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ABLE Voices EP 93: Tony Memmel
14 Plays1 month ago
We are inviting artists with disabilities to be guest hosts for the Able Voices podcast. Today, you'll meet our next guest host, Tony Memmel. Tony Memmel is a singer, songwriter, speaker, and teacher with unique charisma and creativity. Though he was born with one hand, he taught himself to play the guitar professionally by building a special cast that he designed out of guerrilla tape. He has toured toured 47 of the 50 states, 25 countries, and has worked with 16 countries, virtually sharing his music and his message of hard work, determination, and resilience. His work ranges from visiting schools, hospitals, and churches, to writing and arranging music for children, composing symphonies, performing in historic concert venues, and helping people with hand and limb differences, like his, to develop their adaptive methods that allow them to make music part of their lives.
Follow Tony on Social Media:
Website: https://www.tonymemmel.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tonymemmel/
The ABLE Voices podcast is produced and edited by BIAAE Operations Coordinator, Daniel Martinez del Campo. The introduction music was written by Kai Levin and the ending song was written by Sebastian Batista. Kai and Sebastian are students in the Arts Education Programs at the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education.
For more information about our programs visit us at https://college.berklee.edu/BIAAE
Follow us for more weekly updates at:
Instagram: @BIAAE
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BIAAE
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Transcript
Introduction to Able Voices Podcast
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Able Voices Podcast. I'm Dr. Rhoda Bernard, founding managing director of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education and the assistant chair of the Music Education Department at Berklee College of Music.
00:00:27
Speaker
and I am proud to present this podcast featuring disabled artists and arts educators. We are inviting artists with disabilities to be guest hosts for the Able Voices podcast.
Tony Memel's Musical Journey
00:00:37
Speaker
Today, you'll meet our next guest host, Tony Memel.
00:00:41
Speaker
Tony Memel is a singer, songwriter, speaker, and teacher with unique charisma and creativity. Though he was born with one hand, he taught himself to play the guitar professionally by building a special cast that he designed out of guerrilla tape.
00:00:59
Speaker
He has toured 47 of the 50 states, 25 countries, and has worked with 16 countries virtually sharing his music and his message of hard work, determination, and resilience.
00:01:13
Speaker
His work ranges from visiting schools, hospitals, and churches to writing and arranging music for children, composing symphonies, performing in historic concert venues,
00:01:24
Speaker
and helping people with hand and limb differences like his to develop their own adaptive methods that allow them to make music part of their lives. Tony grew up in, oh, I can't say that, Tony. Where did you grow up? Waukesha, Wisconsin. Thank you, Waukesha, Wisconsin, and now resides in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and two sons.
00:01:48
Speaker
He enjoys playing basketball, swimming, hiking, and cooking and trying new foods especially if hot sauce is involved. Welcome, Tony. We are delighted to have you as our next guest host of the Able Voices podcast.
00:02:04
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for hosting me today. I'm so glad to be here with you.
Growing Up and Musical Influences
00:02:08
Speaker
And thank you for that introduction. My great pleasure. Thank you for saying Waukesha for me because that was not going to happen. I'm here to help. I'm here to help. That's a tough one.
00:02:19
Speaker
I'd like to start off by asking you to tell us your story as an artist. How did you get your start as an artist and how did you get to where you are today? Well, I believe that I was born with a strong desire for music that goes back even before I can remember.
00:02:37
Speaker
My family tells me about my early interest in music and learning how to operate the family CD player that was in the living room and picking the songs that I knew and I already knew the numbers of the tracks from before I can even remember. And so Something about me is just built for music, but it became a real intentional draw, something that I pursued in depth as I grew into more of a school age. I played trumpet starting from an early age and played through the school band system. We had a a really strong music curriculum and in the school district that I grew up in, which I was really fortunate to be a part of.
00:03:14
Speaker
and ah But it was guitar, especially, that really just sparked my imagination in this big way. It set this this big calling over my life that that just seemed bigger than any obstacle or challenge or anything you want to call it.
