Carol J. Brown received a Bachelor of Music from the University of Texas-Austin and a Master of Education from Indiana University where she also did graduate work in Folklore and Ethnomusicology. As a graduate assistant she worked as recording technician in the IU Archives of Traditional Music, the second largest archive of folk music in the United States. She holds a two-year diploma with special recognition for achievement in folk music from the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary. She has taught folklore classes at the University of Texas-Pan American and solfege and folk music in Kodály certification programs across the country.

For nineteen years she taught music in McAllen, Texas, located on the US-Mexican border. Her research has focused on children's traditional songs and singing games from Latin America. With her students she presented demonstration sessions at the 2000 Texas Music Educators Association state convention and the 2002 Organization of American Kodály Educators national convention. She is regularly invited to present workshops on Mexican traditional culture and folk song and she was project consultant for the two Mexican singing games featured on the recent Global Voices DVD series produced in connection with McMillan/McGraw-Hill's Spotlight on Music textbooks. She is currently music specialist and choir director at IDEA Quest Academy in McAllen. She plays horn in the Valley Symphony Orchestra.