Tag: Suzan’s Cents

1. One-on-one lessons should have learning plans tailored to meet students goals and pace; not be a pre-packaged process where the teacher teaches everyone exactly the same way with the same music. Students are often taught in a way that is not only unexciting but isn’t designed give them the specific tools they’ll need to do what they want to do with music.     
2. Obstacles holding each learner back need to be evaluated and focused on first. Whether this is building focusing stamina, managing frustration, playing in time, using good fingerings, understanding concepts, dexterity, note-reading, etc. Sometimes until the main obstacle is removed, learning can’t happen. For instance, if the student gets frustrated easily and resists repeating things, it’s going to be hard to get traction. There are strategies that work. Teachers need to be invested in learning how to deal with a multitude of issues so they have tools ready to address problems as they happen.  
3. Teachers need to get better at actually diagnosing what is holding students back instead of assuming students aren’t trying or aren’t listening. You can’t address a problem if you’ve misdiagnosed what’s wrong. Learning to pay attention to the information that students give by their actions, words and body language gives valuable insight.
4. Teachers need to build trust so there can be an open, judgement-free dialogue with students about what they are experiencing and how they are feeling. Students often don’t want to disappoint their teachers or admit things that may make them feel stupid. They don’t have the perspective of seeing other people’s learning experience, only their own so they don’t know a lot of struggles are common. I much prefer students being honest about what they like, what they want and how they’re feeling.  Otherwise I have to rely on instinct and guessing. I want my students to be happy and successful in reaching their musical goals.
5. Don’t assume that just because something looked easy for a student to do that it FELT easy for them. I recently saw a teacher arguing with a student about how easy something was for them.  The student didn’t want to play the part again and said, “It’s too hard.”  The teacher said, “You just did it. That was so easy for you!” I know the teacher had the best of intention, but that student was giving them valuable feedback that they were ignoring. That’s an opportunity to get to the bottom of why that felt hard to the student. Is it because they have a low focusing stamina and haven’t learned yet that repetition is part of learning? Is it that they were using their working memory to do too big of a chunk and it felt mentally taxing. It often can look like a student has something automatic before they’ve truly mastered it. Students don’t fight the easy stuff. If they’re giving pushback, there is a struggle there somewhere. A lot of teachers or parents will immediately jump to the conclusion that the student is just being difficult or lazy.
6. Teachers should focus efforts on working within the boundaries of what they have, not what they wish they had. Assume most people will practice very little or not at all. This means adjusting goals to make sure progress can happen in the lesson. Yes, it can be done! Take concepts you want to master whether it’s a note-range of reading or a set of chords and do as many activities and songs as you can with those in it. This way the student is mastering a skill while not being stuck on the same song for too long. Months on the same song without progressing doesn’t feel good for teacher or student.
7. Put the focus on what the teacher CAN control which is making progress during the lesson instead of on what happens with students when they are at home. It’s very difficult for teachers to change what happens in the home environment.
8. Learning strategies need to be adjusted to work with how people actually have music as a part of their lives instead of how teachers wish it was. Method Books are still being used from 50-100 years ago and even newer ones are still following the same format as the old ones. We’ve learned a lot about how to learn, memory and how the brain works since then. That information should be being used to create curriculum that is more effective. Today’s student is also not the same as a student 50 years ago. Today’s kids have a lot of commitments and choices competing for their time.
9. Make reasonable goals that can be maintained over the long haul.  Although learning the piano is most successful when it’s approached as a long term project, it shouldn’t be a burden or drudgery. Music should add to student’s lives not add guilt or unhappiness.
10. Don’t expect students to do the ‘hard work’ at home. Tackle the hard stuff in the lesson where they have support and guidance. They will be more likely to practice it if they can already do it when they walk out of the lesson.  Playing it during the week will solidify the learning and make it automatic.
11. Learning an instrument shouldn’t be all discipline or all love. The all-discipline approach tends to drive the joy out of learning while the all-love approach accomplishes very little real learning.  It needs to strike the balance between the two.  
12. Learning music should be a combination of structure and freedom. Students need to have the structure to build a good foundation and understand how music works but freedom also needs to be nurtured. Musicians stop having ideas when they’re discouraged or corrected every time they try to do things their own way. I’ll give an example, I was working with a young drummer the other day who is just beginning. I gave him a specific pattern he had to play every time during the A section of a song (which I was playing along with him on the piano). Then I told him he could do whatever he wanted in the other sections. Did he do a lot of things that didn’t make sense?  Sure, but he also did some things that were pretty musical and got the satisfaction of being creative. Down the road, the conversation can begin about how to recognize the idea gems and develop them. What works, what doesn’t and why.

What am I personally doing to contribute to music education?

