On Cue

"EVER since Ron turned nine and decided to make peace by making music, he's been honing his mission. Now, in an accessibly educational and imaginative first book, Ron offers readers a way to alleviate emotional anxiety and enhance the wonder and play in performance and life. Written with humor, clarity, and wit, this book will inspire long after the last note is played."

- PATRICIA FONTAINE Lifting My Shirt (a book of cancer poems) Founder of Healing Art & Writing, Using Creativity to Meet Illness

"RON Thompson is someone who has lived his life at full throttle and become a master of many trades. He is a musician, an electrical engineer, an Adlerian psychologist and, not least, a born storyteller. The power of focus and pursuit of excellence have shaped his life, but it's his compassion and insight that show through these pages, making him invaluable to anyone who seeks to face their fears, stand up and perform."

- SARA SOLOVITCH Playing Scared: A History and Memoir of Stage Fright (Bloomsbury Press, June 2015)

Mr. Harris started Ron on the trumpet at age eight in the Theodore Judah Elementary School Band. A coin was flipped for the old silver Holton trumpet. Brucey Ogden got the mellophone. Ronny Thompson got the trumpet. Private lessons with trumpet virtuoso William Peron started a year later. By age fifteen, Ron was playing with Bill in the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra. An early high school graduation sped Ron on to the Juilliard School, where he won principal chair of the Juilliard Orchestra, and a summer stay at Tanglewood. At nineteen Ron became the youngest trumpeter in a major American symphony orchestra, winning an audition for the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. Ron also performed as principal trumpet at the Carter Baron Amphitheater and as soloist at the National Cathedral.After a move to the West Coast, Ron continued his music performance as principal trumpet with the Santa Barbara Symphony and the Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera. An audiophile recording, "Baroque Music for Trumpet and Organ," was released under the Water Lily Acoustics label. Ron taught trumpet performance in his private studio and was the trumpet instructor at Westmont College, Montecito. He notes that trumpet performance is a wonderful place to learn about performance anxiety, as there are no "soft" mistakes on the trumpet.While living on the West Coast, Ron completed a degree in electrical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and worked as an engineer for corporations in the Santa Barbara area.A move to the Midwest was followed by more formal education, this time resulting in a Master of Arts Degree in Counseling Psychology from the Alfred Adler Graduate School. Ron became a Minnesota State Licensed Psychologist-Masters with a specialty in performance anxiety.More recently, during his years in Central Vermont, Ron has worked as a licensed counseling psychologist in private practice specializing in performance anxiety. He has worked with people in diverse "performance" circumstances, including competitive high diving, theater, amateur golf, major symphony auditions, team sports, public speaking, creative writing, music performance, medical school examinations and daily living.