The Upbeat Teacher: Mindset, Leadership & Wellbeing with Dr. Matthew Arau (Part 1) | 193

Welcome back to Crescendo Chat — the podcast for primary classroom music teachers who want to do their best work, love what they do, and keep showing up for their students every day.

Today’s guest is someone who has inspired thousands of music educators around the world through his message of mindset, mindfulness, and leadership. Recently, I had the privilege of hearing him speak in person, and I can honestly say the energy in that room was unforgettable.

I’m delighted to welcome Dr. Matthew Arau.

Matthew is an internationally renowned speaker, conductor, author, and the founder of Upbeat Global. He is the author of the bestselling book Upbeat! Mindset, Mindfulness, and Leadership in Music Education and Beyond and has spent nearly three decades helping musicians, educators, and leaders discover how to thrive both professionally and personally.

In this first episode, we explore Matthew’s remarkable journey. From his years as a school band director to becoming a global advocate for educator wellbeing, leadership, and purpose, Matthew shares the experiences that shaped his philosophy and passion.

We also unpack the powerful concept of “choosing your upbeat” — the idea that before every performance, every rehearsal, and every day, we have a choice about how we prepare ourselves to lead.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, stretched thin, or wondered how to keep showing up with energy and purpose, this conversation is for you.

So let’s begin Part 1 of my conversation with Dr. Matthew Arau.

Links Mentioned in the Episode: 

• Songs:
  • Feathers, Fur or Fins | Sugar Glider | Don Spencer
  • Sh-Sh-Sugar Glider
• Take the G.E.T. Leadership Quiz HERE
• Join the FREE Upbeat Leaders Skool Community
• Join the Upbeat! Leadership Academy Membership Group

Connect with Dr. Matthew Arau:

• Website: https://www.upbeatglobal.com/ 
• Email: ma*********@***il.com 
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

Where to find me: 

Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
Official Crescendo Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrescendoMusicEd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDeb

Introduction

G’day, I’m Debbie O’Shea. This is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 193. We’re here because great music teachers change lives and they deserve great support. 

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land. 

Debbie O’Shea

I so appreciate you joining me for this podcast, and you are going to appreciate listening to this podcast, because I’m about to have a talk with Dr. Matthew Arau. He is inspirational, very clever, and you’re just going to love what he has to say. This is quite a long conversation, which could have gone on. I’m telling you, so I’m breaking this up into three parts, so that it’s nice, manageable chunks for your listening pleasure. This first part, just enjoy being introduced to him, and starting to listen to some of these amazing gems, these little nuggets of wisdom. Enjoy part one, listening to the motivational Dr. Matthew Arau, and I would like to welcome all of my listeners back to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast, a podcast especially for music educators, mainly you beautiful primary classroom people, so dear to my heart, as we try to do our best work, love what we do, and keep showing up for those kids every day, but today I’m really excited, because I have a special guest, I had the privilege of meeting him and hearing him speak in person, not that long ago at all, the energy in the room was amazing, and I would like to welcome to this podcast Dr. Matthew Arau.

Dr. Matthew Arau

Hey, Debbie, it’s so good to join you.

Debbie O’Shea  

It’s wonderful, but I’m going to start with a short bio now. It’s just a summary, so if I’ve missed anything out or anything’s incorrect, you fix me afterwards. Okay?

Dr. Matthew Arau

Sure.

Debbie O’Shea  

You ready? Take notes. Okay. Dr. Matthew Arao is an internationally renowned speaker, author, conductor, and the founder and CEO of Upbeat Global. He is the author of the best-selling book, Upbeat: Mindset, Mindfulness, and Leadership in Music Education and Beyond, and draws on 29 years of experience as a conductor, music educator, and professor. Matthew spent 15 years as a middle and high school band director in Loveland, Colorado, Loveland, isn’t that a nice sounding place? Loveland. Before moving to his current role as Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Education Department at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, he has guest conducted, presented, and led professional development across 42 US states and four continents, including here in Australia. Through his global, his upbeat global work, Matthew empowers educators to rekindle their inner spark through focusing on wellbeing, purpose, and mind set. He joins us today from Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife, Merrilie, a sugar glider named Flash, and two dash hounds, Savannah and Eli. That is you, Matthew. Okay? What would you like to add or correct if I got anything wrong?

Dr. Matthew Arau

I just love, I just couldn’t help but smiling as you talked about our pets, our Sugar Glider Flash, and our dachshunds, Savannah and Eli, because they are the love of our lives.

Debbie O’Shea  

Okay, now I know that all of my listeners want to hear music education stuff, right? That’s why they’ve listened, but I just have to talk about the sugar glider for a minute. I just, they are the most beautiful creatures, and I want to share with you that at the moment my preps, they’re like four turning five, it’s their first year at school, at both of my schools, I’m at two schools, they are singing a song, sugar glider, and. It is the most beautiful song, and it’s written by Don Spencer, an Australian. Do you know the song?

