Playing Life’s Music: Genice Shaw’s Story

Exploring the Musical Journey and Life Lessons of Genice Shaw

In this episode of Open Forum in The Villages, Florida, host Mike Roth converses with Genice Shaw, a former concert pianist, composer, and music teacher for children with special needs. Genice shares her musical beginnings, her diverse academic and professional journey, and her experiences in teaching and performing music. She also discusses overcoming a lupus and scleroderma diagnosis, her move from Nashville to The Villages, and her creative character performances. This episode highlights Genice's resilience, passion for music, and the importance of following one's dreams despite life's challenges.

00:00 Introduction to Open Forum in The Villages
00:56 Support the Podcast
01:38 Meet Genice Shaw
01:57 Genice's Musical Journey
05:33 Life in Nashville and Orlando
06:38 Teaching and Impact
07:21 Health Challenges and Resilience
13:17 Funeral Anecdote and Characters
16:05 Advice and Reflections
16:57 Conclusion and Next Episode

Transcript

Playing Life’s Music: Genice Shaw’s Story

Emily: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. In this show, we talk to leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live here in The Villages to get perspectives of what is happening here in The Villages, Florida. We are a listener supported podcast. There will be shout outs for supporters in episodes.

Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth. Thanks for listening. And listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast, which is my passion project for you. This podcast brings you knowledge, inspiration, and a lot of things that people need to know about the villages and the people living here. Be sure to hit the follow button to get the newest episode each week.

Creating this podcast is a labor of love, even though it demands more time than I can easily spare. Now, here's where you come in. You can help us keep the [00:01:00] podcast alive and thriving. How? By becoming a supporter. The easy way for you to support us is to visit our podcast webpage. OpenForumInTheVillagesFlorida.Com and click on the supporter button at the top of the page or the purple supporter box. Even a small donation of three to ten dollars a month makes a big difference and you can cancel your subscription at any time. Your support means the world to us. Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep those headphones on.

I hope everyone enjoys today's show.

This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in The Villages, Florida.

I'm here today with Genice Shaw. Thanks for joining me, Genice. 

Genice Shaw AI: Thanks Mike. Thanks for having me. 

Mike Roth: Genice was one of my students in the Podcasting 101 class in the Enrichment Academy 

and wanted to see how it's really done in real life. So we're here to take you through a show. Is that okay? 

Genice Shaw AI: Yes, that's great.

Mike Roth: Genice is a former concert [00:02:00] pianist, composer, arranger, and music teacher for children with special needs like autism, asperger's.

Genice began piano at the age of five years old. Does that mean you had a piano at home?  

No, actually , we I say we because my middle brother started taking lessons as well, so we had to go to the neighbor and after a month, that's when my parents went, enough of this traveling, next door, let's get them a piano.

That funny when I was a kid maybe 5 or 6 year old I discovered that my grandmother had a player piano. 

Genice Shaw AI: Oh,

wow.  

Mike Roth: Us kids went upstairs to try to play it with these hundreds of rolls of paper music, and discovered the bellows didn't work.

We tinkled around with the keys a little bit, and I never took up piano, until after I learned how to play the trombone, and my trombone teacher said, Mike, you need to learn how to play the piano.

Yeah then I graduated from high school and I ran out of time, haven't picked up a trombone since then. You went to what college, 

Genice Shaw AI: I went to Brookdale Community [00:03:00] College in Lincroft, New Jersey.

Graduated from there and then went to

Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. Because even in music my mother wanted me to have something in case what if something happened to you? And you can't perform anymore, how are you going to support yourself? Deciding on my second love is science. And, so then, I worked at Vanderbilt University in investigational medications and yadda.

Mike Roth: My brother lived in Nashville just down the street from Yeah,

Genice Shaw AI: and

Mike Roth: West End Avenue.

Genice Shaw AI: Yes, and Boyd has, it's grown so much since I was there. And then after that went into teaching and decided I needed to have I wanted to get my undergrad and I got my undergrad degree at Columbia College in where is that, Columbia no, Columbia Missouri.

Mike Roth: Oh, I was thinking of Columbia University.

Genice Shaw AI: Everybody thinks of that. There's several Columbia's. There's one [00:04:00] in Chicago, and they're pretty much all over. Yeah.

Mike Roth: Didn't know that, didn't know that. You learned how to play after the piano, organ, and then the bass and drums.

Genice Shaw AI: the bass, I decided that I wanted a bass guitar. Bought a bass guitar, and fumbled around with it, figured out how to play.

When I moved up here, Dave I can't remember, I think it's Williams, but I can't remember his last name. Anyway, he has he gives bass classes. I guess he's been doing it forever since he's been up here. So I took the bass from him, just to learn the fundamentals of where my hand placement, the correct hand placement, because that's really important.

And then, boom. From there, drums, I just taught myself.

Mike Roth: Okay. And, why don't you tell our listeners about your concert career as a concert pianist.

Genice Shaw AI: All right. My first A concert, I believe I was seven because at five I broke my wrist [00:05:00] and compound fracture. So my mother knew this is it. I was not a sports person.

