Oclef Blog

September 21, 2016

Taiichi Ohno pioneered the Toyota manufacturing system back in the 1950’s and he did it by taking the exact opposite approach of American car factories. He gave power to the workers and had managers serve the workers. To this day, workers in a Toyota factory can still stop the whole manufacturing process with the flip of a switch. Once that switch flips the manager comes by to help the worker and they begin the questioning process. If the whole manufacturing line needs to stop then everyone s...

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September 18, 2016

Avoiding errors vs. achieving excellence (Part II)

A teacher of mine from a long time ago once told me that mistakes in performance are like if someone walks in front of the TV while you’re watching a show. This always stuck in my mind. The person walking in front of the screen temporarily messes up the line of communication that you have with the TV, but it doesn’t effect your understanding and appreciation of the story, characters and setting. You still enjoy the show and by the end, you probably won’t even remember the person who walked by...

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September 15, 2016

Tough love

Every so often I need to reach for the tissue box in lessons. Tears happen. Does it mean we’re too tough as teachers? It depends. I often push students as hard as I think they can go. The result is a deeper student to teacher connection in the long term, but a frustrated student in the short term. I push them because they can do it. Because I believe it’s the right thing to do. It’s tough being a student. I know. I was there and went through every lesson, recital, competition, audition, tours...

September 12, 2016

Avoiding errors vs. achieving excellence – Part I

One of my first blogs on Oclef was a message that I sent to my students before a competition. You can read it here – The Perfection of Pursuit What I work to make clear to my students in every opportunity is that mistakes and errors are not the problem. The problem is almost always maintaining the correct focus or mindset. Do your students fear making mistakes? Or are they more focused on creating excellence in their music? Perspective is everything. I think this is the one big differences be...

September 09, 2016

Want to keep students long term – do lessons (at least) twice weekly.

When I first started teaching at my current studio there were several students who I taught twice weekly – they were all beginners. I found that they progressed quickly because I was able to guide their practice and they knew they would have a lesson in a few days, so they practiced regularly. Two years later, I still have all of those students. They are no longer on the twice weekly plan, but the effects have lasted. Most of the students are now doing really well and are stable in their lear...

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September 06, 2016

The piano teacher’s word cloud

I love my job teaching kids. But I often have a feeling like I’m a broken record. The other day, one of my students came to the lesson very prepared and when I asked him what happened, he looked at me and said “I just did what you said to do.” (facepalm) So I decided yesterday to compile all the words that I say most often about practice. It was a fun exercise for myself and I wonder how my words overlap with yours. 🙂 “Practice in sections repeatedly. Hands separate and together. Each time th...

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September 03, 2016

4 types of memory and how to improve them for performance

Preparing for recitals is difficult especially when they happen often. I push students to always work on their memory of some piece. I tend to think of memory as a muscle that has potential to falter, but if it’s trained properly, it’s unlikely to mess up. The problems happen when students limit themselves to one or two forms of memory. So what types of memory are there? 1. "Muscle" memory – Although in reality, your muscles don't have memory, this is the memory of how it feels to do somethin...

August 31, 2016

Scheduling challenges

One of the toughest problems as a private music educator is scheduling. When your studio is full and all you can do is offer someone a time that they need to get out of work early to bring their child what do you do? I think one answer is to have a big survey and find out times that work for everyone and times that don’t. The only challenge is that schedules change and as students get older and parents work more, everyone wants the same times. There’s also the problem of the morning lull. For...

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August 28, 2016

Misbehaving in lessons

I’ve been pretty lucky over the past few years. I’ve never had a discipline problem with any of my students. Diminishing attention spans, yes, minor defiance, yes, but never a chronic discipline problem. A situation last week made me question how I can better prepare mentally when a student is rude or disrespectful. The student, Sean, was clearly in an upset mood from the start of the lesson. When I asked him how his day at school was, he didn’t answer. So I moved on and once we started to go...

August 25, 2016

Is Frank Ocean’s new album Blond more artistic, creative and impactful than all of today’s contemporary classical music?

