“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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
One of my first students who completed group piano is Lily. I’ll never forget the class about a year ago, Lily was practicing at her keyboard and her friend Addison started to cry. Addison is a quiet girl who often gets frustrated when she can’t get something to work on the first try.
Addison’s mom tried to help console her, but she refused to calm down. Then Lily calmly walked over and just stood in front of Addison.
“Don’t be sad Addison. It’s okay, if you mess up, you will get better.”
Add...
Growing up, we learned in school that peer pressure causes so many negative effects: drugs, bullying, and bad behavior. But now that I’m a teacher, I look at peer pressure as a tool. Just like any other force or energy, it can be harnessed and used to create positive results.
Most beginners struggle with the multitude of problems that they face from day one. In piano lessons, that means hand position, reading, rhythm, and finger strength to name a few.
So last year I thought deeply about how ...
Harvard recently published a study about teachers who text parents a brief message about improvements that a student can make. Continuous feedback is so powerful that it improves drop out rates and will increase the likelihood of improvement substantially.
Instead of doing biannual report cards, giving parents a 1 minute feedback talk or a 2 sentence text will substantially improve student development. Many teachers, including my past self, give students report cards to show how they are prog...
One of the most powerful ways to improve your studio is to connect your studio. Bringing together students through technology, events and recitals is a prime way to develop your studio.
The current generation being raised is Generation Z and they are highly interdependent, risk-adverse and they are technology natives. All of these are reasons to use some type of broadcasting or communication platform to connect your studio on a micro-social level. Being in contact with students and parents on...
There is a poster that says “90% of our students practice 1 hour or more per day”. I think the poster hopes to promote social pressure and show what other people “do”. But at the same time it’s also a guilt trip, because as I know and you know, 90% of our students practice less than 1 hour a day.
One of the first measureables I was interested in upon starting a music studio was practice time. I was so curious how many minutes students practiced. The answer?
6 minutes per day (including days o...
Starting out as a music teacher with only a handful of students, I thought it would be smart to reward the hardest working students to attract more of those students. In my first year, I gave out rewards all the time – student of the month and other prizes that showed them how much I care for their hard work.
More often then not, the student would instantly lose that drive once they got the reward and the learning momentum would disappear. Why?
A hundred hours of research later I found a trem...
One of the best conversations in the education world at the moment is whether teachers should lead student development or if students should lead. The US public education system had its last systemic overhaul during the reign of Horace Mann back in the 1840’s. Yep, almost 200 years ago.
Since then we have had thousands of incremental changes along the way, but the system looks more or less the same.
Teachers lead – students follow.
Teachers know – students wonder.
Teachers explain – students ...
I love performing. I spent so many years focusing on crafting my ability and now I’m passing on that educational experience to my students. When I first started, I was shocked to know that students were used to performing 1 or 2 times a year.
What if basketball teams trained all year and had one game against an opponent?
How can you improve if you only perform one time per year?
It’s ridiculous.
One of the first cultural shifts I made was to have students perform 1-2 times per month. Let’s we...
Shifting my career from a concert pianist to a music educator conditioned me with several counter-intuitive insights. When I began teaching, I read everything I could possibly read on music education and followed with experiments to see what worked and what didn’t work. Most of what I had learned as a touring concert pianist was contrary to what music teachers and educators were doing and writing. So I decided to first test their ideas and see how it worked with my students. These were seven ...
Summer is a time when schedules open up for music educators. If you run an independent studio, it usually means that you have a few time slots open in your weekly schedule. Why not use it for a studio activity or culture-building event?
Here are 3 projects that your students will love and will get them and their parents talking about you:
Project Soundscape – What does your town sound like?
I think most of your kids these days have smart phones or iPads on hand. You can prompt them to go arou...
When I prepare a concert program, I spend the majority of my time on transitions. It’s the most challenging part of performance and if you can make transitions look effortless, you win. Just like performance, learning to play an instrument also has transitions and they are just as difficult.
Now that I teach, I see my students challenged in the same battles that I once fought:
Starting off
Problem: Getting a rocket off the ground takes more energy than propelling it upward once it’s going.
Ho...
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