Julian Toha - Oclef Blog

July 10, 2018

Clothing sizes. Politicians. Cats. What do these three things have in common? Inconsistency. No offense to cats, which I love, but they don’t exactly have a consistent way of treating people. These three unrelated objects are often annoying or even harmful when they are inconsistent. We fall under this category too. Whether it be our relationships or our commitments, we have been inconsistent at some point in our lives.

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July 05, 2018

Become the Music

If a student is detached from their music, there is no music. If they play enough times without passion, they develop a habit of detachment. Eventually, the student is merely pressing black and white plastic keys for half an hour every day.

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July 04, 2018

A Study in Impatience

“Rome wasn’t built in a day.” You could build a miniature replica of Rome in a day, but it wouldn’t be as glorious as the real thing. “Good things come to those who wait.” Then again, you have been waiting for your concert tickets for over an hour so you could leave and enjoy something else in the meantime. But, now you would be missing out on what would have been an awesome night. “Patience is a virtue.” Impatience is a vice.

October 24, 2016

5 ways to make memorizing music your strength

One thing that always kept my attention when talking with fellow musicians was discussion about memory. For pianists it’s often the top thing on our minds heading into concerts. How is my memory? Sviatoslav Richter who was one of the greatest pianists of all time and one of the top 5 of the 20th century ran into lots of anxiety over his memory in the later stages of his life. So he began to use music. Lang Lang often will use a score on stage if he’s performing a relatively new work. Two more...

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October 21, 2016

2 questions you have to ask when looking for a music teacher

In most of the auditions and interviews I take these days, I don’t get many questions from parents. It’s strange to me that they wouldn’t want to know more before committing to learning in our studio. So I thought about what 2 questions I would ask if I were a parent looking for a piano teacher. Here’s what I came up with: 1. What are your expectations from my child regarding practice? Do you suggest an amount of time or goal-based practice?” 2. Do you believe that talent matters in learning ...

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October 18, 2016

Practice is tough

Practice is tough. I know. I’ve practiced over 30,000 hours since I started. Getting to the point where you feel more fluent with music than your own native language is a sign that you’ve found your calling. But when I hear from parents that, “it’s tough for my child to focus.” or “did you’re mom ever have to ask you to practice?” I can’t help but smile. My answer: Practice is tough for everyone. Even for a child who grew up to be a concert pianist. That’s why we do it. It’s a journey that we...

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October 15, 2016

Can video recording change music education? (Part III of III)

In the first part of this mini-series on video I talked about video recording lessons and in part two I talked about how video can help parents and students at home. In the last part of this series we will be talking about the silent, yet intimidating question going through student’s heads every time they practice. Am I better? I have asked a lot of questions in my lifetime, but in order to make it as a concert pianist, I needed to ask the above question millions of times (literally). It’s th...

October 12, 2016

Can video recording change music education? (Part II of III)

It’s pretty clear when you see a video whether or not something is right or not. So what does this mean for piano teachers? It means we get recorded a lot. On average, parents ask to record me playing 6 times a day (yes, I’ve been keeping track). It’s smart for several reasons for them to do this. 1. Videos empower the parents to know what’s right: notes, rhythms, hand position, etc. 2. Students engage with the teacher more than once a week. And they do it in a setting they’re most familiar w...

October 09, 2016

Can video recording change music education? (Part I of III)

The feedback loop is one of the most fascinating aspects of learning. It’s a simple, but powerful process that happens hundreds of millions of times in our life. We learn We change We improve It’s this process and the forces that live in and between it, that decide how far we go. A passion and curiosity for learning, an openness to change, and a persistence to improve, these are all parts of that process. So last year when I came across a Clavier Companion article from one our early Oclef sig...

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October 06, 2016

“I did it because my friend did”

I hear this a lot. I’m a big believer in the positive use of peer pressure. There have been so many successful studies to show how social proof and peer pressure can change our behaviors and thoughts. One of the areas that education hasn’t optimized yet is their ability to harness peer pressure in a positive way. I often hear from my students that they chose to start something because their friend is doing it or because they heard of someone they know doing it. It’s a classic example of socia...

October 03, 2016

Why do we teach?

At the end of every teaching day, I’m exhausted. Just like any other job you love, you’re depleted emotionally, physically and mentally. Teaching music is particularly rewarding since you see your students grow and develop over the years. But what I find incredibly rewarding is when I see students use the skills or mindset they have from piano, in their life outside piano. We often give presentations in theory class and it’s always the new students who feel most uncomfortable. Amy was a new s...

September 30, 2016

How to see without looking

Some beginners have trouble with looking too often at their hands. You can tell early on in the lessons because when they start working on reading music, their eyes are always looking at their hands. It’s okay to look when necessary, but if they’re looking straight down the whole time, you gotta say something. The upside is that these students often memorize music quickly. But if you ask them to sight read it’s almost impossible. They are unable to connect the notes on the page with how their...

September 27, 2016

3 ways to improve your music student’s ears

One of the toughest things to teach students, is how to listen. Over the past few years I’ve really pushed students to listen and think about listening as much as possible. I find that it’s one of the best ways to help them improve. How do we help students listen better? Here are three ways that will help music students listen better: 1. Sing – This is by far the quickest tool to help students improve their listening. Although convincing them to sing may be tough at first, it’s totally worth ...

September 24, 2016

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

I recently ran an audition for students looking to join our studio. It reminded me of my last audition – the day I was accepted into the Royal College of Music in London. But this time I was the one doing the decision making. It’s really tough. You see the students come in and they’re all dressed well and nervous. But it’s the one’s who do the right things: look you in the eye and say hello, place the music on the table, and even say thank you when they’re done; those are ones I’m likely to s...

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September 21, 2016

The five whys in music education

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...