Dr. Matthew Arau 

No, I need to learn it.

Debbie O’Shea  

Oh, you so do. It is, it is the most beautiful song, and these kids are just loving it. It’s, it’s sweet and gentle, and beautiful, and oh, and as soon as I saw you at a sugar glider, I went, what’s the chances that I’m doing one of my schools? The kids have just performed it at a concert for their parents. The other one, they’re more in the beginning stages of a music programme, like they haven’t had one, and I’m just trying to wrangle the preps into singing together. We might sing on assembly or something, but oh, you have to find the Sugar Glider song. I will send you the links after this. Actually, I better put the links in the show notes now.

Dr. Matthew Arau

Everybody’s going to want to.

Debbie O’Shea  

So, if they get no other value out of this, they’ve got a new song.

Dr. Matthew Arau 

Exactly right. I love it, which is silly.

Debbie O’Shea  

Because they’re going to get so much value. Okay, is there anything else you wanted to say about your story?

Dr. Matthew Arau 

No, that I mean, I can certainly add to the story for sure, if you like, but that’s a great start. 

Debbie O’Shea  

So, all right, I mean, it sounds like you’ve done so much. Was there a single moment or an experience that set you on the path that you’re on now?

Dr. Matthew Arau’s Story and Musical Journey

Dr. Matthew Arau

Well, I can’t remember a time without having music in my life, you know. And you probably.. I could tell Debbie, you must be the same way, but just as a young child, just loving music and making, creating original music from the get-go. I’m so lucky I had a supportive parents, too, because you know, I would just – I would write lyrics and sing them, and my first instrument was a tennis racket, right before I learned the piano, and, but just, I had to make music and sing music, and so I think that that was the beginning of just the passion for music, which I have had my entire life. I did become a saxophonist, so that was my primary instrument, and took a.. I grew up in California, and then went to college in Wisconsin at Lawrence University, where I teach now, and I loved academics too. So I studied academics, and, and I mean, I have a major in government, believe it or not, and music, so very different, but in a way I brought them together, because in a way, because of my passion and fascination with leadership, and kind of fusing leadership and music together, has become a career path for me, which has been fascinating to be able to blend them, but I fell in love with teaching and was excited to move to Colorado, where I taught middle school band for eight years and then high school band for seven years, and loved every minute of it. People ask me now, like, what’s your favourite, like, grade level that you’ve taught? I’m like, every time I was teaching in that present moment, that was my favourite.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s true love of what you do.

Dr. Matthew Arau

Yeah, and I’m so fortunate now in my life that I get to work with all ages, travelling around the world, and getting to work with elementary students, and middle school, and junior high, and high school, and collegiate, and of course adults, so just kind of sharing this, this love for music, and, and what I also call upbeat, and upbeat leadership, and so, yes.

Debbie O’Shea  

So coming up with that uniting idea of upbeat, and those of you who can’t see, I am trying my end when you, when you came up with this upbeat as a, it’s a unifying thought, isn’t it? Through it, the mindset, mindfulness, and leadership in music education, so the title did it have a sort of a genesis. What was the when you thought, hold on, this music term could be used to capture something wider? Can you tell us a bit about that sort of process?

The Origin of the “Upbeat” Philosophy

Dr. Matthew Arau  

Let me share the origin story, because it actually is really, really cool. I was fascinated with developing positive cultures in music, and I’d been – I was being brought out to Utah, the state of Utah, to be the keynote speaker for a conference, a music education conference, and so I’ve been doing a lot of research on what it takes to create a positive culture in band. So, I had this clinic worked out, and it was called Creating a Positive Culture in Band, pretty straightforward, like also kind of boring, but that’s straightforward. So, I’m literally at the kitchen table working on the handout and the slides, putting this. Together, and I asked my wife, Merrily. I say, Merrily, I’d like a, like, a snappy title, like a one-word title. It’s kind of an attention getter. Yeah, there’s some.. there’s some like restaurants that have these cool, like, one name for a restaurant. Yeah, in Colorado, there’s a restaurant we used to love to go to in Fort Collins, Colorado, is a great, amazing breakfast. This one has to be like a line longer than an hour just to get into this place. And the name of this restaurant was Snooze. So that was my role model. I thought that’s the coolest name for a breakfast place, just Snooze, right? 

Debbie O’Shea  

Okay, it reminds me, though. Let’s make a music analogy. It’s, it’s the equivalent of pink or sure.

Dr. Matthew Arau

Yeah.

Debbie O’Shea  

Or Madonna.

Dr. Matthew Arau

Or Prince.