The obvious answer is that you can’t compare apples and oranges, but that’s not the case here. Stravinsky released his Rite of Spring in 1913 as Ballet Russes newest cross-arts production. The art created a reaction that drove people to riot. They were so emotionally connected to the outcome and felt compelled to riot. They were moved. When Franz Liszt toured for a few years – people would travel from neighboring villages so they could see the “Great Franz Liszt”. They were seeking to see som...

August 22, 2016

3 simple yet powerful practice habits

Practicing an instrument for years doesn’t mean that you’re practicing correctly, but even if you are, there are still ways to hack your practice time to make it even more efficient. With these three hacks any student can turn 15 minutes into an effective session. The 10 second break – If you watch any great sports stars, they all find a brief moment to mentally collect themselves during events. Great tennis players mess with their racket between points, basketball players have a complete rou...

August 19, 2016

Grit in music education

I’m reading Angela Duckworth’s book called Grit. It’s clear that she’s incredibly passionate about the subject. Throughout the book she talks about how grit plays a role in many different disciplines and subjects. Her passion and curiosity got me thinking about what grit means to music education. In looking at my own life as a concert pianist and now at my students, I can say that grit is one of the most important aspects of success. If we use her definition of grit as the combination of pers...

August 16, 2016

“I played better at home!”

“I played better at home!” I hear it at least once a day. For the most part, it’s true. But why does this happen? Nerves? One of the things that you learn quickly as a pianist is that not all instruments are the same. Unlike almost all other instrumentalists, pianists have to learn to adapt to a new instrument in every performance. My teacher used to call it an “occupational hazard”. So when I hear this from my kids, I only have one answer – “Get over it. It’s part of being a pianist.” The sm...

August 13, 2016

The first day of school, the last day of passionate curiosity

When children begin to speak they learn everything they need to ask a million questions. Why is that like that? What is that called? Who is he? How does it happen? They ask questions because it gives them what they need most – knowledge. They are so passionate and curious and then one day they go to school. For many, this is the end of their curiosity and imagination. The first day of school, as exciting as it may seem, is the first day that questions have one answer, learning while playing i...

August 10, 2016

Digital natives

One of my students had a birthday a week ago. After I left the concert and party, I started to think about the average age of my studio class. Most students are born on or after 2009. Seven years old. This made me start to think about what the world was like seven years ago. – Barack Obama, the first US black president, was inaugurated into office. – Apple introduced the App Store for its wildly popular iPhone and would release the iPad the following year. – Spotify opened as one of the first...

August 07, 2016

Is music education a superorganism?

Scientists have now established that forests are connected by the relationships between fungi and trees. They send food and resources to each other and can also communicate when there is danger. They are all connected through small tubes created by the fungi. Forests are a superorganism. Bees are also a superorganism. They work for the betterment of the hive and to serve the queen. Whether they need the resources personally or not, they continue to help. Superorganisms are resilient and alway...

August 04, 2016

What are the greatest gifts we give to students? (Part 2)

A Gallop poll conducted a few years back asked workers whether they enjoy their job. The poll found that 70% of workers were unhappy with their job and work. The majority of people pointed to their unmotivated bosses and lack of connection with the work they did. They lack purpose. One of the big benefits of working with students is the direct impact on someone’s life. There’s a sense of purpose that fills everyday. As a music educator you don’t really know how what you do everyday will chang...

August 01, 2016

A fear of mediocrity

It’s August. In London that means afternoons can get above 30 degrees celcius. I’m practicing in an 8×8 room on a 65 year old piano that’s a few cents flat on every note above the G in my left hand. It wasn’t this bad yesterday. After lunch I usually practice for 3 hours straight, but I’m going to need a break today, my shirt is soaked. You don’t get to play in this room unless you’ve passed the intimidating auditions, won the national competitions and survived being yelled at for years about...

July 29, 2016

All genres matter

Saatchi Gallery in London is one of the best in the world. They always manage to put together the most eye-opening exhibits. At the moment, they are running an exhibition on the Rolling Stones. Like most Millennials, I never appreciated this great rock and roll band for all of their incredible art and music. They have been together for over half a century, 55 years! That’s insane. The bond they developed and the 30+ tours they completed together are unreal. Aside from their endurance, the St...

July 26, 2016

What is creative balance?

