​Because my book is full of bites of #snackablewisdom, there was no room to include the variety of electronic ways to pay. I was thinking about writing a blog post that described all the options and then, just like that, one of the piano teacher Facebook groups I belong to had a posted question: “Forms of virtual payment that you accept besides PayPal and Zelle?” How timely! The responses have been helpful to me and spurred me into action to learn what makes the electronic options different from each other. Let me share with you how the teachers responded. As of right now, 41 teachers have responded to the question.

• A little over 50% said they use Venmo.
• The next in line for the most usage is Zelle, right up there with PayPal.
• Google Pay and Apple Pay had a fair amount of respondents.
• Fons was mentioned once. I’d never heard about this one.
• Square and Wave were also mentioned, as well as one called Stripe. Never heard of it.
• One teacher said “cash or checks.”

There are obviously pros and cons to using these “mobile payment apps & services” but it’s often confusing to read online the differences. I hope I can help you out here. Oh, and by the way, I have a student family that pays using Zelle, another uses Venmo, and another uses PayPal. The rest pay by cash or checks. Believe me, I was afraid of any kind of app or Internet payment system, but my students began asking to pay that way so I began to educate myself, and to become less afraid.

“If I don’t practice the way I should, I won’t play the way that I know I can.” ~ Ivan Lendl, professional tennis player and coach.

When I wrote my book, Six-Word Lessons for Exceptional Music Lessons – 100 lessons to Enhance the Parent, Student and Teacher Relationship, I found myself wanting to write so many tips on good practice. In fact, I ended up with two full chapters, twenty-two lessons, just on practice tips!  It seems like a no-brainer that good practice would lead to progress, but I think we are just not always sure what “good practice” looks like.

I’ve been using some of the same techniques that I have been using for years, somewhat successfully. My last blog post on “repetitive practice” made a huge impact on the progress made by my students when I instituted it on a more consistent basis several years ago. But it began to feel like, to me, that it was suddenly not working as well as I wanted it to work. 
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Being a student of psychology, I am always interested in human behavior and why some things work and some things don’t. Research on learning and memory is fascinating and fluid. As I read different definitions of techniques for learning, I realized that, as an independent music teacher, I was practicing some of these techniques but didn’t know they had special names! So, with the concept of repetitive practice from the previous blog tucked under our belts, let’s move on to how we can define “good practice” even further.

Remember when you were in high school and/or college and spent some sleepless nights cramming for an exam? In the short term, it worked! We got a good grade. But it didn’t last. I sure can’t tell you much about algebra, but I do know I passed the class. The crammed information for an exam quite literally leaves the working memory to leave room for more. I only invested in passing the test; I did not invest in learning. (Don’t calculators do all that work for me anyway?)

When it comes to learning a piece of music and, at some point, having it memorized, we cannot cram. We can put our efforts into repetitive practice, but if we do all of that repetitive practice the days before adjudications we may do well on adjudication day and then simply forget the piece. You know what I’m talking about. You take a difficult passage of music, practice it over and over and over until you have it “perfect,” but then the next day your progress is gone. “I played it better at home” is a great example of this. Your student probably did play it better at home, three times in a row like you asked, but that was two days ago, and practiced passively at that. Let’s look into this a little deeper because there is a better way.

Spaced Repetition Practice
Spaced repetition is a "learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect." (Wikipedia)
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In layman’s language for a music student – spacing thoughtful, repetitive practice. One of the oldest and most secure findings on learning and memory is that if you want to remember something, you should use spaced repetition. So how does it work? First we need to address the difference between working memory and long-term memory.

Working memory is a cognitive memory buffer with a limited capacity that is responsible for the transient holding, processing, and manipulation of information. (Wikipedia) Again, in laymen’s terms, it’s the memory function where things are in a holding pattern, waiting to be told where to go, what to do. Most people can only hold about seven items in working memory. (Miller, George A. The Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information.)

Researchers in the field of teaching and learning have found that to take something you’ve learned and make it into long-term memory, you need to practice recalling that thing from long-term memory. So how do we get our practice out of working memory and into long-term memory? Spaced repetition.

“In a spaced repetition approach, your goal is to review material just before you would forget it, so you’re practicing the skill of long-term recall the best you can.” (pianopracticeassistant.com/spaced-repetition)  Not a lot of research has been done for the learning and retaining of music, but the general concepts can be used by musicians aspiring to better performances.