00:03:32
Speaker
that that seemed like it would would come along the way with learning to play the guitar born with one hand. And so I pursued that in depth and worked really, really hard. It's one of the hardest things I ever learned how to do.
00:03:45
Speaker
But as a result of that story and pursuing the guitar as as hard as I did, as I started to get out into the world and share music with people, my opportunities to perform for for people continued to grow. I started getting offered opportunities to play in front of bigger audiences and then just different audiences. I'd play at a a concert hall and then I'd be asked, would you visit this local school? We know some students who might really benefit from your message. And that has continued to just amplify and grow and change through the years to a point where this year, Rhoda, I've been traveling almost ah two weeks to or more a month traveling and sharing my music and message everywhere I grow. So
00:04:26
Speaker
Art was this thing that I was born with, I believe, and I just continued to pursue it as as hard as I could and blessed to have the opportunity to do it professionally today.
00:04:37
Speaker
Fantastic. Can you talk about your experiences as a person with one hand and and how that relates to your art? you You mentioned some of that, but can you talk more about that?
Innovation in Adaptive Music Tools
00:04:48
Speaker
So from an early age, learning how to play an instrument in school, for example, i was asked, you know, even by my, encouraged, I would say, by my family to maybe play an instrument that I might be able to hold easily. So, and and it was also financially accessible for my family. My mom played trumpet when she was growing up. My uncle played, so we actually had a family trumpet. And it was something that was also thought that might be easier to hold and to be able to, you know, trigger the valves with one hand and prop it up underneath with my elbow on my left side, which is where my arm just about stops on my left side. So that was ah sort of practical.
00:05:28
Speaker
And also available. and And it was also something that ah that I enjoyed. I thought maybe saxophone would be cool or something like that. But trumpet was like sort of in my house and and something I could start with.
00:05:40
Speaker
But it was guitar is the first one where it. it really didn't matter that that was considered to be quote-unquote like two-handed instrument it was something that i wanted to figure out no matter what and so that was the one that i didn't know anything about guitar rhoda so i went to the library and i picked out every book i could find i didn't i didn't know what kind of strings the guitar had, what kind of wood they were made of, who played guitar, and how how do electronics work in the instrument. And as I started looking through all these books in the Waukesha Public Library in the town I grew up, I so i noticed something really interesting that sparked this this really big new idea for me was almost everybody plays guitar.
00:06:25
Speaker
where they hold the instrument with their left hand and then make sound with the right. But I saw just a few photos in all of those books that looked like if you could hold the instrument with your right side and strum and pick with the left side, it's called a left-handed guitar.
00:06:43
Speaker
that that looked like something that I could do. And so that was that was like this this huge, grand, big idea moment. It sparked my first time going to the music store to try and buy my first instrument. And then I realized that guitars are expensive.
00:07:00
Speaker
So I was like, I didn't have the money that ah that it was required as that barrier to entry. So I started saving, I got a couple of jobs, and all of this was sort of happening before I even sat down to make my first sounds. But I pursued it really, really heavily and hard, and eventually brought my first guitar home, a left-handed Fender Stratocaster, it was called.
00:07:23
Speaker
And from there, I started trying to develop different tools and methods and ideas that might help me to produce more sound from the instrument. And I realized that I was born with one hand and a perfect space on the end of my arm that is the exact size of a guitar pick, a tool that people use to make more sound from the guitar.
00:07:46
Speaker
And my arm, ah you know, I'm of the belief that it feels like it was designed that way. Like that's how I'm meant to be and how I was meant to make music possible. From there, I started building adaptive tools that helped hold that guitar pick in place extra firmly so that it wouldn't fly off my arm in the middle of a show or fall into the inside of the instrument when I was holding it.
00:08:06
Speaker
And All of those developments, all those moments with those guitar tools and casts actually took me almost eight years of trial and error to develop the first one that really worked for me.
00:08:20
Speaker
So it was a long haul. i was making some music along the way, but it didn't come without its challenges. And When I finally found the tool that I use today, which is called Gorilla Tape, I was able to take all of that time and effort I had already put in and really just use that as a launching point to really pursue practice at a much higher level and more frequently and be able to perform more often in a way where my tools weren't falling off my arm every single time I'd go on the stage. So it was a ah long haul. It was really difficult. But...
