Years after Dave Petrelli worked in the Nashville music business, he experienced a moment in the city’s Shelby Park that eclipsed any expectations he had had for his career.
A former peermusic creative assistant and Nashville Songwriters Association International director of events, Petrelli purposely segued into music education, and one step in the journey included teaching general education to fourth graders. Drawing on his innate skills, he frequently rewrote existing songs to teach students, and when a full solar eclipse occurred in the city in 2017, Petrelli prepared his classes by reworking the Bonnie Tyler/Celine Dion hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart” as “Total Eclipse of the Sun.”
When the big day arrived, Petrelli and his wife, songwriter Victoria Banks (“Come On Over,” “Saints & Angels”), joined thousands in the park to watch the afternoon sky turn dark. Around a dozen kids saw “Mr. Petrelli” and ran to him to sing “Total Eclipse of the Sun.”
“I didn’t even expect this to be a moment,” he says now, “and it was a moment.”
Petrelli is one of 30 instructors from eight states who will have another personal moment tonight (Sept. 17) when the Country Music Association recognizes them as CMA Music Teachers of Excellence at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. CMA has turned music education into a mission, funneling revenue from the annual CMA Fest into programs that are vital to the development of future generations.
The program is so appreciated that the teacher awards will be attended by as many artists as instructors, including Walker Hayes, Jordan Davis, Riley Green, Terri Clark and Gretchen Wilson.
The teaching jobs may not be as glamorous as the touring gigs those artists pursue, but they’re “way more important,” CMA senior vp of industry relations Tiffany Kerns says. “We have the best gigs in the world, don’t get me wrong. But by far, what they do is way more impressive. And I mean, talk about having deep impact in communities.”
That impact is far-reaching. Music develops collaboration skills, learning to play an instrument builds discipline, and studying music rewires the brain, strengthening the connectivity between different cortexes and providing more paths for thoughts to follow. Schools with music education, according to Kerns, have lower rates of absenteeism. And since music teachers typically spend more one-on-one time with individual students as they learn their instruments, they are often the instructors whom students feel most comfortable with in revealing hunger or mental health issues.
In Petrelli’s case, students likely relate to him in part because he’s one of them in spirit. Growing up in Connecticut, his mother — who taught Spanish — died when he was 10, and he had to take care of himself sooner than his peers.
“I grew up too fast, and because of that, there’s still a lot of kid in me,” he says.
Petrelli leaned toward music early, and after graduating from Boston College, he taught the subject at a private Catholic elementary school for a year. He subsequently earned a songwriting degree at the Berklee College of Music, then moved to Nashville and worked his way into the music community. Once they got married, he and Banks decided at least one of them should have a job with greater security, and he shifted into education.
The “Total Eclipse of the Sun” moment grew out of his approach, which mixes music with other parts of the school’s curriculum. A few years ago, when Lockeland Elementary was operating under the schoolwide theme “Lockeland is out of this world,” he would have classes explore the details in songs with galactic lyrics — such as David Bowie‘s “Space Oddity,” Europe‘s”The Final Countdown” or Elton John‘s “Rocket Man” — to better understand space and enhance the school experience.
“What I have found is that that gets the kids really, really, really interested in what they’re going to learn today,” Petrelli says. “My lesson springboards off that.”
Other courses, such as math or science, have more cut-and-dried material — two plus two will always equal four — and Kerns suggests that those classes feel more “black and white” to students.
“When you walk into that music room, I really believe that Dave’s students immediately feel and see color,” she says. “There is something that is so vibrant about his personality and the way that he teaches, and that’s a gift.”
The CMA doesn’t restrict its Teachers of Excellence awards to instructors who use country music in their classes. Pop, jazz, R&B and mariachi have all been used extensively by various honorees, though Petrelli does, in fact, incorporate country in his work, with songs by Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings and Shania Twain among the material he has used.
“The storytelling aspect is huge,” he says.
While teaching music may not be as glamorous as the careers of the artists that Petrelli’s classes draw from, it still scratches his own artistic itch.
“I teach six classes a day, and it’s six one-hour performances,” he says. “It is a song-and-dance show for one hour, six times in a row. I’ve worked physically demanding jobs, mentally demanding jobs. I have never been as exhausted at the end of a day as when I come home from a particularly hard day of teaching.”
It’s usually a thankless job, though the Teachers of Excellence event extends a bit of appreciation. And the students do provide feedback, whether they know it or not, at moments like the 2017 eclipse. At times like that, Petrelli is reminded that the job really is an opportunity to inspire the next generation, even if it looks a little different than what he originally envisioned.
“I always dreamed of girls screaming my name,” Petrelli says. “I didn’t think they’d be 9 years old and waving in their car, [yelling], ‘Mr. Petrelli!’”
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