Tracey Kida
I speak about how music and memory help us reconnect with ourselves, regulate burnout,
and rediscover meaning.
KEYNOTE
The Songs We Live By
The Songs We Live By is a keynote exploring how music preserves memory, shapes identity, and aids emotional regulation in burnout, illness, and transition.
Former music educator Tracey Kida shares how chronic illness ended her teaching career and how reconnecting with music helped her rediscover herself and a new direction.
This talk invites audiences to reflect on the songs that have shaped their lives, offering unique strategies for resilience, renewal, and self-awareness through purposeful listening.
What Audiences Gain:
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A deeply human perspective on music as sanctuary
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Insight into how memory and identity live in sound
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Language to recognize burnout and emotional overload as signals, not personal failures.
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A reflective framework for identifying meaningful “companion songs”
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Practical ways to carry the work forward through personal listening practices
Who This Talk is For:
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Educators (K–12 and higher education)
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College and university students
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Caregivers and helping professionals
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Creatives and arts-based communities
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Organizations seeking a thoughtful, emotionally intelligent keynote on burnout, identity, and renewal
WORKSHOP
Songs That Stick
Music, Memory & Meaning
in the Classroom
Songs That Stick is an interactive professional development workshop that invites educators to explore music as a joyful, research-supported tool for connection, memory, and well-being—for themselves and their students.
Drawing on music-based memory research and lived classroom experience, Tracey Kida introduces an accessible framework educators already use, often without realizing it:
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Companion Songs — songs that support personal steadiness, identity, and emotional regulation
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Power Songs — songs that build shared energy, belonging, and classroom or school-wide identity
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Sticky Songs — songs that help learning stay long after the lesson ends
Through storytelling, shared musical moments, and low-pressure reflection, participants reconnect with their own relationship to music and discover kid-friendly ways to bring these ideas into the classroom.
Rather than adding new demands, this workshop helps educators recognize and intentionally use tools they already trust. Participants leave with clear language, simple strategies, and renewed confidence in music as a resource for learning and life—without pressure to perform or reinvent their practice.
This workshop can stand alone or serve as part-one of a two-part series. A follow-up session is available for schools seeking a deeper dive into songwriting and music-based strategies for long-term learning and memory.
ABOUT TRACEY KIDA
My name is Tracey Kida
Music has always been my sanctuary.
For over twenty years, I worked as a public school music educator, building a life rooted in sound, teaching, and connection. Music was not only my profession. It was how I understood myself and the world around me.
When chronic illness required me to step away from the classroom, I lost more than a career. I lost a familiar structure and identity. In the space that followed, I returned to the music that had shaped me across decades. Those songs reminded me how deeply music had always defined and inspired me, long before titles or roles were attached to it.
That return revealed something essential: music was not something I had left behind. It was my return and guide a path forward.
I began to notice the songs that had quietly stayed with me through different seasons of life. Music tied to safety, courage, becoming, and belonging. I came to think of them as companion songs, not favorites, but steady presences that carried memory and meaning when life shifted.
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