The unspoken rules of the freelance world
hi
my name’s lexi signor i’m a musician and
i teach at indiana state university
i’m here to share my story with you
today i’ve done a lot of really exciting
things
and at the highest levels
and it’s been a heck of a journey and i
think
if i’m able to share my story with you
today it might just inspire you
to go after your own story mine starts
in northern michigan
at my family’s home i come from a family
of musicians
my mom played guitar and sang and my dad
played piano and saxophone and trombone
he was a multi-instrumentalist
and he was sort of known in the
neighborhood as being
particularly brilliant he was the kid in
school that would sit you know in his
study hall and just like scribble mozart
sonatas on his desk
when he was really bored i also realized
at a really young age that i also have a
photographic memory
i see everything in pictures perfectly
that’s not to say it’s completely
identic i’m not one of those people that
can tell you what
you know what the date or what tuesday
was you know
october 12 1989 uh i’m not one of those
people but
uh i i realized at a young age that i
had some superpowers and i just kind of
thought everybody had superpowers
kind of the way growing up in a musical
family you kind of just figured that
everyone plays an instrument
so when it came time for me to choose an
instrument at my band program at my
middle school
i went for the smallest one with the
least amount of buttons
i know it’s shocking there was no
philosophy i was 10.
and so i picked up the trump and i was
like yeah this is my instrument this is
awesome
so to say that i was unnatural at
trumpet
is a bit of an understatement i took to
trumpet
like a duck takes to water there was
nothing i couldn’t do on the trumpet
from a really young age so i ascended
the ranks in my middle school band
and my high school band and my honors
bands i was being sent to this camp and
that camp
i eventually went to the interlock and
arts academy and fought my way through
the ranks there seventh chair fourth
chair third chair finally first chair
and all along the way i was thinking to
myself man there are just
not a lot of female trumpet players
around what’s up with that that’s weird
um and i didn’t really pay much mind
until i
i got into high school and it became
more competitive
and i started to hear things like oh oh
she’s
a girl i wonder if she’s any good or
wow you play like a guy you sound so
great wow that’s amazing and i always
just thought
that is so strange why are they saying
those things that’s odd so i continued
on with my studies
in spite of this i pursued a degree in
music education from northern michigan
university
and i finished a five-year program in
four years i was
tenacious i love music education
i believe in education and so it was
very
easy for me to get through that program
and just rock it out and and
get my first job oh my goodness right
out of college it was amazing
got my first job and i thought to myself
now is my opportunity to pay this
forward now this is the opportunity for
me to share this love of music with
others
and so i grew in the span of three years
a program from about 50 kids to over 700
which included a
music program k4 we were very proud of
ourselves
and then the recession in 2008 hit
and there just wasn’t a budget for band
anymore and
so i went on after that and um i went on
a different things i i pursued a couple
master’s degrees and
in amongst doing so i of course stayed
in touch with
my band friends my band parents
while i was doing those degrees and um
we got to talking one
one time and uh this band parent who had
become the president of the board
said to me you know it’s a real shame
that they let you go i said yeah i loved
that job i would have retired from that
job
and he said yeah it’s um well
they didn’t let you go because they
didn’t have the money
and i said excuse me like it was a
budget issue we had like 300 people
testify on behalf of the band and they
still cut it he said no
no it wasn’t it wasn’t that you weren’t
doing a good job
it was that you’re too good
and i said i’m too good how does that
even work
isn’t that the goal here you know that’s
what they tell you in school like go do
the best you can do at your thing and so
i went and did the best i can do with my
thing is that not what they wanted
and he said well you kind of rubbed
people the wrong way and i said
what do you mean and he said well you
know people leaving at halftime
at the basketball games or football
games and
you know the growth of the band the
attention of the band there were some
people that got a little
jealous and they found a way to get you
out of the picture
and i got angry but i didn’t let it stop
me
i said okay so those are the rules it’s
not necessarily go out and do the best
you can it’s
it’s do as much as you can without
rocking the boat and making people
feel a certain way okay
so i went on and i did two master’s
degrees in spite of this i thought okay
well i guess i’ll take that loss and i’m
just gonna persevere
so i went on and i did two master’s
degrees at the university of missouri
one in classical trumpet performance and
one in jazz performance and pedagogy
i won several awards won several
competitions i was
you know one of the best trumpet players
in that area for a while and uh
i eventually went on and got into iu and
i started my doctoral work and all the
while i was i was gigging
i was uh working to make ends meet and
and make sure that my bills stayed paid
and here in the midwest everybody kind
of knows everybody so when people would
say uh oh yeah i need a trumpet player
for something and somebody would go oh
yeah call lexi she’s available
i was on the gig and i had a blast i got
to play with some of the best musicians
uh anywhere many of whom are right here
in indianapolis
and so i was gigging and i was a lot of
having a lot of success
and before i knew it i was i was on the
road with the diva jazz orchestra
and it brought me out to philadelphia
and it was so exciting i was i was
staying in philadelphia with the show i
was finishing my coursework at the same
time
i was out there just really you know
kind of musically tearing it up
and we’re sort of taught in the music
business in order to keep getting gigs
all you got to do is show up early play
great
and be helpful it’s not always in those
words but that’s basically it
and so that’s what i did and i was like
continually having success so i thought
all right the system works
nice so i i thought okay well
the east coast is cool maybe i’ll move
out here
and my partner and i moved out to the
east coast and he had been based on the
east coast and he tried to
network me into some gigs which is what
you do and he would refer me for gigs