• Changing lives one at a time through the students I teach.
• Mentoring other teachers to help broaden their perspective and add new tools to their teaching skill set.
• Creating Content for teachers, parents and students to make learning engaging and effective.
• Writing to educate on both music and learning.

Hybrid pianos represent an exciting new option for piano buyers. The technology is still fairly new, but hybrid pianos give the best of both worlds when it comes to pianos and keyboards. There are still few models to choose from and they are still relatively expensive but I believe they are poised to take over the market as musicians and teachers discover and work with them.

Pianos and keyboards will still exist because they fill specific needs but hybrid pianos fill a huge need that many people share. Many people want a piano but face space or noise issues. Families or musicians buying an instrument to practice on have traditionally had to make compromises. The sound and feel of an acoustic piano are quite appealing for many people, but there are practical issues to consider.

• Physical space requirement (even uprights)
• Heavy and expensive to move
• Upkeep – Needs regular tuning and maintenance
• Environmental sensitivity – Temperature and humidity changes affect pianos
• No realistic volume control
• Expensive

Digital pianos are a kind of keyboard designed to more closely replicate the feel of playing a piano while solving the volume and space issues that make a piano a difficult or unrealistic option in some circumstances.

Digital pianos have gotten increasingly better and manufacturers have done an amazing job recreating a piano’s sound with sophisticated sampling technology. The main area where they still struggle to match a piano is in the moving parts of the action and keys which create the feel of playing a piano’s keys. Beginners are less likely to be affected by this difference but as students become more advanced and nuanced in their playing it can start to matter. Still, the advantages to having a digital piano can be compelling.

• Not heavy – Anywhere from 30-75 lbs – easy to move around even with just one person
• Space-saving – Very slim profile, only a little bigger than the piano’s keys
• No Maintenance – Don’t need tuning or other maintenance
• Volume Control – Through speakers or headphones
• Connectivity – Access to music software for notation, recording or virtual instruments
• Affordability – Usually less expensive than piano

What Exactly Is A “Hybrid Piano”?

A small piano cabinet containing physical piano action with sensors on the hammers that trigger a sampled piano sound through speakers instead of hitting strings and being amplified by a soundboard. Hybrid pianos have taken the effort to get the speaker wattage and placement right creating a beautiful sounding experience for the player. The piano sampling is nuanced and beautiful allowing each section of the piano to showcase the ideal sound in that range and to replicate the different ways a player may strike a key changing in volume and tone.

Why Hybrid Pianos Are Amazing

You are actually playing an acoustic piano’s keys and action but now have:

• Volume Control-through speakers or headphones
• Slim Profile- saving space
• Very Little Maintenance – No tuning required or repairs to strings or soundboard. Regulation of action may be required occasionally (3-5 years).
• Very Little Sensitivity to Temperature and Humidity – No strings and soundboard mean that environment won’t affect tuning. (The action could be affected causing sticky keys.)
• USB MIDI Connectivity-to-computer
• USB Connectivity is a huge advantage if you want to do any recording. This gives the ability to edit with MIDI, allowing notes and rhythms to be changed, and then output to a high quality audio track from the keyboard’s line outs.

The only downsides of the Hybrid Piano are:

• Still expensive relative to Digital Pianos (MSRP upwards of $4000, though street price will be lower)
• Weight. About half the weight of a piano (from 170 – 240 lbs), but not easily moved on your own

Casio, Yamaha and Kawai currently make hybrid models. I got a chance to play them all in Japan recently and was so excited that we decided to get one for our studios at Treblemakers. They are not widely available in the U.S. yet but Cunningham Piano in King of Prussia, PA offers them with fantastic pricing.

Cunningham’s excellent reputation as a piano seller and rebuilder is well-deserved. I bought my piano there years ago and have sent quite a few families their way as I feel like they really listen and try to offer options that match students priorities and needs while still offering a good deal. Our recent visit to Cunningham proved them to be every bit as good as their reputation..

Casio’s Celviano GP-500 was the initial reason for our visit because of its balance between features and price. The sampled Bechstein sound when I played it in Japan had me in love, but after sitting and playing the Casio Celviano GP-500 and the Yamaha NU1, the full piano action of the Yamaha model won me over.

Over the years, I’ve had both Yamaha and Casio keyboards and have liked specific lines and models in each brand, but there are certainly positive and negative features in every product line.

Casio’s Celviano line has a partial action with some plastic parts and counterweights instead of the full action inside. It’s still a huge leap beyond the current digital piano lines and is a little less expensive than the Yamaha. But you do get what you pay for, and the full action of the Yamaha NU1 was simply elegant and a joy to play in comparison to any other Digital Piano I’ve ever played.

For our studios, the relatively small price difference was not worth the compromise on a major feature for such an expensive piece of equipment or instrument. The Yamaha also carries a few models that have a grand action inside (the NU1 has an upright action) but I felt like the price point on it made it less appealing. You could get an actual grand for the same money.

