“Everyone can find joy in music,” said Dawn Martin of Sequim, known as a pianist, singer, teacher, accompanist, performer, mentor of musicians and inheritor of musical knowledge.

“Everybody can experience music in their own way,” Martin said, adding that it might be through playing an instrument, dancing, singing, or attending concerts. “Just keep trying until your find your thing.”

Martin performs regularly with the dance band “Sound Advice” and with her husband as “Dawn and Steve.”

She said that when people leave the shows, she wants them to feel better than when they walked in. “Music brings people together in a world where there are so many things dividing us,” she said.

Martin has been immersed in music all her life. She is the daughter of the late W.L. Martin, who in his retirement was a member of the local bluegrass band “The Old Sidekicks.”

He was her first teacher, and his joy in music lives on in her playing style, which features comfortable engagement with the audience and outstanding music skills.

“My first memories of anything are of music, the Sierras in California and my dad,” said Martin. “I was his shadow. There was always music in our house and people always visiting to play music.”

The family lived in a tiny company town in the mountains. Her father worked for Pacific Gas and Electric after he moved the family from south Georgia.

Martin said her father played multiple instruments “completely by ear and had perfect pitch.”

“He was a natural entertainer and could get everyone singing along. People loved him,” she said.

However, it was her mother who drove her to piano lessons – an hour and a half drive each way every week when Martin was a teenager – so she could learn from Julliard trained Dr. Alan Rea.

Martin played “Rhapsody in Blue” for her solo recital, auditioning to be Rea’s student, and “I got lost in the middle of it, improvising and playing whatever I thought Gershwin might have done….”

According to Martin, Rea said, “I’ll take you on as a student as long as you will listen to me… We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“He stripped me back,” said Martin. “Oh my gosh, it was a hard couple of years. My fingerings had to completely turn around – I had to start over and relearn how to play correctly.”

The young Martin went on to win concerto competitions and “my playing went through the roof. Because of what I learned from him, I am a pianist.

“I’m a better teacher because of that, because I’m a better player, even when I’m improvising jazz and blues and all that,” said Martin. “I don’t allow all those bad habits to creep in. I make sure my students know why they’re putting that finger here, why you’re doing this…”

She likened untrained playing to doing a granny shot in basketball – it works casually but won’t hold up in a game.

Teacher and accompanist

“The first thing I tell all my students is, listen to music. Listen to different types of music. Always be exposed to it. Find what you like, because there’s so much out there.

“Especially here on the Peninsula, there’s such a diversity of music. And what somebody absolutely loves is not necessarily what the next person loves.

“We all have tastes, just like we have tastes and colors and styles and foods and everything, you have your taste, you’ve got to define what, what music do you like?

“My job as a teacher is not to tell you what you like or don’t like,” said Martin. “It is to teach you how it’s built – how it’s structured — and to give you the tools to go and make the music you want.”

Martin teaches private lessons, including drop-in lessons for those who want to fine-tune something, and she is also the accompanist for the high school choir.

She said she receives the music ahead of time from teacher Florin Baros. “And I make sure I’m ready.”

At the practice, she helps kids with their individual parts and then accompanies them in the show.

Martin said she loves kids because of their energy, natural curiosity, honesty and authenticity. “I get who they are. I can relate — I don’t think I ever really grew up myself,” she said.

High school is a tough time for a lot of people, she said, noting that, “I didn’t fit in very well in high school, but I didn’t really care. I was really focused on my music.”

Martin, said high school student Nathan Coelho, “is a very good part of our team. She is so talented at the piano and so musically inclined.”

Coelho explained that Baros requests adjustments to written music which Martin often does on the spot.

“When she’s the adult in charge, she’s very motivating,” the student added.

Martin said that teaching private lessons is rewarding because she can work with the same student for years. Her waiting list currently stands at 24. Students generally don’t leave her unless they graduate or move away.

Sequim needs more music teachers, Martin said, cautioning that even if someone is a good musician, they won’t necessarily be a good teacher without training.

When Martin first moved here from Colorado in 2016 to care for her mother after her father passed, Avonlea Lawrence was one of her first students.

Mother Julie Lawrence said that when Avonlea was four, the family sought a piano teacher for her.

Lawrence said that at their initial meeting Avonlea “snuggled right up next to Martin on the piano,” and the family knew Martin would be her teacher.

Lawrence explained that “for myself, I’ve had a lifelong love of music. I’m not a great musician, but I love playing and I wanted Avonlea to have that. We found it in Dawn. It was my hope that she would foster that, and she’s doing just that.”

During the winter holidays, Martin puts on a recital at the high school auditorium, which her students attend whether they perform or not, so they can learn audience and stage etiquette.

“Avonlea has not yet felt that she was ready to perform,” said Lawrence, which Martin respects.

