into college for it, so is it even worth it?” “Yeah, we're gonna pay for drum corps instead.” I was like, “Okay, I'll take that trade,” but what opportunities, sort of, did I miss out on because there's this very financial, gatekeep-y thing that is a barrier to a lot of young musicians and artists? But what I've learned is it's never too late. Things that seem like massive obstacles at one stage in life can shrink down to something that's manageable just a few years later. You just have to keep circling back, and sort of knocking on doors, treating people well, staying in motion, doing all the things, and that's how you can sort of shape your life in the way that you want it to be, but some things just don't happen when you want them to, and that's the way it goes.

A. R.: Mm-hmm. Right. So, what or who are your major compositional influences?

S. C. M.: Some of my major compositional influences are Eric Whitacre, Imogen Heap, Vienna Teng, Chick Corea, Bobby McFerrin, Shostakovich, Chopin, Gershwin, Copland, Bernstein, really… Yeah, if there's a pattern, if you listen to any of those things, they're kind of very different influences, but they all use really interesting textures. They also use pretty tight voicings, and kind of emotionally complex harmonies, and I think that that's what's really shaped how I build music. There's something so beautiful about something unconventional, something that makes you go, “Oh!” My husband really knows nothing about music, and so sometimes I will show him something, either that I'm listening to or that I've written, and I'll be waiting there for the harmonic turn, and I'm looking at him to have a reaction. He's like, “This is nice,” but then when I'm like, “Did you hear? Listen to this one part.” I look like the meme of the crazy guy with the, you know… But I'll play it again and again for him. I'm like, “Do you hear that?” And he's [like], “I don't know what it is that it's doing, but I do hear [it].” That's why it's interesting. It's that balance between beauty and tension and the…something that just makes you sit up and feel it.

A. R.: Yeah. That's a really sweet anecdote. He's like, “I don't know what any of this is, babe, but I love and support you, and it sounds amazing.”

S. C. M.: Yep, that's… that's pretty much how it goes. I'm just like, “But listen to this!” and he's like, “That's nice. I could fall asleep to this.” I'm like, “No!” But, I mean, nice that that's…that if you're enjoying it, that's all that matters, you know?

A. R.: He meant well. Do you think your marching arts experience influences your compositional style or choices?

S. C. M.: Yeah. Yes, if you sort of go back to 2008 to 2012, I think, you'll probably see why some of those influences were heavy in my harmonic landscape… There are certain horn lines and certain repertoires that hit home for me, and those sort of big, bold, emotionally intense moments, they shaped my ear, and I think they've given me permission to love dissonance and drama and dense harmonic writing, and that serves me now, because I end up writing a lot of stuff for Halloween, so I have to sort of go there.

A. R.: Yeah, you mentioned you're doing rehearsals for that now.

S. C. M.: Yes, yeah. You never really know what season you're in. We just debuted [the] summer, and everybody's in the park getting doused with water, but we're rehearsing for Halloween. I'm reviewing Christmas music this week, and then, in the stages of creating everything that will debut next January through April, so you sort of… You're always in this weird cycle, that's both a year or 14 months out, but then also, you have to rehearse what's coming a couple months out, you know? And then reviewing what you just did, and it's like, “What worked? What didn't work?”

A. R.: Well, I mean, I get it. We've all been the band kid rehearsing Christmas music in September, and then you also have to write and arrange stuff so that takes a while, right? And then you have to perform it at top-tier level.

S. C. M.: Yeah, and on the professional level, the process is the same as when you were in bands, or in choir, or in orchestra, it's just a much tighter schedule, where we might have spent September to December getting ready for winter concert, but for Halloween, I think I have two four-hour vocal rehearsals for… And then they go straight into choreography, and then we're they have a couple of days of choreography, and then we're doing run-throughs, and we have a week of that, and then we're on set at midnight to 4 a.m., or whatever, and then we have a week of that, and then off they go. So, it's just like…boom, boom, boom, and sometimes it's the perfect amount of rehearsal, and sometimes you go, “Could have used a bit more,” but they always get there. And sometimes, especially for the musical performers, they need to understand the music, then they gotta understand the choreography and how they're moving and blocking, and then they have to put it together. I rarely… It's happened where things have been switched for scheduling purposes, and they come in sort of already knowing the movement, but then they go and learn the music, and then they have to go back, and they're like, “No, now it doesn't make sense, because I was sitting when I learned this.” So, your music first! So that they can sort of wrap their heads around it.