Casio Celviano GP-500

Casio Celviano GP-500 Action

Yamaha NU1

Yamaha NU1 Action

Kawai CA97B

Kawai CA97B Action

Definitions:

Sampling: The process of recording each note on an acoustic instrument to create a realistic sound. Many recordings are taken of each note to make it respond and sound like a real instrument would sound capturing the physical differences in how the note may be played.

Soundboard: A large wooden plate in a piano that amplifies the sound when the strings vibrate on it.

MIDI: Stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. This is the programming language that sends information (what notes are sounded, when, how hard etc.) from a digital instrument  to the computer. When it plays back, it triggers an instrument inside the keyboard or a virtual instrument in the computer that replicates the performance using the information captured. Has more editing options and takes up less memory than recording audio sound waves of an instrument.

USB MIDI: Ability to transmit MIDI information using a USB cable.

Regulation of Action: Adjustment of the moving parts inside the action of a piano that allows the keys to be played evenly and smoothly. Can eliminate unwanted sounds such as rings or buzzes and reduces wear and tear from parts rubbing.

Virtual Instrument: An instrument sound generated within a computer that runs inside a computer program.  It can be a sample (recording) of an instrument or synthesized (machine-created by algorithm). Often runs as a subprogram inside another piece of music software such as a music recording or notation program. It’s sound can be played (triggered) by a keyboard or other instrument connected to the computer through midi.

This one of the most common debates I see amongst musicians, teachers and hobbyists and one of the most common questions I get as a teacher. The question I get is usually, “Which is better?”  I’ve noticed, however, that usually the asker is looking for confirmation of their already held position. There is a lot going on in this seemingly simple question and I want to honestly go over what I see lying under the surface that causes people to have such passionate positions on both sides and knee-jerk responses to the opposite viewpoint.  I DO have an opinion on it and I think it may be worth hearing my story to understand how I came to the position I hold but first let’s address some of the things that are unsaid under the surface.

Playing by Ear:  People who can play by ear are born with some innate musical talent that others don’t have. This really gets to the heart of why people get so hung up on this. People like feeling like they were born with a magical gift that makes them special. I’m not going to lie, there is something a little magical about it in the same way that some people have a natural ability to draw. I also think that it just looks easier. This skill can be taught but even those that can naturally play by ear need to develop their ability or it will be limited. The cases that don’t require development are the ones that people get misled into thinking are possible without there being a cost.

Everyone has heard stories of autistic people that have a lot of difficulty functioning and interacting with other people but can play an entire symphony just by hearing it once. Both of those things are actually related to filtering; in one instance it manifests itself as a deficit, in the other as an amazing gift.

The executive functioning part of the brain is responsible for handling the sensory information that comes in, helping to store it, access it later and string it together in the present or during remembering to create a seamless perception. One of it’s most important functions is to manage what we pay attention to. This is designed to draw our attention to dangers that we need to react to for survival and allow attention to be focused so tasks can be completed. Autistic individuals have difficulty with this filtering. Their brain tries to focus on everything at once causing the them to get overwhelmed, especially in over-stimulating environments. It’s also why some autistic people may be able to notice every part of the orchestra at once.

For the rest of us, our executive function automatically filters incoming stimuli to make us pay attention to one thing at a time in the orchestra. In general, the thing that draws our attention the easiest, is whatever part is loudest. Conductors and Audio Engineer/Producers and highly nuanced Performers know this and use loudness to highlight musical parts and ideas drawing the listener’s ears and attention throughout the piece. Extreme expressions in individual traits affect both the upsides and downsides which is why average trait expressions create better balance.

One of the upsides to playing by ear is that it allows you to hear something and replicate it if you don’t have the music. This is great when you need a specific instrument part that may be hard to find the music for. A lot of songs on the radio may put out sheet music that’s arranged to fit a lot of different needs but won’t have the actual instrumental parts written out.

The limitations are that players often can’t figure out things that outside of their experience playing. Part of playing by ear is an internal recognition of an idea that has been experienced before. Another downside is that players will often need to listen before being able to play. Many audition, studio and performance opportunities require the ability to be able to pick up and play music on the spot due to practical cost issues. It is expensive to rent space and pay the professionals involved. Players may be able to jump in improvise if they’re playing with others but if a part is specific or solo it will require listening before playing.

Playing by Reading:  People who don’t read music are being lazy and not disciplined enough to learn to be musically literate or go through a proper music education.

It’s a long-time tradition that those who have done the hard thing get prickly and defensive when others try to skip steps and don’t have to go through the trials they went through. Learning to read music fluently is not an overnight process. It takes a lot of time and effort and anyone who’s come out the other side definitely deserves respect for perseverance.  Piano music in particular has many notes and ideas happening at once which makes reading difficult especially as music gets more complicated. Discipline and commitment are worthy traits to develop.  People can only get so far by just relying on their talents alone and must work hard in order to reach excellence.

