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Professor profile: One-to-one teaching

Tami Lee Hughes, assistant professor of violin

Student-to-teacher ratio is an often-cited selling point for a class. It’s hard to beat the one-to-one ratio that Tami Lee Hughes offers.

Hughes, assistant professor of violin, works with students one-on-one throughout their careers at KU, teaching them everything from violin technique to stage presence. In a new KU YouTube video, she discusses her unique relationship with students as well as her research and career as a performer.

“I work with my students one-on-one, so that means I have a very unique relationship with each student,” Hughes said. “I see my students from the time they are freshmen all the way through graduation. So I get to see them grow and develop as people, as musicians.”

Although a violin professor teaches her students the fundamentals of technique, helping them play the right notes is only the tip of the iceberg. After all, the purpose of a musician is to perform, and the piece itself is only part of the presentation.

“One of the most rewarding but nerve-wracking parts of being a musician is getting in front of an audience and having to perform,” Hughes said. “For students, this can be pretty intimidating. Each year they have performance exams to help them prepare and practice for performing in the professional world. So we talk about everything from how to carry themselves on stage, how to present themselves, how to walk on stage, what to wear, where to stand, how to wear their hair and how to relate to the audience and how to give to the audience in performance.”

Teaching students about performance is no stretch for Hughes, who has played as a soloist with numerous musical outfits, including the National Symphony Orchestra. She’s also no stranger to the recording studio, having played violin on recordings for musicians such as Aretha Franklin, Donnie McClurkin and Fred Hammond.

Working with students who will go on to become professional musicians and educators is just one part of Hughes’ role. Like her university colleagues, she’s also engaged in research.

One of her primary projects is an effort to research pieces for violin by African-American composers. The pieces run the gamut from gospel to jazz to classical. She is recording several works of this kind for a CD to be released in 2010.

Her “dream project” will take violin music to young people who might not otherwise have a chance to hear it.

“My big project, and my dream, is to visit 10 of the poorest schools in the United States to present music from the research that I’m conducting on African-American composers,” she said. “There are so many children who are bombarded with negativity in their lives. So I’d like to take the music to them and give them inspiration, give them guidance and let them know that people care about them.”