Eat, breathe, play violin

Layla Humphries was definitely not one of those kids who wanted to be a musician.

She hated practicing the violin and piano, and she only kept at it because her mother insisted. Despite growing up around music, Humphries had planned to quit lessons after high school graduation.

“It was just like you eat, you breathe, you play violin,” Humphries said.

That plan was derailed when her violin teacher, Charles Wade, got cancer her senior year. She knew she wanted to continue playing in honor of him, and ultimately decided to study and teach music while at Samford University.

Now Humphries is the founder and artistic director of the Dawson Music Academy, a 12-year-old program at Dawson Family of Faith that has about 280 students from ages 4 to 70. She still keeps a picture of Wade inside her violin case, and she credits him and her mother’s persistence for her career as a music teacher.

“The music academy wouldn’t be here if my momma hadn’t said, ‘You’re going to play violin and you’re going to do it until you graduate high school,’” Humphries said.

The DMA holds music lessons every day of the week with 35 teachers on staff. Most of the students play violin or piano, but Humphries said they also teach everything from flute and trumpet to guitar, percussion and voice. She said it started as a few private lessons at the church while she was a student at Samford, and she asked to start a program after her 2003 graduation. Humphries just wanted to teach — she never anticipated being the program’s director.

“We kind of just took a chance and said, ‘Let’s try,’” she said.

A combination of good location, good teachers and word of mouth are what Humphries credits with the program’s growth, as she has done very little advertising. She said it also helps that the DMA tries to be accommodating of families’ schedules, especially if they have multiple students taking lessons.

“Homewood kids can walk down for lessons, and we really try to customize schedules for families,” Humphries said.

Though she still plays at weddings and in the Dawson orchestra, Humphries said her first love is teaching. After 12 years, some of her original students are now playing in college or come back to help teach the summer music camp. While she enjoys seeing the payoff of a decade of work, Humphries also likes the excitement of a new student making a sound on their instrument for the first time. To her, being in the lesson room is a “holy moment.”

As the DMA continues, Humphries hopes she has put it on a good footing for the future. Just as Wade instilled a legacy of hard work and excellence in her, Humphries wants to provide those values for her students and teachers.

“I’ve poured my life into this since college,” Humphries said. “When I’m not here, I want it to still be going.”

She also hopes to grow to the point that the music rooms at Dawson will almost always have the sound of students practicing their music. An empty room in a church is just waiting to be filled.

“I’m passionate about churches that are empty during the week,” Humphries said. “Look, there are pianos sitting here that aren’t being played.”

To learn more about the Dawson Music Academy, visit dawsonchurch.org/dma.