Reading music is a practical skill that allows you to read new music you’ve never seen or heard before and jog the memory of old pieces. It allows musical ideas to be written down and transmitted easily to others. One of the dangers of ONLY learning to read and not working on ear skills is that players often don’t learn to improvise. They get used to having everything mapped out for them. Learning to make choices on the spot is a skill that must be practiced. The other downside to having music all written out is that it is harder to see song form and harmony. The player can get lost in the linear way the details are laid out and fail to see the big picture. Having an understanding of how music works adds to a player’s ability to interpret the music.

Both Playing by Ear and Playing by Reading are valuable ways to experience and understand music. Most people tend to have more aptitude towards one or the other so the opposite approach feels more difficult but it’s worth working on both for the advantages that each give. The two skills are compatible and both part of being a well-rounded musician.

I had a natural ear and when I began taking piano lessons. My teacher didn’t notice that I wasn’t actually reading the music. She would play the song I was going to learn for the week so I knew what it sounded like. Because my ear and my memory were good, I wasn’t actually getting any reading practice of notes. My playing and my ear grew more over time but my reading skills were nonexistent. When I got a more advanced teacher, she didn’t notice that I wasn’t reading either. When I got to music college, it started to become a problem. I could understand concepts and play very difficult things, but my lack of reading skills really slowed down how fast I could learn things, write out music or sometimes follow discussions. It was more difficult to tackle reading skills at this point but it definitely opened up new capabilities that I wish I had earlier. I discovered I do best at reading when I can translate what I see on the page into something I recognize and know by sound. As I got good at reading music I started to understand how playing by ear and reading are linked. In order to play by ear, you translate something you hear into a visual shape on the piano. In order to play by reading, you translate the visual shape you see on the page (which is the same shape on the piano) to a sound you hear. It’s pretty silly to think the translation is somehow better in one direction versus the other. They both output to the sound you hear in the end.

It’s recital season!  It’s the perfect time to talk about stage fright and performances gone wrong.  Chances are there are a certain number of performers and students right now that have just went through a rough performance and are feeling terrible. Even if this isn’t you right now, anyone that performs eventually has to deal with a moment where they’ve frozen on stage and have been unable to play something.

Over the years I’ve seen partial fails and spectacular fails. When the performer doesn’t manage to recover and it turns into more than a momentary bump, it can be traumatic and cause the student to never want to perform again. It is always my goal to prepare my students so they avoid a bad experience (especially as their first!) but also teach them to be resilient enough to handle it if it happens and keep it in perspective.

Some people will only experience stage fright occasionally while others struggle with it constantly. When stage fright is chronic, it can be much harder to overcome. The reason is simple, the behavior becomes practiced and creates a self-fulfilling loop that can be very difficult to break out of. Certain personality types can be more prone to stage fright than others. Building positive experiences around performing early and often allow even those that might not have a disposition naturally compatible with performing able to make it an enjoyable part of their life.

Although the reasons people experience stage fright and how severe it is might be different, what happens in the brain is pretty much the same.

What happens in your brain when stage fright kicks in? The brain has different areas that take primary control depending on what is needed. The amygdala is a part of the brain that is designed to take charge in an emergency allowing quick fight or flight response. When this happens, other parts of the brain are disengaged sending all resources to the amygdala allowing speed and reaction that could be life-saving. Imagine the captain of a starship who has encountered a threatening vessel. “Redirect all non-essential power to the weapons (or engines)!”

In an emergency, there isn’t time to deliberate over how serious a threat is which is why fear can cause a response that is out of proportion to the trigger. When a performer gets stage fright, the amygdala has kicked in even though the threat is not life-threatening. The performer can not access memory because all non-essential functions have been shut down. They face a blank slate as they try to recall well-known information. When this happens, it can really undermine a person’s trust that their own mind is working the way it should. Guess what? It is functioning EXACTLY the way it should. Rest assured, you’re brain is totally ready to save your life. Now that you understand that, we need to get to work making sure that you learn how to keep your amygdala from being set off every time you perform.

How to Avoid Stage Fright

Learning how to get rid of the FEAR that allows the amygdala to kick in is the best strategy for battling stage fright. There are strategies to still be able to perform through stage fright but that isn’t ideal because you’re operating on suboptimal mental efficiency. Ultimately, you want to be able to not only perform well but also ENJOY it. At the very least you want to not have it be gut-wrenching torture every time.

Build and Utilize Muscle Memory. Muscle memory is an automatic function that is also necessary for fighting or fleeing. Often times performers may be able to keep on going while they’re frozen in fear as long as they allow muscle memory to take over. If a performer has to think about what their body is doing in order to play the piece, they haven’t programmed the muscle memory needed to allow the body to go through the motions automatically.

