UNC student Austin Tyner shares experiences at Summer Jazz Workshop: Interview

Rising senior Austin Tyner is attending the UNC Summer Jazz Workshop both in-person and online this year. Austin is from Richmond, VA and is majoring in English and Comparative Literature here at UNC. She also participates in student government and is a co-chair of the Disability Advocates for Carolina.

I recently had the chance to interview Austin about her musical interests and experiences, as well as her time at the Jazz Workshop thus far.

Question: What is your background in music?

Austin told me that she had little experience learning or playing music, but expressed interest in doing so.

“It’s hard as a disabled person to find someone with the experience and creativity to be able to teach you,” she said.

She would like to, given the opportunity, learn how to play the guitar.

Question: Are there any genres of music that you enjoy listening to?

“Yeah, most everything,” she told me. Austin likes a variety of music, but she specifically said that she was raised on country music, and she continues to enjoy it to this day. She also discussed classic rock, R&B, and rap.

Question: What brings you to Summer Jazz Workshop?

As previously stated, Austin has been interested in learning more about music. She also appreciated the unique opportunity to take a college course in the span of a week.

She told me that she was somewhat nervous about the prospect of learning music in-person as a disabled person, but she was encouraged and reassured about taking the course after speaking to Professor Stephen Anderson.

“He helped me to be less intimidated, and it turns out I didn’t even need to be intimidated,” she said.

Question: How has your experience been at the Workshop so far?

Austin’s experience has definitely been a positive one. She said that she didn’t know much about jazz coming in, but that she’s been able to learn a lot in a short amount of time.

Attending her first day in-person and her second online, she’s been able to appreciate the Workshop from multiple perspectives. She did tell me that she preferred joining in-person, as she liked being able to see people face-to-face and experience the music firsthand.

“I think there’s something about a live performance that you just can’t beat,” she said.

That being said, she was still impressed by the quality of the virtual setup for Tuesday night’s performance.

Question: Any other takeaways from the Workshop thus far?

One thing Austin said stood out to her was the unspoken language the musicians had with each other. Their ability to take subtle cues off of one another and to know when certain changes in the music needed to happen was particularly interesting to her.

She finds the concerts engaging because of the emotion that shows through in the bands’ playing, drawing particular attention to one of Jerald Shynette‘s trombone solos.

She has also enjoyed sitting in on the combo rehearsals to see the work that goes into preparing the performances and likes the notion that players can still put their own ideas into the music in the moment.

“I was getting my mind blown as they were doing that now that I have some background information from watching the lessons,” she told me.