When Camas High School (CHS) English teacher Lukas Johnson started his musical journey in sixth grade, his mom talked him into joining his middle school band. Johnson immediately took to playing the clarinet and fell in love with music from that point forward.
Johnson’s joining of the band in middle school paved the way for many other opportunities, from picking up the saxophone to moving on to stringed instruments in high school and beyond.
Johnson was formally educated at Washington State University (WSU) in jazz studies, playing the baritone sax. Johnson’s roommate had a guitar that Johnson would routinely use to jam with others in his apartment complex. Johnson ended up forming a band and playing gigs with his roommate and others in the same apartment complex.
“We had an unpaid coffee shop gig and they let us play a couple hours of music for tips and coffee and croissants,” Johnson said. “From there, we started booking more shows.”
While he did play in a band in his earlier college years, Johnson does not play in a band anymore. Instead, he gets his gigs by playing music locally with a variety of different people.
“Networking is a pretty important part of playing music locally,” Johnson said. “’I’ve been approached for gigs unsolicited by people I don’t know.”
For the genre of music that Johnson plays, he branches out at times, but he mentioned that bluegrass is by far his favorite.
“Bluegrass has always been a favorite of mine because it’s participatory,” Johnson said. “It’s also big on improvisation. So there’s a lot of creativity involved, but the genre has enough norms and confines, to where, without even speaking, everyone knows the norms.”
“Music is a dialogue,” Johnson said. “I enjoy being able to share that dialogue and improvise off of one another.”
Johnson also shared what brings him success when it comes to playing live. He values the energy of the venue that he is playing in and takes it for himself.
“I absorb the energy and the enthusiasm of the room. When you are playing at the right place or for the right group of people, you feel the positive energy coming off of them,” Johnson said.
Students in Johnson’s 11th-grade English class believe that Johnson’s musical ability enhances the learning environment in the classroom.
“If we’re busy doing something and Mr. Johnson starts playing [his guitar] for a little bit, it makes me more focused when I go back to work,” Evan Rogers, a junior at CHS, said.
“I think it’s awesome that a teacher can also do other stuff like that,” Chance Balogh, a junior at CHS, said. “[Johnson’s musical ability] gives a creative feel to the classroom.”