An important part of utilizing muscle memory is getting and staying in the right frame of mind to allow muscle memory to do it’s job. I always compare it to running up a flight of stairs. Most people have built the muscle memory to run up a flight of stairs easily as long as they trust their muscle memory and let it work. However, if you think about the steps or motions required to run up a flight of stairs as you are doing it, you will always trip. I’d say try it if you haven’t but I don’t want to be responsible for anyone falling down a flight of stairs so maybe just trust me on this one.

Practice performing under pressure.  Record yourself. This naturally puts you in a self-conscious state without actually being in front of an audience. You can also perform in front of just a few people at a time making the stakes lower. Just the act of performing more regularly can help desensitize you. This will also help you:

• See how performance ready you are BEFORE going in front of a big audience. Learn how to judge what level of preparation needs to happen in order to perform smoothly nine times out of ten. Notice areas that are slow or not as smooth while you are hyper-aware. When you are lost inside your own experience of doing something on your own, you perceive time differently than in a setting where you are aware of others. Our perception of time can speed up or slow down when internally focused but in music time needs to happen steadily.
• Build confidence that you can get through performances successfully. If you are confident that you can perform successfully consistently, you will probably stop feeling terrified. Being terrified of performing can cause you to perform badly, therefore confirming that you should be terrified creating a loop that’s hard to break out of.

Remove the expectation of perfection. Before the recording age, performers and listeners didn’t have the expectation of perfect performances. As people got used to hearing recordings where every nuance of the performance was the same time after time, there became an unrealistic expectation that people perform like machines playing back a recording. Musicians spend hours to craft and edit perfect recordings. They rarely happen the first time through which is what you are expecting in a live performance. Live performances are never exactly the same which is part of their beauty but also means that sometimes things go better than others.

Practice getting and staying in a state of “flow”: One of the most difficult skills that performing music requires, is marrying automatic functions with guided thinking. Trusting muscle memory while also making conscious choices need to be balanced perfectly in order for great performances to happen. This balance is a state of mind that many athletes and performers will refer to as ‘being in the zone’. It has also been referred to as ‘being in the moment’ or ‘flow’. Chances are if you’ve ever had a perfect moment where you are lost in the doing of music you’ve experienced this. Performers need to practice getting and staying in this state.

Put performance in the proper perspective. Ask yourself the following questions.

Who dies if you fail?  That’s right! No one. Music is about emotion and expression. Music performance doesn’t have life or death consequences unless you’re in that scene from the ‘Goonies’. In case you don’t know it, the kids have to read notes and play them on an organ in order get past a booby trap.  If they hit wrong notes, chunks of the floor drop out from below them. Too many mistakes and they plummet to their death! Luckily, this doesn’t happen in real life.

Are you strong enough to survive a failure? Life is full of failures and are part of how we learn. If you want to be good at things or try new things, it’s important to take failures in stride and learn what you can from them.

Possible things we might learn from performance failures:

• Piece Not Committed to Muscle Memory
• Weren’t Prepared Enough
• Mental Focus of ‘keeping in the zone’ Needs Practice
• Unrealistic or Unhealthy Perspective is Adding Unnecessary Pressure
• Need to Build Confidence
• Need Practice Performing Under Pressure
• Need to Perform More Often

Don’t make performance more important than it is. When you give something too much importance it can become a nemesis that looms over you feeling impossible to beat. It’s good to care about the quality of your work but caring too much can cause you to lose perspective and cause unnecessary anxiety. Develop a mantra that makes sense to you and tell it to yourself when you start to get anxious. Recognize what is getting in your way and stopping you from relaxing and enjoying it. For me, I can get caught up in worrying about being perfect or living up to other people’s expectation of me. As a teacher, I feel like people expect me to be perfect and that I should set a good example. Now, as soon as I get to the good example thought, I remind myself that being a good example means showing grace under pressure by picking myself up and carrying on even when I’m not perfect. I also remind myself that I LOVE being immersed in music and sharing it with others. When I’m focused on what truly motivates me to do it, I’m able to let go of the other stuff.

Why perform at all? Not everyone needs to be a ‘performer’ to have music in their life but it is beneficial skill to learn that can be used in lots of other areas. The opportunity to share what we love is satisfying. It’s also great way to set deadline oriented goals and showcase our progress. Exercising the self control, focus, healthy perspective and discipline of preparation that performance requires certainly makes us better versions of ourselves.

I think it’s often been thought that stories are for entertainment or kids. Scientists are finding out stories are much more important than we thought. They’re not just parables that teach a lesson or a way to pass down history from one generation to the next. It turns out that stories are how human brains string together perception into our linear experience of time.