My brothers are into sports and she just knew that music was for me. And she was correct. As soon as that healed, I was right back on the piano playing concert. Most of the concerts were done at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York. The Commodore Hotel, which is now, I think, something else, but it played there.

Also Memphis, Tennessee, Canada, pretty much all over.

So 

So how did you wind up in Nashville? 

My father passed away, and I was tired of New Jersey. It was time then for me to go on and get my life together. And of course, I'd visited Nashville, and knowing that it's Music City, That was calling my name.

Genice Shaw AI: Acquired a job at Vanderbilt University in the Pharmacy Department, and then did my composing for up and coming Christian artists [00:06:00] and some country artists playing background. I did some background music, background piano, anything that was really needed in music, I could do that.

Mike Roth: And why did you move to Orlando?

Genice Shaw AI: Beautiful, sunny weather. Warmth. Tired of shoveling snow. Tired of wiping the, cleaning the windshield off and freezing my piano fingers. And I took a job at a doctor's office there that had a pharmacy inside. And after about a year. It was time for me to make a change because I was tired of pharmacy.

So I went into teaching. And I taught music in the school. And that was like the best. Ever. Ever. Because the little children elementary school, that, especially children that, you can look at them and see that there's a need. They may not be able to throw a ball like another student. They may not be able to [00:07:00] speak like other children.

But music was something that they would gravitate towards. So I actually gave each one of them. When I say gave, I mean handed them an instrument, and they would say, Miss G, I don't know how to play it. Not a problem, we'll work it out. So I started a little band in elementary school.  

Mike Roth: That's good. And when did you stop being a concert pianist? 

Genice Shaw AI: Remember that my mother said you, if something happened to you, how are you going to support yourself? In 1991 ,

I was diagnosed with lupus and scleroderma. I didn't know What either one of them entailed and it, I had a rash on my hand went to the doctor and he said it was carpal tunnel with the rash and I didn't believe him

of, that means surgery on my hands and no one's going to do that to me for that because being a concert pianist.

So I saw another doctor and that's when the diagnosis came through with all the tests that I had, lupus and scleroderma. So for months. I couldn't bear for my [00:08:00] fingers to even touch the piano keys. I couldn't bend them. I couldn't smile because it affected my skin and the muscles and all of my body.

So I was on a lot of different investigational medications. And after a year or so, things start turning around. And I guess I've been in remission now for A good 20 years.

Mike Roth: That's great.

Genice Shaw AI: And I'll know if something's getting, but the doctors here, I found really good doctors here that keep me where I need to be.

And then back to the piano. So I actually could say I made lemonade out of lemons.

Mike Roth: Fantastic. We're going to take a short break here and Listen to an Alzheimer's tip from Dr. Craig Curtis. 

Dr. Craig Curtis: But all scientists feel, all doctors feel, that you should definitely engage your brain and get involved in crossword puzzles, sudoku, whatever types of brain stimulation you enjoy and 

Warren: with over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate the [00:09:00] Villages community on how to live a longer, healthier life.

To learn more, visit his website, CraigCurtisMD.com or call 352 500 5252 to attend a free seminar.

Mike Roth: Thank you, Dr. Curtis. Genice, who is the most influential person in your life?

Genice Shaw AI: I'm going to say, and I tell her this whenever I speak to her, my fifth grade teacher.

Mike Roth: Fifth grade teacher.

Genice Shaw AI: grade teacher,

who now lives in Boca Raton, Florida, and I don't think there's been a month since we, since she was my teacher in 5th grade, that we have not spoken over the phone.

And just knowing that I'm going to school and going into her classroom made a big difference in my life, because home life was not nice, oftentimes. As a child you hope that there's somebody around that you can gravitate to and that will [00:10:00] understand. I never told her what was going on.

She just sensed things. And she turned into almost like a big sister. And I love her dearly. And it was because of her and her music background and how she treated me. That. When I became an adult and were around children and teaching, I saw how she would choose a child that was quiet, not saying anything. That's the child that she would choose to do something because she felt they need it. And that's what she did to me. And now it's, she's like my, become like my surrogate mother. And I visit her in Boca Raton, Florida.

Yeah. 

Mike Roth: not a bad drive from here.

No. 

Genice Shaw AI: it's not.

Mike Roth: Okay. When you play music, are you playing by ear or do you actually read all the notes?

Genice Shaw AI: I can look at the music.

You give me about two minutes. And look at the chord changes and all. And then I play [00:11:00] it. Depending on what it is, if it's classical music, then it needs to be played exactly the way it's written.

Mike Roth: Correct.

Genice Shaw AI: If it's jazz or any other I

Mike Roth AI 9-11-24: Let's say I said, play Frank Sinatra's, 

Mike Roth: New York, New York, 

Genice Shaw AI: Then I would play it the way I hear it. And the way I feel it. Even though I'd have music in front of me,

Mike Roth: So if you did, you wouldn't even need the

Genice Shaw AI: Not really. No. Sing it. And then I would start playing it, I'd have some idea of it.