Dr. Matthew Arau

But, but, so I said to Mary Lee, I said, what do you think would be a cool, like, title that would grab you, and then creating positive culture and band would be the subtitle, and so my wife comes into the dining room, where I’m at work, and she says, What about upbeat? And I took my hands, I went on the table like this, like boom, smashed the table, and I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Now my wife didn’t grow up in music, so she’s not, she’s not in music, she’s.. I think she has an amazing ear, she can whistle everything like perfectly on pitch. I’m like, oh my gosh, you could have been the most amazing musician, but she didn’t grow up in music, she.. and so she literally, based on my response, she says to me unknowingly, she says, Does it also have a musical meaning? Ha! right, because she was saying upbeat, because upbeat means positive, it’s a synonym for positive, right, then upbeat, upbeat culture, positive, encouraging, uplifting, and then I, and then I was like, yes, and that’s where it all came together, then I was like music and positivity, the word upbeat brings it together, and then the inspiration came thinking about upbeat and music was okay, upbeat tempo, fast, vivacious, lively, when we tap our foot, the downbeat, upbeat, the upbeat, and when the foot’s coming up, you think of like marches, the French horn section is nothing, you know, the upbeat, but the upbeat I started thinking about was the upbeat that a conductor gives the prep beat, and that’s where it, that’s where it started, and I can share with you a little bit more about, like, how this connects, but I took the upbeat of the conductor and fused it with all of my work and leadership mindset and mindfulness and culture building to create this, this metaphor that carries throughout all of my work. 

Debbie O’Shea  

Now that is like that, that’s amazing, like that is just amazing. I just assumed it started with the music term and expanded, but it was quite the opposite.

Dr. Matthew Arau  

And I always share, like Merrily, my wife is, I say it’s my muse, right, because she just came in, said upbeat, and then I was like,

Debbie O’Shea  

That is so perfect.

Dr. Matthew Arau  

So, I’ll quickly share, like, what what I mean by the upbeat, how it connects,

Debbie O’Shea  

Yeah, go, go, go.

Choosing Your Upbeat and Positive Responses

Dr. Matthew Arau 

But so I always share that music is always created twice. I think that’s kind of a neat concept. Music’s always created twice. People say, like, what do you mean is created twice? Well, it’s first of all created in our mind, right? And as a conductor myself, my responsibility is to study the music ahead of time and have a like an hour old picture image or vision of what I want to create ahead of time, so I’m not just stepping into the first rehearsal blindly, and so when I give that prepping, I inhale, I breathe in, I’m hearing, I’m anticipating the sound that I want to create, and it’s not just the sound, right, it’s the tempo, the dynamics, the feeling, the mood, the energy, the artic, all of that we hear ahead of time in silence. So I think so powerful, and that’s the conductor does, but all the musicians, vocalists, instrumentalists, once we know a piece, when we take that breath in, we anticipate, we hear what we want to create, and then we make it happen. So I took the metaphor of the upbeat from a conductor and apply it to life simply like this: our thoughts are the upbeats to our actions, our attitude is the upbeat to any situation, and we choose our thoughts and our attitude, we choose our upbeat boom, and that’s that’s how we bring it together, and so you can see as it has a very strong mindset foundation, and so my, it’s about. Living intentionally about living with purpose. Waking up in the morning, think about like what I want to create today. What kind of day do I want to help make? How do I want to positively make a difference today? Beginning the day with gratitude, it’s my choice. I can be, I can choose that, and that’s about what I mean by choosing our upbeat, and even in the hardest or the hardest times, we can practice choosing our response. That’s that’s the one thing you know we really can take responsibility for. We can’t control everything that happens in in our sphere, right? We can’t affect, or we can’t predict all the things are going to happen, and they’re going to be hard things that will happen, and loss and suffering that will happen, but and we will get upset, right? But choosing how we respond, I think, is really important. That’s all about choosing our upbeat. That’s where it all begins.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, that makes so much sense, and I don’t take that at all. As you know, the toxic positivity – let’s all just be happy all the time. It’s about choosing our response and preparing. I love that, that you decide how you are going to enter that situation, react to that situation, so it’s both. It’s preparing before, because I’m thinking of a little bit of a, a negative person that I know. Okay, I call in my head, I call him a bit of an E or do you know you win? Either poo.

Dr. Matthew Arau

Oh yeah.

Debbie O’Shea  

You know. Okay. And I deliberately greet this person with isn’t it a glorious day? How did.. how did you sing? I’d go today. What are you looking forward to? I just.. I don’t want to be a little bit sunshine all the time, but you know, if you, if you, you can change the trajectory of that conversation with the way you prepare for it with your upbeat in your mind, and then what you do, so you can just think of it in so many situations that upbeat metaphor.