“Not everybody is a performer,” said Martin. “That’s important because you need to know who you are and be honest to that. There’s so much pressure from society to not be authentically you. And I feel like the minute you start losing who you authentically are, we lost what you are to the world.”

Avonlea, said Lawrence, “has really grown up and matured, and Dawn has guided her in that.”

Avonlea, who also studies guitar from John Mangenelli, said that she enjoys music. “I’m just so glad Dawn is my piano teacher. She has a fun way of teaching.”

She said that in the future she expects to continue playing music because she loves it, but not necessarily as a career, as she has other interests also.

“I love horror movies and I love horses,” Avonlea said. “I want to ride horses in horror movies.”

Avonlea said that her favorite music to listen to is pop. From studying music herself, “I can definitely tell when an artist knows what they’re doing.”

Taylor Swift, she said, “is really good at everything that she does, so I can definitely tell that she knows what she is doing.”

Mentor

Don Fristoe of the Port Townsend band The Silhouettes agreed that not everyone likes to perform, but he does.

He credited his friend Martin with elevating his performance skills through the summertime Performance Clinics she held before Covid, which may begin again.

Fristoe said he learned a few chords on the guitar in high school and then put it away as he got involved with other things.

He said he picked it up again about 10 years ago. “And I got in with a folk group doing Kingston Trio kind of things. That’s where I got into the performing aspect, listening to what they did and how they cracked jokes as part of the act.”

Martin said that Fristoe is a natural, with excellent timing and delivery.

They met when his band at the time was looking for a keyboard player – Martin had left her name at Crossroads Music in Port Townsend, looking for people to play with after moving to Sequim.

Fristoe said that after listening to her play the first time he told the band, “We’re not going to be able to keep her. She’s too good.”

Fristoe went on to tell about all the people Martin helped elevate.

“What impressed me so much,” he said, “is this real gift she has, passing on not just the ability to learn music or ability to read music, but the joy in the music.

“You never see her sitting at the piano without a big smile on her face. It’s contagious. She loves what she’s doing, whether it be playing, or whether it be singing or whether it be teaching… passing this beautiful knowledge on to kids.

“It’s an amazing legacy that she’s leaving these kids around the north Peninsula.”

Performer

Martin said when she plays for an audience, “I blend the ability to read with my ability to play by ear.”

Local drummer Dan Stacy, observing Sound Advice — made up of Martin, Scott Bradley, Russ Lowry and Mark Parris — at the Seven Cedars Casino while a packed crowd danced, said that the band is impressively proficient at taking a familiar crowd-pleasing song and playing it their own way, without losing their audience by straying too far.

He said that while Parris on the bass played the parts of the song Martin could have played with her left hand, she was using that hand to dance and interact with the crowd, “filling up the music with her right hand.”

During other songs she used both hands and sent a thrill through the crowd. And throughout the show, like her father, she talked and engaged the audience.

Martin and the band’s style made it “so it was as interesting for people to sit and watch as it was for people to dance to,” Stacy said.

As “Dawn and Steve,” Martin plays piano while her husband Steve Anderson plays guitar every first Friday at the Rainshadow Cafe in Sequim, among other gigs. They both sing, but she does most of the talking.

They met through the local music community in 2017. “Neither of us wanted to date anyone, but sometimes it just happens,” she said. They’ve been married for five years.

“When you walk up to the Rainshadow,” said patron Megan Coelho, “you can feel the joy coming out in waves, and the more you hear the more impossible it is to stay still.

“There are always people dancing and it’s really joyful. She’s really talented at getting people involved in the music. Everyone’s singing along, clapping, dancing… S he makes music with her audience.”

“The reason I perform is the connection with people,” explained Martin.

She added, “I love seeing other people get to where they want to be.

“I want to be able to get joy to people through music. And if that’s through them listening to me, great. If that’s through me helping them be performers and/or playing for themselves, that’s great, too.

“I just want to share the joy of music.

“Because music, to me, is joy. Even if I’m sad and listen to a sad song that helps me cry, somehow there’s a weird joyness that’s wrapped in that.

“It brings a beauty even to the darkness. It makes the hard times better. It makes the better times better. It makes everything better.”

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen The band Sound Advice, from left, Dawn Martin, Scott Bradley, Russ Lowry and Mark Parris, gets the crowd moving at Sequim’s Seven Cedars on a Saturday night.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ Steve Anderson on guitar and Dawn Martin on piano, sing and play for a crowded Rainshadow Cafe last First Friday Art Walk in Sequim.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ Piano teacher Dawn Martin holds photos of herself and one of her first students in Sequim, Avonlea Lawrence.

Sequim Gazette photo by Emily Matthiessen/ Local musician Don Fristoe counts pianist Dawn Martin as a friend and performance mentor.