Not only do stories reflect the way we experience time they also act as a construct that our brains use to drop details and memory into.  Trying to remember a random list of items is difficult. However, if they are incorporated into a story where each item has relevance, meaning is created helping to string it all together. Memory experts have long had a technique they use called ‘memory palaces’  and it’s based on a very similar idea. They create a mental walk through of a location they have in their mind and place all the items in the location. Even in this scenario, our minds can not resist the urge to overlay a story on the walk through.

Music is a natural form of storytelling that has existed forever. Not only do melodies make words more memorable, even when there aren’t words there is a natural structure that tells a story and leads the listener through a linear capture of time. Music captures emotion and injects it into the story giving the listener cues on how to feel about the content. Music also reflects the language and culture that it comes from.

Any composer or songwriter understands the basic mood tools they can use to affect their listeners. Even if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve heard them and felt their effect.

• Minor keys or chords may evoke sadness or melancholy

• Major keys or chords can evoke happiness or excitement.

• Diminished 7th chords are good at creating suspense and were often used in silent movies. Imagine the scene where the heroine is tied to train the tracks with a train barreling her way as the audience agonizes over whether she will be saved in time.

• Augmented 7 chords have been used in TV and movies when characters are thinking back to something that already happened or are dreaming.

• Tempo is another tool used to affect the listeners. Fast tempos can get the heart rate up and slower tempos slow down body rhythms.

• Dissonance creates conflict.
• Resolution indicates conflicts being resolved. Every good story has conflict that needs to be resolved.

• Question and answer also fill an important role in music. In English speech, our voices go up when we ask a question and down when we give the answer. Question/Answer is a tool that not only creates contrast but also gives the listener a reassuring experience. We all want to feel like our questions will get answers and maybe even more basic that they HAVE answers.

 

Music is a little snapshot of how we perceive time and how our mind creates the stories that inject meaning into our experience.

Since I began teaching I’ve thought a lot about what my experiences (both good and bad) are as a learner. I often think of the two people that were the most patient teachers with me, my mom and my grandma. I think they’ve both influenced me a lot not only as a learner but as a teacher.

I think my mom’s biggest strength as a teacher was in breaking things down into manageable steps and chunks that could be understood and accomplished. I definitely use that skill everyday but it was a skill that I took for granted until I started mentoring other teachers. My experience has been that most teachers don’t break things down enough and often come to the conclusion that something is too difficult for a student when it’s totally possible when broken down enough.

The thing that always strikes me about my experience learning from grandma is the environment she created.  She always made me love being there. My happiest memories of learning are with her yet it was never at the expense of doing things well. All the things that she taught me are things I excel at and still have a passion for. Love and discipline can coexist. This got me to thinking about how much the environment you are in can affect how successful learning is and how you feel about it.

Recently I woke up from a dream where I was at my grandma’s house and we were talking about a sweater I had tried to knit. I wasn’t sure the sweater could be rescued or that I would EVER be able to knit one that turned out well. I was feeling discouraged and doubtful about my abilities to figure things out or do something well. I also felt frustrated that I had poured so much time into something that failed. You may think, ‘It’s only knitting.” but how you feel in the middle of a failure is bigger than how much cosmic importance the thing you’re doing has. It’s a snapshot of your ability and confidence in yourself to navigate difficulty. How you feel directly affects the actions you take or don’t take and whether you are successful at conquering obstacles. I remember telling her what was wrong with my sweater and she said, “Don’t worry we’ll figure it out. I need to finish cleaning the kitchen and then we can sit down and work on it.”  I felt the anxiety and doubt melt away. I knew from past experience that she could help me right any mess I had made and learn where I went wrong. We were in the middle of doing dishes together when I woke up feeling peaceful and content. My emotions were so vivid in the dream that they stayed with me all morning. I woke up before I could conquer the obstacle but I already fully believed that it would be conquered. The warm cocoon she created in her house always had the ability to make me not only believe in her but in myself.

When I was little I thought that my grandma’s house was magical. I finally figured out that it wasn’t the house, it was her. Even though my grandpa was the more dominant personality, the environment in the house was like a fuzzy warm force field emanating from her. Over the years, I noticed the environments I’ve experienced and how they have the ability to make me feel. Whether it’s stressed or unwelcome, excited or content, I find that how I feel in an environment directly affects what I do and what I’m capable of in that moment. If an environment feels judgmental or intimidating, I know it’s going to make it harder for me to be at my best.

There are certainly physical things that can add to creating an environment but there is a part of it that can only be brought to life by the people in it. A big part of the force that each person exerts into the world comes from their own ideas and attitudes. When people are nurturing and positive, they send that out into the world around them and if they are negative and judgmental that’s what they send out.

