Carla Davis Cash

Carla Davis Cash is Associate Professor of Piano Pedagogy at Texas Tech University where she teaches graduate courses in pedagogy and supervises keyboard-area graduate part-time instructors. In addition to her instructional duties, she serves the School of Music as Associate Director for Applied Programs and Faculty Affairs.

For over a decade, her body of research has centered on the processes by which novice and expert musicians learn and refine motor skills. She regularly presents her work at state, national, and international conferences of music performance, education, and psychology, and her articles can be found in leading journals and trade magazines of music education and music psychology, including Journal of Research in Music Education, Psychology of Music, American Suzuki Journal, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, and the MTNA e-Journal.

In recognition of her contributions to the field of music learning, Cash has received the Texas Tech University Chancellor's Council Distinguished Research Award (2015) and the Outstanding Research Award from the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP) (2007, 2009). She has been awarded an Arts in Medicine Grant from the Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts, several Texas Tech Scholarship Catalyst Program grants, the Schovanec Teaching Development Scholarship, and the inaugural Texas Tech Seed Grant for Interdisciplinary Research, subsequently utilized to investigate the neural basis of skill learning in music using fMRI technology. In 2021, Cash was inducted into the Texas Tech Teaching Academy.

Professional activities include serving on the editorial boards of Music Teachers National Association's MTNA e-Journal (2021-2023) and Frances Clark Center's Journal for Piano Research (2023-) as well as past editorial and research committees of Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) and the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP). Carla also continues to perform when time allows with friends and colleagues on stages across the U.S. and beyond.

A native of Miami, Florida, she earned a B.M. in Keyboard Performance and M.M. in Keyboard Performance and Pedagogy from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, and holds a Ph.D. in Music and Human Learning from The University of Texas at Austin.