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​Interleaved Practice
Another term, closely related to spaced repetition, is interleaved practice. I’ve been doing this with my students for quite some time, but I didn’t know it had a fancy name! It’s basically spaced repetition with the twist of randomizing the passages you are working on. Putting different passages to recall in between the repeated passage you’ve been working on, you are forcing the relevant knowledge out of the working memory. Remember, the working memory can only hold so much, so something will get bumped. What you want to get bumped is the passage you’ve spaced in repetitive practice. You want it to go into long-term memory. By forcing yourself to recall things at random, you build stronger connections. Here's an example from a classroom setting:

Deliberate Practice
One more definition and we’ll move on. Deliberate practice actively and continuously is the practice of reflecting on and correcting one’s performance. Effective practice requires mindful engagement and conscious self-observation. This is how I’ve been saying it to students for many, many years: “I’m not at your house when you practice so you need to be your own teacher.” This is why having a piano teacher instead of being self-taught is so helpful. Teachers engage fully in the task of listening. We hear the mistakes and we stop and talk about how to correct the mistakes. We are not just teaching notes, fingering, counts, and dynamics. We, by our example, are showing students how to engage more in their practice time. The opposite of deliberate practice is the example I used in the previous blog (Repetition is the Mother of All Learning) where my student played through a piece and moved on to the next assignment. The opposite of deliberate practice can also be the “effortless enjoyment,” or slipping into the “flow state.” This is often where we continue practicing the same mistakes over and over until we have perfected them! It’s tricky though.

Effortless enjoyment is important for keeping up motivation and preventing burnout (mine and the student’s), but it’s like a state of diffused attention. From Dr. Cal Newport’s blog entry Flow is the Opiate of the Mediocre:

Avoid Flow. Do What Does Not Come Easy. “The mistake most weak pianists make is playing, not practicing. If you walk into a music hall at a local university, you’ll hear people ‘playing’ by running through their pieces. This is a huge mistake. Strong pianists drill the most difficult parts of their music, rarely, if ever playing through their pieces in entirety.”
(http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/12/23/flow-is-the-opiate-of-the-medicore-advice-on-getting-better-from-an-accomplished-piano-player/)


Research tells us nearly unanimously that it’s the amount of quality (deliberate) practice, not natural born talent and skills or the number of hours mindlessly practicing, that matters most in developing expertise.

All of this – spaced repetition, interleaved practice, and deliberate practice – takes effort on the part of the teacher as well as the student. It takes the setting of goals, analyzing the music to be able to break it down into workable passages, and setting a schedule. Goal-directed practice and targeted, timely feedback is a must.

1. Set specific goals. The goal to “practice better” or “practice more” will likely not work. It’s better to be very specific, such as, “I want to do the phrasing in section A correctly, at allegro tempo, without stumbling.”
   
   
2. Continue to refine your goals. Once you have achieved the goal listed in #1, set another specific goal such as, “I want to produce a sotto voce sound using dynamics and touch when I perform section A.

Continue with the practice variables discussed in the previous blog post. Push yourself. To master a skill, master something harder. Change up the rhythms, use a different accent pattern . . . complicate it in order to master it. 

​Now, let’s see if we can look at an example in a real-life situation. I have a student, we’ll call her Christy, who is preparing for a future adjudicated opportunity. She will be performing two selections in the piano solo event and one piano concerto. She will also be taking a theory test.

The first thing Christy and I will do (after she freaks out over the amount of work this looks like it’s going to take to learn and memorize!) is to divide each piece into small sections that she can work on. We will make them small enough so that she can see some progress in a minute or two of practice time. I would not expect her to learn all of these pieces starting at the same time, but I would definitely begin with the hardest one first. So, let’s take a look at the concerto. I would likely assign her the first four measures, hands separate to learn (especially that bass pattern), and then put the hands together, slowly at first. This might be what would appear in her assignment notebook with the way I do things currently:

Mozart concerto – learn and practice m. 1 – 4 (leaving out the last 1.5 beats of m. 4)
Practice hands separate – RH 2x/day, LH 3x/day - slow to start to catch problem areas
Put hands together and build up speed.

As teachers, we have to remember to tailor the goals and assignments for each individual student. Their learning capabilities are unique. This is just what I would do for Christy. To that assignment I might also have Christy start on one of her piano solo pieces. I usually go for a piece that is completely different from the other one she is working on, so let’s figure out an assignment for Journey in the Night.

Journey in the Night – learn and practice the first 8 measures of the first page, LH only. Work out the fingerings in those runs; write them in if necessary. Make sure you count as you are practicing. Do this LH practice 3x/day, carefully. Try playing it as fast as you can after it’s learned. Play it on different octaves of the keyboard.

To this piano practice assignment, I might add one thing to work on in preparation for the theory test.

