I sent a survey out to my studio this past week. Among a pile of great feedback and static, I found an obvious, but really helpful insight. Parents want personalization for their children.
As with any premium service or luxury product, customization is not only desired, it’s expected. If only I could spend hours each week thinking about each of my students and how to take them to the next level. The more I offer highly personalized services, events or opportunities to curate their child’s pat...
"His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy”
Eminem opens Lose Yourself with the image of someone battling ‘Fight or Flight’. I think this is a battle that we all face. Speeches, performances, interviews or sports are all events where the mind and body undergoes the flooding of hormones.
As a concert pianist performing four concerts a week over a six month season, I was exposed to this regularly. Now that I teach piano and build Oclef, performing is something I only create for my kids. ...
Balance is a powerful, yet simple force in our world that often goes unnoticed. It’s incredibly beautiful when observed and it hit me this week when teaching.
I have a retired student that I teach every week – for privacy let’s call him Dan. Dan is 74 years old, has Parkinsons and several other challenging health conditions. Dan is very active for a retired person: hiking, cycling, motor biking and piano. He also takes care of his wife who has her own set of health conditions to battle. The o...
About two weeks ago in my beginning music theory class, I decided to have students assign their own homework. Previously, I would tell them they had to get to a certain point, I’d draw a stop sign and hope they’d finish. This never worked.
So two weeks ago I decided to make a change and allow students to pick their own homework as an experiment.
Coincidentally, at the same time, I began to read Charles Duhigg’s new book – Smarter, Better, Faster. In chapter one, he discusses fascinating studi...
A parent who doesn’t normally attend her child’s lesson came into the studio the other day. There is always an awkward air in the room when this happens. Obviously the parent is in the lesson for a purpose. The few times in the past that this happened with other parents, the outcome was always one of the following:
“I think we will take a break from piano.”
“Piano lessons are a bit too expensive.”
“We are moving away and can no longer come.”
The entire lesson was one of most uncomfortable I h...
When I first started teaching, I took over a studio of eight students that was left by someone who moved away. From day one, I was shocked that students in my new studio would walk into their lesson as the other student walked out and had no awareness of the other student. It was like the other student in the studio did not exist. These are students who have seen each other for months or years on a weekly basis and didn’t even have an idea of the other student’s name.
Fast-forward to today an...
In the education world, we teachers are so focused on results and I just wanted to share a message I recently sent to my studio:
Early on in my music education, I believed that doing well in recitals and competitions mattered most. Great performances made my mother proud, my teacher proud and it felt amazing to hear from other parents or judges that I was a ‘promising musician’. “The pursuit of perfection” – this was the maxim that I held as a child, but as I approached the professional level...
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