Dr. Matthew Arau 

Yeah, I call that in chapter one of my book. I call what you just talked about, actually. I, I call it a positive lead, so that you are rather than waiting for the conversation to go like down the negative rabbit hole, because it does right, or the teacher’s lounge can be like that, that’s cool, or you have a friend that you know is just going to be the complainer, and you just at that point in your day, you’re just like, I don’t want my energy to be sucked away, so instead of giving it to somebody else to suck it out of you to go down that negative rabbit hole, you can actually do exactly what you did. Say, hey, so what’s something positive that happened in your day today, or is what made you smile today? What’s really neat is when we ask somebody a question like that, our mind starts to scan our environment and our recent events to find something good or positive, and while it’s doing that, it’s igniting the prefrontal cortex and the neocortex, and really it’s sending us into the positivity realm.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, it’s creating the bias, it’s turning the bias towards the positive, isn’t it? And I have to say, at this point to my listeners, I have to confess this beautiful book is on my bedside table, and I, I haven’t read it yet, and I’m looking forward to it, but I just wanted to get this podcast interview with Matthew done, but I am planning to read it, so.

Dr. Matthew Arau

I’m so excited for you,

Debbie O’Shea  

But, I just need to confess that to my listeners, but I’m looking forward to it. Okay.

Dr. Matthew Arau 

Yeah, and I’ll just chime in and share that Debbie was gracious enough to share a copy of a stalling mite effect with me, and I love it. I absolutely love it, and I, you know, it’s kind of funny on my TV screen on the television on the on the plane didn’t work for that, you know, 14 hour flight from Sydney to Los Angeles, and and so I, it was great. I took it as a blessing that, oh, great, I’ll have time to read, so I got to read, read your book, and I, and I hope that most of your listeners are familiar with it and have read it, but it’s, it’s, it’s powerful, it’s, it’s practical, it’s uplifting, it’s inspirational, and it’s Debbie, it’s definitely Debbie O’Shea, like all the way, her, your amazing personality is, is throughout this book. It’s very impactful, so thank you for sharing this with me.

Debbie O’Shea  

That is so lovely. Okay, I’m tempted to stop the interview now, because no, I’m not really. Don’t panic, people who are listening, don’t panic. We’ve got lots to get through. Okay, gratitude. When you were talking, then you were talking about gratitude, boy, it’s so important to keep an attitude of gratitude. It is so important, obviously, it is to you. It’s coming across. So, is there a person or people that you are particularly grateful to at the moment? Because it’s a question I like to ask everyone that comes on the podcast, because I like to keep fresh in everyone’s minds that having gratitude is just really important to thriving in your one precious life. So, who comes to your mind?

The Power of Gratitude and Positive Influence

Dr. Matthew Arau

Well, as I, as I thought about the people in my life, interestingly enough, that the first people that get in my mind were my two parents, my mom and dad, and as I share, I happened to share earlier, I just am so grateful that they encouraged me in music, never, you know, shut down, practising, I’ll go into another room, whatever, they were always celebrating, whether it was singing my heart out or playing the piano or playing the saxophone, just going to all my concerts growing up. I just feel so lucky at parents like that to start off with, and then I think about my music teachers along the way and the role that each one played in what I learned, and how they encouraged me, and he was actually my university saxophone professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. His name’s Steven Jordheim. I actually didn’t know that I wanted to be a music teacher right away. I loved music, but I, and I thought about being a performer, potentially, and I actually went to a saxophone lesson. I said, “I don’t know what I want to do, you know, graduate, and he asked me, like, “What do you love to do? And it.. and I did share. I said, “Well, I really love playing the saxophone, and I really love teaching people. And my saxophone teacher looked at me and kind of shared, shared what was the obvious to him. He said, Matthew, you’d be a great music teacher, and I said, like, really. And that conversation, I think, is so important. There’s so much there, because he saw something in me that I didn’t see yet myself. And I think that can be the role of a teacher is to believe in the student even more than they believe in themselves, and to help them get to that place where they also believe in themselves. And I’m so grateful that he just was, yeah, Matthew, you should become a teacher, you’d be a really great teacher. And I just took the ball and ran with that, after that, took all the music education classes, and, and love student teaching, and then I fell in love with conducting, and all of that, but so my saxophone professor, really grateful for too.

Sign-off

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget that you’ll find the show notes on crescendo.com.au forward slash the podcast number of this episode. Also, you can find the transcripts there, so you’ve got all of the detail that you need. If you found this podcast useful, I’d really love it if you share the link with a colleague. Remember, all I can be is the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. We’ll meet again, I hope we will. Bye. 

Just for Laughs 

As we know, laughter relieves stress. Don’t lose sight of the funny side of life. When I was at school, my maths teacher called me average. How mean.