00:08:52
Speaker
those sort of adaptive methods were things that I i had no reference for. I'd never seen anybody play guitar with one hand. I kind of felt it, you know, in that way, it was just always trailblazing, finding something new. And and so that was that's a mindset I've sort of applied toward everything when it came to being an adaptive artist.
00:09:12
Speaker
I love that, like blazing a new trail through your art and the eight years of dedication that it took to get you there, that clearly you had a drive for that instrument. That's really powerful.
00:09:28
Speaker
So I know that our listeners will be very interested in hearing about your arts education. Can you talk about how you learned in the arts? I mean, you talked about how poured over guitar books and looked at videos, but tell us more about formally and informally how you learned
Inspiration and Professional Pursuit
00:09:44
Speaker
in the arts? Absolutely. So informally, my family loves music. My grandparents love music. my My grandpa, you know, grew up in the Depression era. He was, he had an old harmonica and could like play spoons on his lap.
00:09:59
Speaker
It's a very folky upbringing in music. My mom was musical, played trumpet through school and music was always around in my house. But I'm the only person in my family who's ever pursued it at such a deep, deep level. So it came from early beginning in the the school system. Trumpet was available to students starting in fifth grade. So I started there and took and played in the school band.
00:10:23
Speaker
Then I joined the jazz ensemble, which is a before school program starting in middle school. played in the marching band, which is a really kind of intense competitive school system where we like even competed for state championships and traveled around the country. And it was like, ah you know, kind of an in-depth experience with that. But it was my senior year of high school. i was goofing around in the hallways trying to make my friends laugh ah by singing and kind of this like really kind of high pitch pop voice.
00:10:51
Speaker
And a teacher, a new teacher in my school heard me singing and said, Tony, I believe we could put that voice to better use in my choirs. I had been in some before school choirs and a church choir when I was young, but I never pursued it through school. I had always played trumpet, but she heard something where I was trying to be silly.
00:11:11
Speaker
She heard potential and invited me to join the choir. I auditioned and got into the the top group in my school. Later that year, I auditioned and got into the the lead in the school music man so or in the school musical. So I was Harold Hill in The Music Man. and And then through that process, that same teacher said, this is something if you were serious about, I believe you could do with your life.
00:11:35
Speaker
I was a first generation I was going to be a first generation college student. I didn't even know you could pursue music as a career like that. I'd seen music on TV. I wanted to be in a band. I loved rock and roll, but I didn't know you could go and all day long be learning about history and theory and composition and recording and music business. And so that really was that first spark of somebody seeing potential in me beyond what I even knew was possible in music education.
00:12:06
Speaker
She said that she knew some of the professors at a university near where I grew up in Wisconsin and said they were hand holding auditions soon. So I auditioned to be in their music program and got a scholarship to go to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
00:12:22
Speaker
which was my my alma mater now. And I you suddenly found myself ah pursuing music and music business. That was one thing that my my parents, said my dad was a sheet metal worker. My mom worked out of the home caring for my sister and me and had a small business. And ah their their encouragement to me if I was going to pursue arts as an educational track was, please pursue it with some business understanding as well.
00:12:50
Speaker
Their hope was that I would be able to take what I learned there and then be able to use it professionally and have some understanding of how the world of business worked. And I think that was good advice. It's actually something that I take from them and try to encourage young people in now who are studying, studying music themselves to please look for opportunities to learn about business as well.
Music Business and Career Sustainability
00:13:11
Speaker
to be able to promote yourself when you get out of the music you know study world and find opportunities for yourself to have more gigs and to understand how that all works so it's not a brand new mystery when you're a new grad out in the music world.
00:13:25
Speaker
But ah from there, I graduated and started pursuing music professionally in music business in 2008, and that's what I've been doing ever since. Wow.
00:13:35
Speaker
Lots of really interesting things in your story. What struck me the most... is the impact that one teacher can have. yeah You had this person who really saw you, you were being silly, they saw potential, and then to say to you, you know, this is something you could do professionally.
