clarinerd

an online spot for all clarinetists

About

she/her
🖤🤍💜🩶
👩‍💻 web developer
🎶 clarinetist
🛸 sci-fi nerd
🎮 gamer
💖 WordPress junkie
📱 Apple enthusiast
🥾 hiker
🕯️ eclectic

Hi there! Thanks so much for visiting my web site. I’m a web developer living in Louisville, Kentucky. My background includes teaching music and playing clarinet and percussion in various performance groups.

I stumbled into code writing way back in 1999 during a time when I’d quit teaching and had taken on various temp roles, one of which was as a secretary at an IT data center. One day, I was asked by my boss if I was interested in learning how to build a site for our office. I went out to Barnes & Noble, purchased a copy of an O’Reilly PHP book, and I’ve loved coding, designing, and fixing web sites ever since.

I love technology and what it can do to simplify our lives. Seeing a creative design come to life and having a hand in bringing it into the web world is my favorite mystery to solve.

My main love has been with PHP, and my CMS of choice has been WordPress since its inception in 2003. I find it flexible, secure, easy to design around, and so fun to customize. If you’re looking for a web site you can control without having to contact a web developer for every little change, this would be my recommendation.

Short CV

  • LAMP stack developer with strong PHP/MySQL background
  • Experienced WordPress developer, creating from-scratch themes and plugins
  • Other coding strengths: jQuery, JavaScript, LESS/SASS compiling, CSS, SEO, Google Analytics integration
  • Comfortable working with: Adobe Creative Suite, GitHub, and Bitbucket
  • Comfortable integrating social media platforms into existing sites and preparing content for use on social media

About This Site

I’m only now finally getting my thoughts organized into something cohesive, and while that means I’m starting to organize my site, it also means it’s not where I want it to be, at least not yet. So, I hope you’ll come back often and see what’s new here. I also hope you’ll say ‘hi’ or send an email to let me know what you think or just to say how things are going.

Personal Music History

I received a Bachelor of Science in Instrumental Music Education from Ball State University in 1998. I studied clarinet under Dr. Caroline Hartig and percussion under Pamela Nave and Dr. Erwin Mueller. For 11 years between that degree and when I decided to get my next, I played clarinet for various chamber groups, bands, and orchestras, taught sectionals at various middle and high schools, and also amassed a studio of about 40 private students. I then returned to clarinet study by way of pursuing a Masters Degree with Dallas Tidwell at University of Louisville. I am very proud to have been under his tutelage and will cherish that time I had with him and the other clarinetists in his studio.

Today, I work as a web developer in the marketing department of a local company. Nights and weekends, you’ll find me occasionally at rehearsal or a concert for either Louisville Concert Band or Louisville Winds.