A. R.: Yeah! Putting it to [the] movement's always…”Huh? Scratching my head a little bit.”

S. C. M.: I'm like, “Yeah, what am I even doing here?” But yeah, even though the timelines are so tight the people that I work with are just so talented, and being able to… If you're going into something like performance, being able to be flexible, and be respectful when you're taking the notes. You know, it's not my job, or the director's job, is not to make you feel bad, and no one wants to just sit there and dunk on you, but we have to fix the problems, and we don't have time to tell you all of the many, many wonderful things you're doing. We only have enough time to sort of tell you what you need to fix, and the people who are, “Yep, I'm taking that on board,” and they're striving to fix it. Those are the people that I want to work with every day.

A. R.: You're really painting a picture of what the environment's like, too.

S. C. M.: Yeah, fast-paced! It's fast-paced.

A. R.: So, another question about influences. Did your experience as a woman in the field of professional music influence your compositional style or choices?

S. C. M.: Yes. I think that I approach things as a leader and as a director in the way that women are often taught to navigate life and business with flexibility and problem solving and emotional awareness, things that we're just sort of trained in from birth. But maybe not every man I know goes to those places, and I've worked with directors who…they really take a hardline stance. “The notes I wrote are the ones you're gonna sing. That's the end of the story, and if you can't hit them, sucks for you. This is what it is, and you either show up or get out.” But I think being a woman, I tend to approach rehearsal in a more collaborative sense, and with a little more compassion. Maybe because I'm a woman, and because I know the performers are putting their bodies, their voices, and their reputations on the line every time they step on stage, and their voice is in an uncomfortable place, the people in the audience are not thinking, “That music director sure sucks,” they're thinking that singer's not very good, and that's not the case with anyone I work with. And it doesn't mean that I necessarily compromise my creative vision, but it's more that I've learned to draw the line where we need to protect the integrity of the music, and then I'm always listening. If a singer is struggling, I'm really open to: How can we adjust your vowel? How can we adjust your placement? Do I need to rewrite some harmonies? And if I insist on “It's my way or the highway,” and it's not something that works for their voice, because humans are not built all the same… Every soprano is built a little different, you know? But it's gonna result in a less confident performance, or at the worst case scenario, it's gonna result in an injury, and that hurts them, it hurts the show, and it hurts the whole team. So, at the end of the day, I want to work with performers, and not against them. And as a woman, I think that [my] collaborative mindset is rooted in empathy and adaptability, and that's something that, specifically, I think being a woman has deeply shaped.

A. R.: Yeah, but I think that's where empathy comes in and creates the most logical solution, right? To me, you're just gonna have a better performance. I don't know.

S. C. M.: Yeah. And we know that everybody's going through their own battles in life at any moment, and just having that compassion and empathy from the outset. When a singer comes to me and says, “Hey, I'm coming down with something,” they're performing five to eight shows in the park a day, and we're rehearsing Halloween, and it's like…okay, one, they have to be healthy for their show. That's more important. I try to treat them like professionals. If you say that you need to take it easy today, and you're not gonna go full out, I trust that you will do the work that you need to to get to a full-out performance by [the month] when we're debuting this show. But you're dealing with, whether it's emotional or physical problems, whatever it is, whatever's preventing you from giving 100% in that rehearsal, I trust that I don't need to see it right here to know that you're gonna give it out there.

A. R.: And you gotta take care of your instrument.

S. C. M.: Yeah, 100%. Especially with singers, when your instrument is your body, every choice they make, every time they go to Starbucks changes how their instrument works. I can have as much Starbucks as I want, and I can still play my French horn. But caffeine does not affect my instrument, but it affects theirs. And going out and being social affects their instrument, too. You know, I've had to tell some performers that. My favorite is, “I'm on a bit of vocal rest right now, so tonight I still want to be here and be present and be social, but I'm gonna be a listener tonight, instead of a contributor,” and they just are a little bit more reserved on a social outing, and that's how they protect their instrument. Yes, you have to tell them at the beginning, “I'm not being standoffish, I am just on vocal rest.”

A. R.: Please describe your experiences working with Universal Studios Japan. Have you noticed any differences in the professional classical music world between the United States and Japan? If you have the background to speak to that.