00:14:00
Speaker
To have someone believe in you in that way and really, um as you said, they saw potential in you that you didn't even see in yourself. Absolutely. That's, I think, extremely powerful.
00:14:14
Speaker
Wow. So on that note, I understand that you have a little bit of music you want to share with us. Can you tell us about what we're going to hear? Absolutely. So this is a song that ah I actually sang when I had the opportunity to be at the ABLE conference earlier this year. It's a song that I teach in every single school I visit. It's a song that I just taught when I was overseas in Indonesia and Vietnam. It's a song that I wrote called I Am Never, Never, Never Going to Give Up.
00:14:39
Speaker
and this is a song that ah no matter what language the audience speaks, no matter how familiar with music you are, my goal is to be able to teach it within a couple of minutes and get an entire audience singing and clapping along and and involved. And it's a song that I hope gets stuck in people's minds. It's something that I hope that can carry with you throughout the day. And maybe you just plant that seed, that spark that the next time you are, ah you know, hitting that that wall midday or you're struggling in a, you know, anything from your professional life to your school life to a relationship that there are those things in your life that, you know, you have to keep trying on and navigating the best that you can. And this is that just a song of encouragement. It's fun. i hope you enjoy it. i am never, never, never going to give up.
00:15:23
Speaker
Here we go.
00:15:34
Speaker
In the heart that lives cult, a longer hall. A dream that demands your all. It's the hardest, clearest choice when you hear its voice.
00:15:50
Speaker
Step up and stand tall. There's an old and simple call.
00:16:16
Speaker
give up. Never, never, never gonna give up. Never, never, never gonna give up. am never, never, never gonna give up.
00:16:28
Speaker
Never, never, never gonna give up.
Advice for Artists with Disabilities
00:16:41
Speaker
Thank you for that, Tony. I remember singing and clapping along to that back in April. It was such, such a great song. We had a good time. we had a good time. That audience was was was singing out. We had great time. People were harmonizing, the whole thing.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah. So, What advice would you give? You said a little bit about this. You said um you often advise people to learn about the music business and have that be something that they know. But in terms of um an artist with a disability, what advice would you give them?
00:17:13
Speaker
I think it would be specific individual to individual. I would want to talk with somebody about what their goals are. you know, for me in music, I wanted to be playing the guitar at a professional level.
00:17:26
Speaker
And because I listened to so much music, I had some idea of what that sounded like. So I know what empty encouragement can feel like and somebody telling you, you sound great, even though you know you don't sound like what you want to sound like. So some people's goal, it is to participate as a part of a classroom atmosphere. What does it look like to pick up an instrument and be able to play, as you know, with the part of the ukulele choir or something like that or some sort of.
00:17:51
Speaker
you know unit in school for two weeks, but then put it down. And that's something you enjoyed for a little while, but not something you want to do the rest of your life. But if it was somebody who really had a strong desire and and felt like they were trying to come up with similar methods and ideas to what I described before about you know creating different casts and tools and adaptive ideas, my best advice is to remember that yeah music is, ah I hope, a lifelong process.
00:18:21
Speaker
I still, I've been playing guitar a long time now. This is my 26th year with the instrument and I'm still trying to be a student of guitar. I'm still trying to adapt the way that I play to make it better and better.
00:18:35
Speaker
um So my my hope was to encourage people to have a lifelong learner mentality as they approach their their craft and to treat it that way, like a craft, to approach it daily, to make recordings so that you can track your progress. you know Treat it as much as it is fun. If it's something that you're really serious about, treat it like you would something that you were really trying to get better and better at and something that you can point back to two weeks ago, i could not play this scale and I have it on recording. I fumbled through it, but today I sat down to play my instrument and it sounded, sounded close or great, you know, and you can see that charted progress over time, I think is so important for anybody who's really serious about learning an instrument. And that goes for somebody with a disability or, or, you know, a, you know, a physical disability, like, like I have, or somebody who, for any general student, who's just trying to learn, an instrument, I think those things are so are actually similar.
