BY SHAY FREDRICKSON
If anyone’s ever wondered what it’s like to fill their life with music, Meramec professor Grant Unnerstall is the perfect example. Although he has only been teaching at STLCC since the start of the 2024-2025 school year, he has a long history of music behind him.
After studying at a handful of universities, Unnerstall received his PhD from the conservatory of Kansas city in 2022. He then came to St. Louis with his family to teach in the Rockwood school district. For two years, he helped out around the district and taught brass lessons. Eventually, he found himself applying as a professor to St. Louis Community College where he has taught multiple courses since.
Unnerstall’s involvement in education doesn’t stop at just being a professor. When he’s not teaching at Meramec, he works part-time as the pep-band director at SLU. Along with that, he co-directs the Jazz band at the STLCC forest park campus, which is made up of a mix of students and community members.
“I love that my job consists of both that kind of youthful love for learning a lot of college students have but also this aging love for learning of people that just don’t want to stop making music,” he said.
In his personal life, he participates in a band called “Our Thing Together,” which consists of the typical rock setup of two guitars, bass, drums and a lead singer. Unnerstall plays bass in the band, and says they mostly play Blues, Funk, Folk and Rock covers.
The name of the band comes from a Chuck Berry song titled, “Let’s do our thing together.” Further back in his lifetime, Unnerstall recalls two distinct points which could be considered his ‘start’ in music. In fifth grade, Unnerstall was given the option to join band, which is where his enthusiasm in music began to peek through.
He said he was amazed by the trombone, the instrument he first picked up. “I was infatuated with it,” Unnerstall said,”I truly thought that if you were to take the slide and just chuck it, it would keep extending and extending and extending.”
Throughout middle school he continued to play, and in high school he realized music was something he wanted to take more seriously. The second point of starting to love music, however, was a much more personal experience. Unnerstall says he remembers when the movie “School of Rock” came out.
“I was totally immersed in the overperformative thing that [Jack Black] does, and I got obsessed with it,” he said, “and I ended up picking up electric bass.” He compares the trombone to the electric bass, calling it “the trombone of the rock band.”
From there, he joined a garage band. “It’s kind of funny because on one side I was this trombone player in highschool, but I also loved that whole vibe [of rock] just completely fell in love with The Beatles, The Stones and then moved my way through modern rock and roll,” he said, “That’s why I teach the ‘History of Rock and Roll’ class here.”
In a similar way to how he was inspired by School of Rock, Unnerstall hopes to inspire students by utilizing biopics in the courses he teaches at Meramec. “Sometimes you just need that big romanticized picture of it, because you realize where the pinnacle of it can be,” he said.
Although Unnerstall spends a lot of time teaching music, he also incorporates it in his life outside of school. He describes a great Saturday morning as being in the kitchen eating breakfast with his wife, his three-year-old daughter, and his one-year-old son.
Sometimes, he says, he’ll put on the Berlin Philharmoniker, an orchestra that’s usually having live-streamed concerts around that time. He tries to expose his children to music while they play, which he can also enjoy himself while he’s enjoying his breakfast.
Through days like that, Unnerstall finds a certain meaning in music that goes beyond just teaching it. “Stereotypically, we go and get our PhDs and we feel real proud of ourselves. I think there’s a stigma of if you’re not teaching someone already at a college level,” he said.
Unnerstall said he believes that teaching music at a college level can be for others who haven’t done music their entire lives, even those who have no experience playing at all. At Meramec, he teaches a Music Appreciation course for those who enjoy music at any capacity.
His personal enjoyment of music depends on his mood for what artists or genres he wants to listen to, but he enjoys a group called “The Band” the most, if he had to pick one.
“A lot of people nowadays just call them Americana. This is my favorite group. I actually wrote my masters thesis on a stage concert they gave. They’re just kind of a lost American icon in some ways,” he said.
Unnerstall said he would recommend “The Band” to students, and mentioned that there is a concert movie called “The Last Waltz” on the concert that he wrote his masters thesis on. Although it features the band, many other famous artists are featured in it.
He also emphasizes the importance of music in his life, and shares advice he was given early on in his career. “If you want a job in music where you get to make music all the time and have a career, go into music ed,” he said.
In his own career, he originally wasn’t interested in the education side of music, but the guidance of the people he respected moved him towards a career in music education. He said he is grateful for this decision now.
“One of the coolest things [music] has done for me is almost all of my friends that I’ve met and the colleagues that I’ve grown closer with has been through this art, and I wouldn’t have met almost all of those people if I hadn’t joined that band, if I hadn’t started that group,” Unnerstall said. Through choosing a career in music education, connecting with students through music is one of the things Unnerstall has come to appreciate most about his position.
“Would I love to be in front of the Saint Louis Symphony one day? Sure. But I honestly don’t know,” he said. “I think I get more fulfillment from seeing that student get so much better than I do from necessarily a great, great, performance.”