S. C. M.: Yeah, 100%. I'll start with my job working with USJ. I just truly believe it's the best job on the planet. I didn't… I guess I didn't think that that kind of job existed sort of naively, you know? I just didn't think they were teachers of all of those lovely singers that you see when you're at Disney or Universal up on those huge stages. But of course there are, and of course, there are people who are… You have to create that music. When you go as a guest, that's not what you're thinking, but it's a fabulous job, and what I love most about working there is the incredible variety. I get to compose and arrange and direct a crazy wide range of performances. No two projects are ever the same, and that sort of creative range keeps you inspired. I also select the BGM, or the background music for a lot of our guest-facing areas, and who does not love building a playlist? And then you walk in through the park, and you're like, “Ugh, I love this song.” Like, of course I do. I picked it.

A. R.: That's literally one of my hobbies, is making playlists, so…

S. C. M.: Yeah, it feels like being a professional vibe setter, you know? And we have a lot of different areas of the park. So we have Hollywood, we have New York, we have San Francisco, and Amity, which is where Jaws is. And so Amity is beach vibes and Hollywood is very much summer pop, and New York is this weird mix between big bands and a little more hip-hop and urban, and then San Francisco is, I think, internally, we've called it, like…cafe hipster vibes. It's just what it is, but… Yeah, it's so much fun. Now, whenever I go to a random cafe, I'm like, “Oh, someone picked this,” you know, and I wonder what they were thinking, and then I hold my Shazam up so that I can steal it and use it for my BGM! I'm like, “This is a great tune!”

A. R.: I'm never gonna unhear that when I go to the coffee shops now.

S. C. M.: Yeah someone's choosing that music when you're walking through CityWalk, when you come. My favorite one is choosing the film scores, which is when you come to the entrance and exit, we have the big sign, and it's all of these very epic film scores… We've got Back to the Future, E.T., and Jurassic Park, and feeling those swells of that, orchestral music really makes you be like…”It's the song,” and then everybody wants to take a selfie, and then for exit music we have a more reserved…it's still, cinematic, but it's a lot of the end credits, and it makes you feel like, “Oh, yes, they're playing my music at the Oscars.” I need to get off stage, sort of feeling. It's like, “Yes, leave the park, please,” told by music. “Get out. Go enjoy the rest of your night.” And then, really recently, I've been working with some attractions. I've always been a fan of roller coasters, so getting to design music for roller coasters and we have to go and test it late at night when there's no guests. You get to go around and there's no lines, and you're, “I'm gonna ride it again,” and you're doing work, but it does not feel like work, you know? It's just the most joyous kind of work.

A. R.: Oh my gosh, what a job [that] would be!

S. C. M.: What a job, right? I mean, just this week, I had to go and check the mix on a rollercoaster, and especially hearing things where it's like, “Ugh, this is working. The guests are just gonna love this so much, because I am having a blast,” and you just can't wait until they get to experience it.

A. R.: I couldn't help but imagine how your inner child feels picking out the film score music.

S. C. M.: Yeah. Oh, yeah, 100%. I think when I came in, my boss at the time was like, “You don't really have to touch the entrance and exit music. It's pretty set,” and I was like, “Oh, I'm going to make my own adjustments to that, because there are some scores that I want to hear as I walk in.”

A. R.: Yeah. I apologize if I missed it. I didn't know if you had talked about if you knew of any differences between, like the classical music world between the US and Japan.

