Master of Music: Student Spotlight on Karla Herrera-Zarate

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These past few months have given students a lot of time to get up and try new things,  or in some cases, master techniques that they had been working on for a while. Karla Herrera-Zarate is a student athlete at Pacific University and a Music Education major. Although Pacific only requires a minimum of three of four instrument group classes, meaning three different instruments, this year she is learning her eighth instrument to work at reaching her goal of mastering 10. “I need to have double digits,” she stated, showing her ambition and dedication for her musical career. 

Herrera-Zarate is currently learning how to play the violin, which she mentioned was the hardest instrument to learn so far.  Others she has learned include the piccolo, piano, sax alto and baritone, mallet instruments, clarinet, and her main instrument: the flute. She is even part of a work study program that lets her teach private flute lessons to four younger students. On top of having four students, Herrara-Zarate is a full time student athlete on the women’s soccer team with two other jobs. Her overloaded schedule has not stopped her from reaching her double digit goal and mastering one of the hardest instruments she’s ever had to learn. Playing a brass instrument is Herrera- Zarate’s next step after becoming fully proficient in the violin. 

There are multiple different music majors including performance, theory, and therapy. She has two main reasons for choosing Music Education as her major and career choice, she stated that “I chose Music Ed because I know I am a social person, I like talking to people and I like music, so I figured why not combine the two?” She went on to mention that her band teacher in high school was her favorite teacher ever and he inspired her to become a great teacher as well. Herrera-Zarate mentioned that this term has been the most stressful because all her jobs, lessons, sports, school, and her own violin classes all have piled up on her, but she has been  pulling through nonetheless. — Ashley Meza

Photo: Herrera-Zarate has learned the piccolo, piano, sax alto and baritone, mallet instruments, clarinet, and her main instrument: the flute.

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