I expect Christy to practice for 45-minutes a day, but sometimes that is just not possible for her. She is in high school and is involved in school leadership and on the tennis team. She has a tendency to either not practice when her schedule is full, or more than likely, she will practice the day before her lesson and usually only practice one assignment.

The two sections within the two pieces are probably enough for her already overloaded working memory. The direction I would give her using the concepts of spaced repetition and interleaving would be as follows. Remember, breaking up your practice in this way has the additional benefit of keeping focused attention on goal-directed skill building.

Day 1:  Practice m.1-4 of the concerto. Start practice hands separately to think about what you are practicing.
             Practice LH 3x; practice RH 2x. How is it counted? What are the dynamics?
             Practice hands together 5x. Where are the problem areas? Practice those areas 5x more.

Day 2:  Practice the first 8 measures of Journey in the Night, LH only. Figure out your fingerings & counts.
Practice this 5x slowly.

Day 3:   Practice the concerto passage with the metronome for steady beat, 5x
LH practice of Journey in the Night, 2x/very fast; 2x/very soft

Day 4:   Christy won’t practice this day because she is at school until 8:00 pm and then will have homework
to do.

Day 5:   Practice any section of Journey in the Night that you want to. Practice it 3x
Practice LH Journey, 3x
Practice concerto passage with correct tempo and dynamics. 5x

Day 6:  Practice the last 4 measures of the concerto. Go through it 3x
Practice the original concerto passage, w/metronome, checking yourself. 3x
Practice LH Journey, first 8 measures, up to tempo, 5x

Day 7:   No practice as Christy will come right to lessons from school.
 
If I understand the definitions of spaced repetition, interleaving, and deliberate practice, I think I covered it all in this sample practice assignment. Ultimately, wouldn’t it be great if students would just be smart enough to do this on their own? Some of my past students who have gone on to do wonderful things with their piano performances have done this on their own. But let’s face it, most of our students really do need our guidance. We also know that the above example of an assignment for a week might not happen once the student leaves the studio. We can only do what we can do, and that’s to do our job to the best of our ability.
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** After I first wrote this blog post and before I posted it, I tried an abbreviated format of this technique for practice with one of my 4th grade students, on just one of his pieces. I asked him about it at his next lesson and he said he felt like he had an easier time and an easier time remembering what he had practiced from the day before! 

I don’t break my student’s practice assignment down day by day, but I think I’m going to try it for the students that have real anxiety about learning a piece and getting it memorized. I probably wouldn’t break things down day-by-day for beginner students, but I would certainly still use the repetitive and interleaving techniques and lots of variety.
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This won’t be easy to establish unless a teacher is already doing something akin to this kind of practice process. We have to remember that piano is more complicated than memorizing historical dates or how to divide fractions. After all, if you can only hold seven things in working memory, which seven do you choose? Individual notes, chords, phrases, dynamics, fingerings, etc.? Acquiring the skill of playing the piano is complex, but all this complexity means we have to be even more deliberate in applying these processes. Teachers do their work, students do their work, and the brain does its work. You’ll never know if it works for you or your students unless you try it!

Many years ago, and I remember it vividly, I had a teenage student come to his lesson and he hadn’t practiced at all that week. In this situation, I asked him to “practice” during his lesson time. My desk is in the studio, so I sat at my desk and intended to do some lesson planning. One of the main reasons I did this was because I wanted to hear how he was practicing. Even the weeks when he said he did practice, he didn’t seem to be progressing much.

He took out his assignment book and played the first assignment on the list. I remember thinking, “That could certainly use some work,” only to have him, after playing it once, move on to the next thing on the list. At this point I had to ask, “Is that how you would practice it at home?” He responded with a firm “yes.”

I was glad that I had that opportunity because it opened a conversation about playing versus practicing, and about repetitive practicing. I have realized, with some students, I must write in the assignment book, “practice 3x/day” or whatever number I feel is necessary. Sometimes I’ll even ask a student, “How many times do you think you should practice this each day?” Often, they come up with a higher number than I would have! (I’m pretty sure they are trying to say what they think I want them to say.) When a student sees “10x/day” written in their assignment book, they understand that they really must work on it to progress. There have been times when I’ve written “1,000 x/day” and give the student that look that means I am dead serious. They know I don’t mean it literally, but they get the message loud and clear.

Repetitive practice has always made sense to me. Athletes practice this way, military operations are practiced this way, and physical therapists expect it in their patients. Think about it – practice IS repetition. When practicing any instrument, repetition is the most common method used to learn a piece of music. Repetition helps to build your muscle memory. When something is practiced over and over and over, the muscles begin to memorize what they are supposed to do, and how they are supposed to move. (Lesson 46, Six-Word Lessons for Exceptional Music Lessons, page 64) Pretty soon, tricky fingering passages become natural. The great Sam Snead, professional golf player, once stated, “Practice puts brains in your muscles.”