Mike Roth: it. Okay. Good. And why did you move

Genice Shaw AI: to The Villages? 

It's the friendliest town, The Villages.

Genice Shaw AI: Yeah one, getting out of the city and the rat race of, and coming someplace where it's quiet. You retire. There's so much to do up here. But we visited here several times before making any decision, but we're close enough, in Orlando that we could do that, then spend a weekend, then spend a month. And that month, after driving all around [00:12:00] The Villages as well as Ocala, We knew, okay, this is pretty cool. And it's a little bit closer also because we're closer to Ocala jumping on 75, and now it's about maybe about a nine and a half hour drive to Nashville. . As opposed to a 12 hour drive.

Convenience,

Mike Roth: Okay. Okay. You didn't take the trolley, did you? 

Genice Shaw AI: Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Roth: Now, my favorite question is, after the trolley tour, did you buy your house? No. Oh.

Genice Shaw AI: no. Actually we went to get a little coffee drink from one of the little coffee places. I don't know if I could say a name, but you know what I'm talking about.

Okay. Then something landed. We come up for lunch, and all like that. The house was bought the day we, the day before we were leaving, getting ready to leave. Saw it in the little homes paper and said, Huh, this seems like to be the area that we want to live in. [00:13:00] Let's go over there. Looked at it.

That was it.

Mike Roth: Okay. So it's there to after the trolley tour for you.

In our improv shows we have a improv number based on the trolley tour.

Oh, yeah.

Usually the trolley driver is drinking a beer. 

What's your favorite funny story that you tell 

Genice Shaw AI: This was in Nashville , a friend wanted me to sing at his funeral with another man , and he came over to the house, and we practiced, a few songs. Then the day of the funeral, at the funeral home, I'm playing, this gentleman starts singing, and then all of a sudden he grabs his throat. And he, I wasn't even paying any attention to him because I was just, doing my thing.

And then after the song ends he comes over and says, My voice, I don't have a voice. I said, What do you mean you don't have a voice? And he goes

I'm allergic to flowers. Who the heck goes to a funeral? You know there's flowers at a funeral and there's flowers at a wedding. Now you know you're going to be standing [00:14:00] by those flowers.

Now what does that tell you? Either move the flowers, don't stand by the flowers, or don't go to the funeral. I wind up Taking over the whole thing. This guy had like about a whole list of songs probably about 10 songs I cut it down to four and they were real quick and we ended on amazing grace but an up tempo maze amazing grace because I do believe everybody was ready to leave then and then I get outside and one is the

People that came to the funeral asked come over here and beckoned for me to come over and I said yes And she said girl, let me tell you something this is

the best funeral I have ever been to in my life. And when I die, you gonna play for my funeral? My response was okay and Id back from the car. So I had never experienced anything like that before, so I consider it funny. 

It was was funny then, and it's funny now. I have characters [00:15:00] that I dress up in, that I hide behind.   

Mike Roth: What do you mean? 

Genice Shaw AI: You, let's see, we have St. Patty's Day coming up, right? I have this character called Lottie the Leprechaun, and it's a complete leprechaun, and I just walk the streets. Walk the streets here in The Villages. Just show up anywhere. Also, there's one called Officer Squirrel.

He's a retired security guard. And I dress up and no one would know it's me. I have one called Fanny Collard. All these characters came out when I was at the elementary school. And I would just walk into the classroom dressed like that and they really thought Is it, is this grandma, great grandma? And it was Miss G, and whenever I become a, when I'm in that character mode, I actually become that person. I'm not Genice anymore, I'm whoever. I'm Officer Squirrel, or Fanny Collett Greens, or [00:16:00] Lottie the Leprechaun.

Mike Roth: Okay, so you're a real performer.

Genice Shaw AI: I enjoy it. 

Mike Roth: it. Good. One of my favorite questions for guests is,

if you could go back in time today,

to the time that you were 24 or 25 years of age, and you could give the 25 year old Genice a piece of advice, what advice would you give her?

Genice Shaw AI: Oh, I would've left home probably when I was 22 and moved to Europe or something like that. I would also, you may have some rough head a rough road ahead, but you're gonna get through it and do what you want to do without disrespecting yourself or people around you because.

You still have time, definitely.

Mike Roth: Time you haven't been to Europe? 

Genice Shaw AI: No, I've been to South America,

but not Europe. Yeah. I know.

that's what I say. But it was, 

Mike Roth: South America is a big place.

Genice Shaw AI: Santiago, Chile. Chile. I went to Chile. Okay. Yeah. 

It was nice, it was very nice, yeah.

Mike Roth: Yeah. Good. Good. Thanks for joining us today on Open Forum in The [00:17:00] Villages, Florida.

Genice Shaw AI: Thank you for having me.

Mike Roth: Thank you again, Genice.

Emily: Remember, our next episode will be released next Friday at 9 a. m. Should you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike at rothvoice dot com. This is a shout out for supporters Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Duane Roemmmich, Paul Sorgen,, Kathy Loving, and Dr. Craig Curtis at K2 in the Villages.

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