and instead of me automatically being
put on the gig
as i had been in the midwest he had to
summarize my entire resume
to get these contractors to put me on a
wedding band i mean it’s not like i was
playing on air force one okay we’re
talking weddings
and i just thought to myself this is so
messed up this is not what they taught
us
this is not how the the rules work i
don’t understand
and um so i finished my my coursework
and
and uh i was gigging where i could when
i could
on the east coast i had a lot of work
but it was hard to get
and so i thought okay all right
i’ve done that and i got the opportunity
to either
go on the road with the first broadway
tour of escaped margaritaville
or take a teaching job here at indiana
state university i thought
here we go this is this is the time i
win
i got the degrees i’m gonna go get this
job it’s gonna be awesome
i can go out and inspire others to
pursue their passion in music and it’s
gonna be exciting and amazing and
i just to do good things so i got the
job and
they essentially said okay here are the
things you’ll teach do this to the best
of your ability
now i had been worn once on the whole do
it to the best of your ability thing
so i was like no no no i’m going to come
in here and i’m gonna
teach well and i’m not gonna rock the
boat i’m not gonna try to be
crazy awesome off the charts amazing i’m
just gonna do the job
and in my opinion i do the job
thoroughly but i
seek to also do the job as effectively
as possible and that to me means
bringing in guest artists
and networking and making sure that my
students have the best possible
information that they have
that i have available to give them and
and networking them in with other
resources and just
generally doing as much good as possible
and so by the end of my first semester
after having given
a really great concert with the jazz
ensemble i was thinking we got this
we win awesome everybody you know
happily ever after kind of thing
and then i got my first review from the
personnel committee and
i was told things like you need to tone
it down
you need to behave more in keeping with
collegiate decorum
and several other things that had very
little to do with my teaching at all and
i and i was shocked and i was angry and
i thought to myself wait wait wait
this is not what this is not what the
rules say
the rules you said just do you know
teach the things as well as you can to
the best of your ability and that’s what
i did is that not good enough
and as soon as i asked myself that
question i went oh no no no it happened
again
it’s not that i’m not good enough it’s
that i’m too good
now granted i guess that’s probably kind
of kind of a good thing
being too good at your job but i was so
good that i was making people
uncomfortable so uncomfortable that they
were feeling a need to be passive
aggressive
and punish me for this goodness and so
instead of letting that just take the
wind out of my sails
i asked for some letters of
recommendation i got together a 16-page
rebuttal and i i
followed the protocol that i needed to
stand up to these people and say no
i’m doing a good job these are the
reasons i’m doing a good job these are
the pedagogical reasons i do these
things and these are all the degrees and
the people who agree with me that say i
should be doing these things
so i intend to keep doing those things
and thankfully because there are a few
good men among us
they saw a reason and they let me
continue teaching
and it was then that i realized that
the rules that they teach us our
teachers
with the best of intentions aren’t
actually the rules
and so we have to learn these unspoken
rules so
nearing the end of january going into
the pandemic
i was sort of left in an introspective
state as many people were
are depends on how you look at it i
suppose
and i started getting counseling because
after that committee review
i was not well mentally and i sought
help and i just
needed to get my mind right to do this
job and to do it to the best of my
abilities
and in this counseling
we summarized you know some of what i
just told you about you know having been
particularly brilliant as a child and
understanding rules
and living by these parameters that i’ve
perceived around me and my therapist
said well have you ever been tested for
autism
i said no i’m not i’m not one of those
people no
and uh she said no you actually might
have autism would you like to pursue
that
and i and i thought to myself well if it
helps me
be a better person and a better teacher
and and understand myself more
sure so over the course of the next few
months
i became diagnosed with asperger’s
syndrome
which is no longer a thing it’s now just
autism spectrum disorder
but looking back on my my experiences i
just went oh my goodness
this is why this is why i keep messing
up this is why i keep being told i’m too
good
it’s because i can’t read the signals of
people being jealous i can’t read the
signals
of people being uncomfortable i just
don’t have that ability
yet in spite of this i still managed to
succeed
in several different realms to at
a national level in some cases i’ve
played with adele i’ve played with keith
urban
i have been a clinician from florida to
michigan
and across this country i’ve recorded
with some of the
biggest names in music i have taught
thousands of students
and all in the face
of this looming misogyny
it can be done we can do these things we
can do whatever we
put our minds to we women we people with
disabilities i don’t
i don’t really think autism is a
disability i
i think it’s superpowers i look back at
finishing two master’s degrees in three
years and i go
oh other people don’t do that
and my friends go no they don’t
you’re kind of a freak i have a
photographic memory i just thought
everybody had super powers and they go
no
we can’t do that i can compose an entire
big band chart in eight hours
i can arrange a big band chart in four
hours i see music notation in my head
when i hear music
it’s maddening listening to the radio is
really tough um
but all of these things i just thought
were normal for everyone are actually
super powers so in spite of all of these
hurdles i’ve still managed to succeed
and i’m here today to share that with
you in hopes that you will also succeed
that your goals are not governed by
these obstacles whatever they are
you can overcome them and be the very
best version of you
i’m working on being that breast version
and i think i’m doing a pretty darn good
job you can ask my students
but i’m here to speak on behalf of those
who don’t have a voice or don’t feel
like they can
be you be the vibrant
awesome super power driven version of
you
and the more you can do that the happier
you’re going to be and the more
effective you’re going to be in whatever
field you choose
thank you