S. C. M.: Yeah, there are a lot of differences, and some of them are cultural, but they really… from the very beginning of when Japanese children are going into [a] traditional classroom, there are some things where they are held accountable from the very beginning of their journey. You know, my 3-year-old has to put away her own stuff when she gets to preschool. She's got to hang up her towel that she uses to dry her hands, she's got to put her backpack up, she's gotta put everything in its own little thing, and, at a kindergarten that I used to work at, the students would come in their uniform, and they would, with their little tiny 3-year-old hands, had to undo all of their buttons and get out of their uniform, put on their gym uniform at when they came in, and then at the end of the day, they had to do it all in reverse. And I didn't know a lot of American kids who can actually do buttons at 3, but these kids got very good at it, but it's sort of stacking the responsibilities that the 3-year-olds had is not the same responsibility as the middle schoolers had, but because there was this system in place. When I was helping out with some middle school bands when I had first moved to Japan…the students [showed] up every day prepared. I mean, prepared. There's no one who forgets their instrument. They all have pencils. I mean, pencils and extra pencils on their stands. They all have tuners on their stands, they all have their music impeccably organized and ready to go. And it's because culturally, that's just been built up. That's second nature to them, being responsible for themselves and their things, and their parents, and taking care of their things for school is… I think it really does something to that music community. And some of the other things… A lot of music students, a lot of band students here, they don't have the ability to practice at home, because we all live in apartments, and so practicing happens in band time, which band is a club activity after school. It's not in the school day, they still have general music, even through high school. And so it's all student-led, it's astounding. So, the 9th graders are the leaders, the 8th graders are learning how to lead, and the 7th graders are learning how to band. So, the 9th graders, they lead everything, they lead all of the warm-ups, they lead tuning, they lead all of the practice, and they all sit there and practice together, they do breakout sessions led by all of these student leaders. You know, I was astonished the first day I went, and the band director, she just left, and I was like, “Where's she going?” And I could hear her down the hall, just practicing her clarinet for 2 hours, and then at the end, she came back. And she conducted all the pieces they had been working on that day. She wrote her notes, gave it to the section captains, and said, “Work on this tomorrow,” and that was it, that was the extent of her instruction. It was all student-led, and you have to have that system in place in a community that's really ready to take it on, but the ownership and accountability and pride and structure that it gave the students creates really fantastic results. And yeah, so just absolutely astonishing, some of the differences.

A. R.: I imagine that translates well for those that go on into professional music as well.

S. C. M.: Yeah, 100%. I mean, you have never worked with anyone even half as professional as some of the Japanese musicians that I have worked with, and yeah, it's really incredible. And so many women in music and in brass, and it warms my heart. I think my personal theory is that because it's a club activity, and they can only choose one, you have the same club activity throughout all of your middle school and usually high school, too. And all of the young 7th grade boys, they all want to choose soccer and baseball, all of the sporty sports that are super popular, and so you just end up with a bunch of women in band forming these really lovely bonds between each other and you know, so many female band directors… Everyone who teaches not just music, but who teaches elementary school and kindergarten in part of your license, you must play piano, and you could have played pretty well. You have to be able to accompany your students for all sorts of choir things. It's sort of part of the grain of the woodwork here, and seeing so many competent and professional and talented women in music is super inspiring.

A. R.: Yeah, so I'd imagine perhaps there aren't quite so many barriers for women in the field…

S. C. M.: Yeah, I think it is very acceptable for women to go into music. One of the show directors I work with…is essentially one of the first show directors in Japan on her level, doing the shows that she does. She does some of our biggest shows at the park and elsewhere. A couple of years ago, there was a Final Fantasy X and Kabuki sort of mixed thing that was huge in Tokyo, and that's this director. I mean, she really has her hands in every pot. But being able to work with women, and she uplifts other women as well... I feel very uplifted. But she's always finding people, and bringing them into the circle, and yeah, I think there's just maybe…I don't know if there's more opportunities, but there's definitely…there's something, you know?

A. R.: Just that social acceptability of it.

S. C. M.: Yeah, and I think maybe some of that has to do with, instead of, “Oh, I really respect that person because they're a man,” you respect them because they're older and that's brought up in that system where it's…you have your senpais, and you have your kohais, who are the underlings, and you're like… “If your senpai is a woman, you don't respect her any less than if your senpai was a man. Your senpai is your senpai.” And so, the people who are older than you have the knowledge that you're supposed to sponge up.

A. R.: Because that's… Respecting your elders is a big part of Japanese culture in general, yes?

S. C. M.: Huge, yeah. Um, 100%. And, and you see it in, I think with anime and stuff, we think of the senpai thing as being a school thing. No, no, no, it's also in business. We have senpais in business, and we have kohais in business, and I think, especially in a company where there…it's a real mix between foreign and Japanese staff, it is really interesting to see, but you can see it at work [and] everywhere in society. But the structure…obviously there's pros and cons to every system, but I think sometimes it can allow for women, and older women... This particular show director, she's like 65, and she just does everything. She also pole dances. She's crazy. You walk up to rehearsal, and she's doing yoga, and she's in the splits. She's wild, but so inspirational to work with.

A. R.: [She] must be so strong. Yeah, and in the United States, I think older women lose more and more respect. It's unfortunate.

S. C. M.: Yeah, yeah, I think that the older you get, the harder it is to find jobs, and God forbid you get laid off and then you have to try to find something when you're older, because they're like, “Oh, we don't really want to pay you that much,” and also, we can pay three people who are younger than you, whereas they would probably look at a man and say, “Oh, look at all this wealth of experience you have. Please, come join us,” you know. Yeah.