I’ve thought a lot about what I want to send out into the world and what kind of environment I want for myself and the people around me. I want to create a place that makes me and the people I bring into it feel safe and happy. Content yet curious to explore possibility, where creativity and learning percolate and where students enjoy being. I’ve tried my best to create this in Treblemakers. It starts with a friendly little dog greeting them at the door, a lending library for students to sit down with a good book on a comfy couch or whiteboards to draw on while they wait for their lesson. Meanwhile all around them teachers and students are doing amazing things with music and the energy buzzes with inspiration. Understanding that our environment and the people in it fuels creativity has impacted me not only as a teacher but as a creator.

I think the right environment not only makes us happy but primes us to be receptive to learning. If we’re busy feeling fear or anxiety, we can’t really be at our best and we certainly will be less likely to take the kind of risks that true growth requires. Learning can be an uncertain and vulnerable place. Students are bravest and at their best when they feel safe, encouraged and believed in. There’s often a thought that a high-pressure environment will drive people to ‘rise to the challenge’. Although I think it’s admirable when people achieve under stress, I think that speaks more to their ability to shut out negativity rather than that the negativity caused the success. I wonder what their achievement would have looked like if they had been in an environment that encouraged and inspired them instead?

I feel like a lot of people write discouraging answers to these kind of questions. Mastering an instrument and getting pretty good at it are two very different things. You can get to a level where it is enjoyable and you sound good pretty quick. The mistake is in equating it to hours necessary because it really matters how you string the time together not just the raw amount of time. That being said, it can help to have some sort of framework to understand what it takes. I did some math using a practical plan that most people should be able to follow:

30 minutes x 4 times a week = 2 hrs

Simple Pieces Within One Month= 4 weeks x 2 hrs = 8hrs

Complex Pieces Within One Year= 52 weeks x 2 hrs = 104 hours

You could be playing simple enjoyable pieces within a month. You could be playing more complex pieces within a year IF you pay attention to these few things:

1. Regular, small amounts of practice will yield better results than putting in marathon stretches sporadically. Daily is ideal but three to four times per week will still get solid results. Practicing often is more effective and less work because it eliminates time spent remembering or relearning. Don’t skip days because you don’t have at least a half hour to spend. Revisiting information at regular intervals is crucial in saving it to long term memory. Doing one thing, even if it’s flash cards on the train, EVERY DAY will make learning successful a lot faster.

2. Concentrate on WHAT to accomplish instead of HOW LONG to practice. Make a plan that will work on foundation skills as well as playing skills. Playing an instrument incorporates a lot of different skills such as reading, rhythm, theory, coordination and expression. Try to do a little work on foundation skills and a little playing every time you practice. Example: Sight reading for 5 minutes, 2 Scales, perfecting notes and rhythms on a section of an easy song, a few measures of intensive work on a challenging piece.

3. Build Good Habits. Keep to one finger per key whenever possible and use good fingerings. It may not feel comfortable at first but you won’t build the dexterity or habits you need to play harder things if you don’t. Make sure to Connect Notes (legato) throughout phrases. Keep fingers curved. Work on transferring weight from finger to finger instead of using finger muscle. Sit in proper position on the edge of the piano bench in front of Middle C with weight over legs.

4. Learn to Read Music. This will allow you to learn new things easily and jog the memory of old pieces. Take a small note range (add three notes at a time), drill on it, practice with these free flash cards, use an iPad app (Piano Notes Pro) to quiz on it, try to play songs (Treblemakers Piano Method- Book 1) only using those notes.

Don’t be tempted to take too big of a note range at once. Too much new information at a time overwhelms and takes much longer to master. Just memorizing and learning by rote will limit what you can do. One of the most important things that people don’t consider about reading is that it gives you a tool to access the memory (in this case a song) you saved. Most of the time the problem isn’t in building the memory, it’s in accessing it. Build as many links as possible to that memory so it’s easy to bring it up when you need it.

5. Learn HOW to Practice. Good practicing methods get results that are quicker and last longer. LOTS of repetition of small pieces is the most effective way to get results. Students and teachers often conclude that something is too difficult because they underestimate how much repetition is required or how small things need to be broken down. Resist the urge to only play things front to back during practice. Allowing yourself to play mistakes over and over only strengthen them. Take the spot and give it lots attention. Play in front of it and behind it. Make notations in your music so that you see the area coming up and remember the issue BEFORE you get there.

6. Make practice plans and goals. It’s easy to stagnate or jump around too much and not accomplish anything without a plan. Put together a good practice plan to address skills you’ll need and pieces you want to play. Write both your plan and what you accomplish each time down in a notebook. This can help keep you on track and make you accountable. Every so often look back and assess your progress and goals. If you’ve accomplished some of your goals, add new ones. Be specific in your skill goals. For example, rather than writing ‘improve reading’, write ‘master reading notes middle C through G in right hand’. Then when it’s time to adjust goals you will know exactly what you’ve accomplished and what you need to add next.

Good luck!

