Melodious songs fill the classroom, a perfect balance of instruments and vocals, evoking a feeling of life with each strum of the guitar. The source of this music? Ryan Martinez, a language teacher at WJ who just released a new album and is now performing for his students.
Martinez has worked at Walter Johnson for 14 years. Over the years, he has taught French and Spanish. As much as he loves teaching, creating music is his other passion. Martinez has found ways to merge both of his favorite things and impact lives while doing it.
“I find that music is a good tool because a lot of learning is memorizing, especially with language,” Martinez said. “If you make something musical, then it makes it more fun and tolerable to listen to.”
Through playing music while his students enter the classroom, to assigning students to memorize vocabulary songs and perform them in front of the class, Martinez has found creative ways to incorporate music into his everyday lessons including teaching certain subjects using songs with familiar melodies.
“When we walk in, he plays music until we start class, and sometimes, he plays his guitar during lessons,” sophomore Ipek Guner said.
Martinez speaks five languages and can play multiple instruments. He has dedicated himself to both of these skills and has found many similarities between them.
“English is like the piano, it’s the one I learned first and it’s the one I’m most comfortable with,” Martinez said. “French, I learned later, but it’s like the guitar, I’ve done it so much that I’m just as comfortable. I came later into the drums, that’s like Spanish, then I’ve got the ones like banjo that I say I can do, that’s German and Portuguese.”
Apart from using music to teach, Martinez also uses it to display his own emotions and vulnerabilities to his students.
“I feel like men aren’t really encouraged to show their emotions very much and I like music as an opportunity to do that,” Martinez said. “It’s a very personal and emotional experience for me, but I like that it brings that out of me.”
On April 11, Martinez preformed his new album, “Spectrum,” for all of his classes. He set out blankets and pillows on the ground, and encouraged his students to get comfortable. After explaining rules for his performance and clarifying how he expected his students to act as they would at a real performance, Martinez sang some of his new songs and took the time to illustrate what inspired each of them.
“It felt like a great community, we all sat down next to each other in the center of the room and just got to listen to his music,” sophomore Matilda Carr said. “It was the day before spring break, so it was a nice, decompressing day to listen to his music while he talked about what his songs were about and everyone loved it.”
“Spectrum” is Martinez’s fourth solo record. Around every five years, Martinez releases a new album after collecting enough new material to publish. Martinez has used this album to experiment with new music composition methods.
“I really wanted to focus on production at this time,” Martinez said. “I’ve been learning how to make beats, learning how to take an idea that I had and and bring it out sonically as close as I can.”
Martinez’s classroom’s welcoming atmosphere allows students to express their own passions and goals. Martinez uses his position as a teacher to shape his students’ lives and help them hone their own skills. He says he believes that everyone should have interests and hobbies that make them happy, even if it is not their main career.
“As a teacher, I try to give the messages that I wish I had heard as a student when I was in high school,” Martinez said. “I tell my students to keep doing whatever you like to do and measure yourself against yourself and just try your best.”
You can listen to Martinez’s music on soundcloud.com/martinezsenior!