A. R.: Exactly. I'm really learning a lot today about the culture aspect, too, which is greatly interesting to me. You know, this can be a total sidebar if we want it to be, but when we started talking about expectations for children, I'm a therapist, and my child development mind was like, “How often are they able to meet that standard?” But something they're doing is working. I don't know.

S. C. M.: And it's not necessarily about meeting the standard. Every day, every time we ask them, it's about learning the skill over the course of the year. So, when they come in on the first day when I was teaching 3-year-olds, we show them, here's where you sign in, here's where you put your stamp. Then you go and you put your bag over here, and then you put these things in here, and then you get changed, and then you can come and you can play, and then at the end of the day, we usher them back to their cubbies, and now we get… So on the first day, you have to plan so much time, just for them to get… It's basically because they start out with half days, you know? It's basically just, they're getting changed. They play for a little bit, we go outside for a little bit, we do circle time, and then we must get changed again, because it's just gonna take so much time that by the time they're finished changing, and we have to help some kids, or whatever, it's like… It's time to go home, because it was a half day or whatever. But by the end of the year, they're doing full days, and they come in and they're ready to go, and at the end of the day, we… As that time starts to get shorter, it's great to see. And so then the next year, they have new responsibilities. Okay, now when you come in, you have to write your name in Japanese and English for your sign-in, instead of just [a] stamp. And the first time they have their little whiteboard markers trying to write their name is a real challenge, but at the end of the year, they're doing it on paper, and you know, and they have so much growth. So it's not every day, the practice of it, which is such a musician thing. Every time you step into the practice room, I think sometimes we expect it to be glorious, and we're like, “I'm gonna practice, therefore I will do the thing.” That's not how it works. It's because you showed up every day, working on it, and failing at it, and then trying again, and trying different approaches, that's how you got there, not because you just showed up and…if we were all lovely, perfect sight readers, we wouldn't need the practice room, but we need it.

A. R.: And also, as you're talking, it seems like there's a lot of consistency in structure and planning around it. It's just…the learning mind is all behind it.

S. C. M.: Yeah, it's really about routine, but even my one-year-old twins have started to… they've only been in nursery school since, like March or April, and they are getting some routines that [astound] me, you know? Where I come in, and they went to yesterday, they went to go get their handkerchief, which they use to dry their hands, which is the first thing… Which I get, because there's still one to put in the bag, but they went over to it to be like, “This is first, right?” And I was like “Yes, you got it,” and it's just because it's every day. I mean, if you look at them, and I hate comparison, but it's just, the structure of it astounds me, and I think it can only be good if we sort of bring some of those things to more educational spaces, more students. Our children are our future, so we can only progress as a society if I'm sharing these things that I found that truly work. And yeah, but consistency, routines, all the things that as early childhood people, we sort of know that's the secret sauce.

A. R.: Yeah, I'm completely…I'm completely with you on that. So, my last official question for you is; do you have any advice for young women aspiring to pursue a career in composition?

S. C. M.: Yeah, I think it goes back to one of my earlier points: Don't wait until you feel ready. You just gotta start, no matter what that means. Most of the biggest steps in my career have happened when I felt completely unqualified. I was nervous, I was uncertain, and I was convinced that there were better people for the job. That imposter syndrome is very real, but I showed up anyways. I didn't sort of let it stop me most of the time, and the times that it did stop me, I fully regret, you know? But you don't have to be fearless or have it all figured out. You're just gonna start somewhere. You learn by doing, you get better, by being brave enough to try before you feel ready.

A. R.: Yeah. I love it. Sarah, I could not appreciate more that you made the time and space to do this, and I loved the opportunity. I think that you're very down-to-earth and sweet, and it was nice to pick your brain. And your way of thinking, and you really went into this interview clearly thinking about how this could help someone else. It was truly wonderful, so thank you. I'm grateful.

S. C. M.: 100%. Oh, no, thank you for the opportunity. Like we don't… No one's gonna grow unless we are sort of the mentors we want to see in the world, you know? And if there is someone out here who this resonates with, then that's my job as an educator, and as a woman in music. There are so many creative and lovely people out there, and we need to hear their voices, so hopefully this inspires even just one person to share their light with the world, then I will feel wonderful.