As a private lesson teacher, this is a question that I hear a lot. Music education is an important part of a child’s education. It is because of my conviction in this value that I am a musician and an educator. There are many important life lessons in learning music and having music be a part of your life, in addition to its therapeutic value and ability to add happiness.

Eventually, it will be their choice how they want music to fit into their life, but giving your child a solid foundation gives them more opportunities in life (even as early as middle school). In competitive school application processes, music education can be a distinguishing factor for the selection committee considering a student for admission to middle school, high school and even university. It also gives them an edge when becoming part of band, chorus or other performing arts programs.

1. Kids are not ready to make smart decisions on their own about the big things yet. If a child knows that there is an opportunity to escape from a struggle or a responsibility there *will* be a point when they’ll take it with no real thought of tomorrow. Take quitting off of the table. Focus on helping them accept that struggling is part of growing and learning and that commitment is part of getting good at something.
2. Long-term success relies on the forming of good habits. Set reasonable practice expectations that you and your child can stick to and make them a regular part of your routine. Slow and steady really does win the race. Try to remove the guilt when you get off routine and allow yourself a break here and there for holidays etc. Just make sure that it’s temporary and not for large stretches of time.
3. Music lessons should not be torture. If they are, find another teacher. An important part of a teacher’s job is to inspire. You can teach students through doing music they love. If they don’t know what they love, expose them to different things until something ignites that spark. Learning is way more effective and lasting when you have willing participants (both teacher and student).
4. Recognize when ‘I hate this’ is coming from frustration or fear of failure and not actually from the thing they’re ‘hating’. No one likes to feel bad at something. Teaching music for over 20 years, I’ve had many a student complain about a song when it feels difficult (often a song they chose!) and then when they can do it, it becomes their favorite thing to play. Don’t allow them to say ‘I hate’. Make them replace it with something productive, like ‘I can do this’. Neuroscience has discovered that you can create the feeling you want to have by going through the action or the thought that goes with it (negative or positive).
5. Institute a visible reward currency that they earn for practicing and can spend on screen time (or whatever they like doing). The idea of this is not bribery but to link work with reward. The currency should be mainly ‘time related’ not material. Use poker chips or something they can drop in a see-through container so they can see their work add up. This part is important. Kids need it to be tangible and visible in order for it to matter to them. You can tweak this, but this is the currency system my family uses:

1 white chip earned for practice or other things (walking the dogs, homework, dishes, etc.)

5 white chips equals a red chip

5 red chips equals a blue chip

1 red chip buys any one of the following: 1/2 hour of screen time and may be used consecutively

1 blue chip earns something extra special: go to a movie, trip to the craft/toy store etc. Generally 1 blue chip is worth roughly $25 in cash, but should be used in a pre-defined venue such as movies, toys, books, games, etc..

As a music teacher, the most common regret I’ve heard from parents is the personal regret that their parents allowed them to quit lessons. People often have this perspective even if they didn’t have a great experience with lessons. Most people enjoy music; learning it should tap into this joy and shouldn’t be the cause of driving students away from music. Practicing is a responsibility but it shouldn’t be a burden. Striking the balance between discipline and love is an important part of making music lessons be a positive addition to life and not a negative one.

Music has been marginalized in our educational system and relegated to an extra that’s ‘fun’ but not necessary. And often when it is taught, it is so watered down and sporadic that it doesn’t begin to have the full impact it’s capable of. People are led to believe that you are naturally talented or not and that maybe it’s ‘not for you’ if you weren’t born with natural ability.

Life Skills:

It is often said that getting to Carnegie Hall is 90% work and 10% talent. The point being that talent does factor in if you’re trying to be a world-class musician, but even then it’s mostly work. There are so many skills and benefits to be gained from studying and being involved in music that it seems ridiculous to say someone shouldn’t bother to learn if they don’t have the potential to be a concert pianist. Focusing, self-discipline, commitment, struggling, and learning how work on one’s own strengths and weakness’ are all things that can be gained from studying music or learning an instrument.

Students Capability:

You would never tell a child who’s not a natural at math not to learn because maybe ‘it’s not their ‘thing’. Most people are going to need to be able to make change and are capable of learning quite a bit of math even if they don’t end up being a physicist. And who can really say anyway at such an early stage what people are capable of or that being a physicist or concert pianist are the only worthwhile choices.

Therapeutic Value:

Music has the ability to move people and can be a powerful force in their lives. It can console us when we’re down, motivate us to get things done and allow us to vent unhealthy emotions. It can reflect any emotion and even change our mood when we hear it. It’s hard to find a person that music has no effect on, and that’s just from listening to it. It’s power becomes even greater when a person is involved in the creation or performance of it.

In order for our kids grow up to be happy, healthy, productive adults, they need to have a well-balanced education. Growing up should be a time to be exposed to different subjects, sports and arts. All the skills they learn ultimately add to whatever they end up doing for a job but also add to make the rest of their life richer.