The general public often imagines great artists as risk takers, visionaries and creative people who produce entirely new ideas. This is wrong, well, half wrong. Many of the greatest artists developed a taste for balancing new and old and then they ride that middle path to their creative genius. Beethoven was able to merge many ideas from Haydn, the Bach dynasty and other contemporaries with his own Dionysian flair and rhapsodic approach on motifs. Beethoven created just the right amount of no...

July 23, 2016

What do students see in their teacher?

Life is a play that does not allow testing. So sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely, before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause. – Charlie Chaplin When traveling I tend to look at life differently. I see and think about life in a way that would have never passed through my mind while in the daily routine. Starting a company and being a teacher, it’s so hard to balance life and work. But I recently thought about how perceptive my students are and what it teaches them t...

July 22, 2016

The External Point of Reference Fail

Have you ever had a teacher give you an assignment or test and say “It’s not that hard, I was able to finish it in ten minutes”? To which you reply, “Okay, but you’re 30 years older than us and have a degree in the subject.” This is what I like to call an external point of reference. It is when a teacher or parent places a student’s point of reference outside of themselves. A seed of negativity is placed and it can spiral out of control.

July 20, 2016

Where’s the soul of education?

Bear with me while this twists and winds around topics – it will eventually lead to education. People often feel they meet their “soulmate” and the connection that they share is one that feels so familiar. They feel that they belong together. So can a person feel that way about a place? I say yes. Walking the cobble streets, hopping on the tube, and keeping pace with Londoners I can’t help but feel at home here. London’s culture for music, art, dance and fashion can only be rivaled by New Yor...

July 19, 2016

Predictability Problems

Predictable books, movie, and media tend to do badly in business. They are boring and lacking in depth. They display the same pattern — never improving and often, getting worse each time.

July 17, 2016

What are the greatest gifts we give to students? (Part 1)

Grit is one of our greatest gifts to students How hard should we push students? How do we create the right balance of passion and perseverance in their mindset? Most music teachers know what students can take in a one-on-one lesson. We know their level of mental pressure they can absorb without breaking, but how often do we push this? How about focus, listening and technical ability? How far can the student go? If we push students too much and they quit, is that okay? Personalization is every...

July 14, 2016

Why are all subjects separated in school?

Why are all subjects separated in school? I really don’t understand why this is the case the majority of the time. Learning new ideas, concepts and even meeting new people, we always link them with previous knowledge. Learning is simply new connections – our mind joins and binds it with information we already know. Why does our education system value isolation and should learning be less isolated and more interdependent? We teach students math over years and years and it gives them a frame of...

July 12, 2016

‘Good Enough’ is No Good

I have always believed that a crucial driving force behind personal growth is curiosity — our inherent desire to understand or achieve what we thought was impossible. Curiosity has this incredible ability to push us beyond our limits. We want to top ourselves, we want to know more about what we don’t know, we want to try again and again.

July 11, 2016

Summer Camp

Teaching at a music summer intensive showed me that students can make incredible progress in a short period of time. Parents, teachers and students often think long term with music lessons, but so much learning can happen in a matter of weeks or days. Even more valuable in summer intensives is what students learn while living apart from their parents. They learn how to live: to cook, clean, make choices, have an opinion – they start to learn who they are. And that’s what every great artist do...

July 08, 2016

Is classical music worth anything anymore?

When making recordings on classical music labels I always found it amazing how the process was done. It’s very similar to photos and movies. Recordings are excessively edited. By excessive I mean over 400 takes, using 6 mics, on a piece under 10 minutes. Yeah… At that point a recording is unreal. Every musician can hear their mistakes and knows their weaknesses. To hear a recording where you can flawlessly execute a storm of octaves or insane jumps feels like cheating. Why practice? The past ...

July 05, 2016

How important is Student-Teacher chemistry?

I have a few students in my studio who are considered child prodigies for their pace of learning and performance abilities. A couple of them have developed incredible chemistry with me and this makes lessons dynamic and packed full of learning. These are the students that make teaching exciting and fun. I also have a few students who would be considered average to slightly above learners and performers, but also have incredible chemistry with me in lessons. Along with great parent communicati...

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