00:19:33
Speaker
you that Those are just sort of principles that I think are are good for everybody to kind of keep in in their minds as they pursue a craft. Absolutely. Thank you for that advice. I love thinking about lifelong learners and that your relationship with your art and your craft changes over time and that it is a lifelong, you're not done. Yeah, absolutely. It's not like, oh, now I'm a professional, I'm done. No, now we explore new territory always. And we're always growing. I love that.
00:20:01
Speaker
Can you tell us about what you're working on these days? Absolutely.
Production, Collaboration, and Teaching
00:20:05
Speaker
So I am moving into a really interesting phase of of my musical career. i As a college student, I studied a little bit about recording and production of music. And it's something that maybe was a spark at the time, but has just never gone away. So I've really invested a lot of time and effort over the last two years, especially get really develop as as a producer and songwriter in the studio, working with with new artists, writing for other people as well. So my whole life, I've pretty much written for myself or for bands that I've been a part of or knew I was going to be the main singer on.
00:20:47
Speaker
And I've had a lot of fun lately having the opportunity to create for for other voices, for and And some of that was actually sparked through the way that we had to navigate the the pandemic in 2020.
00:21:00
Speaker
Some of my work turned to virtual work. And I met some artists around the world, and especially one one artist I've worked with a lot is a hip hop artist out of Nigeria. His name is Crucifixo.
00:21:11
Speaker
And I've produced a number of tracks with him and and for him and just sending recordings back and forth across the world on WhatsApp. And ah thinking that there are just some really neat opportunities with the technology available to us to make art in these exciting new ways.
00:21:28
Speaker
That's been really firing up my imagination in in exciting ways and also pursuing life ah more as a ah speaker these days. i just got off a three-week tour that was a lot of playing my guitar and singing for for big audiences. And also throughout that process, I had the opportunity to work with up-and-coming music business students and to share more and more of my story. And in those speaking environments. And I've been really enjoying that and the opportunities for Q&As and to sow into a new generation of people who are getting started or maybe haven't had that encounter from that teacher yet who had believed in them and having the opportunity to speak into other people's lives and and and the way that I i was
00:22:12
Speaker
you know, I benefited from as ah as a student. So it's been a really neat and neat shift in a way to that that more professorial role, even though I'm not affiliated with the university, but being able to to help people in that way has been exciting.
00:22:27
Speaker
I love that because you're paying it forward. Thank you. Which is a beautiful thing. So how can people find you online?
Connecting Online
00:22:35
Speaker
I am all over online. If you type my name, Tony, T-O-N-Y, Memel, M-E-M-M-E-L, it's like mammal with E's instead of A's, you're going to find me on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook. And I have a website, ah LinkedIn. And you each person that you talk to has a place that they like to gravitate toward for where they, they seek their social media time. And, and for for me, I, you know, I enjoy Instagram and and YouTube and TikTok. I actually like, I'm on all of them all the time. So I'd love to connect with you there and, and to to hopefully,
00:23:10
Speaker
One of my big goals with having the opportunity to speak and be a part of podcasts like this is to continue to build a an amazing network of of friends and colleagues around the world who are interested in and making the world a better place through their you know development of their gifts and talents and abilities and craft. And so thank you for giving me an opportunity to have a voice on this pod today so that we can hopefully be encouraging other people who are pursuing similar similar goals in their lives.
00:23:39
Speaker
That's the hope for sure. And thank you for being our next guest host. And we will hear from you soon upcoming episodes. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Me too.
00:23:49
Speaker
Thanks so much.
00:23:55
Speaker
Able Voices is production of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education, led by me, Dr. Rhoda Bernard, the founding managing director. It is produced by Daniel Martinez del Campo.
00:24:07
Speaker
The intro music is by Kai Levin, and our closing song is by Sebastian Batista. Kai and Sebastian are students in the arts education programs at the Berkeley Institute for Accessible Arts Education.
00:24:20
Speaker
If you would like to learn more about our work, find us online at berkeley.edu slash B-I-A-A-E or email us at B-I-A-A-E at berkeley, that's L-E-E dot E-D-U.