The Double-Edged Sword
Repetition in practice does indeed work. But what if whatever we repeat puts errors in our muscle brains? If I practice the same thing over and over, my muscles will slowly learn what it is I am practicing. That being said, if I learn and practice incorrectly and continue to repeat it over and over incorrectly, not only will I not progress, but it is quite difficult to go back and fix it later. In this case, repetitive practice becomes a hindrance to my progress.
 
As a teacher, it’s quite painful sitting through a song that a student, once again, has obviously put no thought into her repetitive practicing. She comes back with the rhythm still incorrect, so you ask her why it’s still wrong. After all, you wrote it boldly and underlined it three times in her assignment book to “count out loud” so she could get it right. (And you’ve circled it so many times in the piece that you can hardly see the notes anymore!) She then looks at you like she never set eyes on her assignment book. She did play it through 3x/day – exactly the wrong way she’s always played it! The key lesson learned here is “practice makes permanent.”
 
It’s So Boring
Several repetitions done correctly in a row is essential for progress. “But it’s so boring,” is what most students will say. Therefore, as teachers we need to constantly come up with new ways of repetitive practice techniques to try and eliminate some of that boredom. There is a caveat though. If a student really cares about progressing these ideas will be helpful. If a student does not care about getting any better at playing the piano, it won’t matter how creative you get with the practice ideas.

“Whenever you are using repetition to practice, you want to be sure you are using it in the most beneficial and productive way possible.” (Graham Fitch, practisingthepiano.com.) No two students / musicians are the same, so a practice routine that is unique to each student is critical.  Here are a few ideas that I have used:

1. Divide a piece into small phrases or passages that you can practice individually. Make them small enough that you can see progress in a minute or two of focused, repetitive practice on each.
   
   
2. For younger students, you can design a fun way for them to keep track of how many times they have “repeated” the assigned section. I had several of my younger students make “star counters” for repetitive practice. Every time they played the measure or measures, they moved a star bead over to the other side. It’s a good visual aid.​You could also create a spinner or make your own dice with different ways to repeat, such as High as a Kite, Fast as a Cheetah, or Soft as a Lamb.
   
   
3. Make sure you don’t always just practice your repetitive sections as isolated sections. Remember, a piece is not one single thing. It is made up of many small parts. As different sections receive their repetitive practice, remember to join the sections and practice those repetitively for smooth transitions. It is important to think about how the parts combine into the whole.
   
   
4. Challenge yourself. One technique to use in repetitive practice is to play your designated section until you make a mistake. Once you make a mistake, go back to the start and see if you can play to get past the place where the mistake was made. Keep repeating this technique until you can fluently get through the section without any mistakes. (Lesson 60, Six-Word Lessons for Exceptional Music Lessons, page 80)
   This method of repetitive practice is explained in scientific detail (yes, it involves the brain) in “The Talent Code – Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown” by Daniel Coyle.
   
   
5. Franz Liszt said, “Think ten times and play once.” Obviously, if one takes a conscious moment to think, to reflect in between each repetition, one can have a clearer understanding of what they actually want to accomplish. “What is the purpose for repeating this section over and over?” Have a specific goal for what is intended to happen when the passage is played again. This type of repetitive practice allows the learner to dig deep and explore his music.
   
   
6. There is always a point in practice where the mind begins to wander and productivity decreases. How can this be overcome? Changing how you express a section can make it feel less repetitive while retaining the same familiarity. Repeating the same section but giving it a different sound, keeps the attention of the learner. Take the same passage and play it at a different octave. If it’s straight eighth notes, change up the rhythm to a dotted rhythm just for fun. If the dynamic marking is soft, play it loud or vice versa. If it’s a fast tempo play it slower. (That’s a good practice technique in and of itself.) Try staccato instead of legato. How about writing lyrics to the melody line? The trick with repetitions is to focus the mind on something specific, varying the focus with each repetition.
   
   

I am reminded of a student who felt like every piece of repertoire I gave her was “too hard.” I wanted her to learn Debussy’s Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum from The Children’s Corner. I knew if I showed her the music as a whole, she would freak out. Even though I could see the different sections, I knew she would not. I found a section that I figured would be the hardest one for her to learn (measures 37 – 44, six flats) and I made a copy of that section.

We worked on those eight measures, hands separate, then hands together, then a phrase at a time, then a line at a time, then the whole section. I encouraged her during her repetitive practice at home that she “mess around” with the dynamics and the tempo. Just letting her know that she had the freedom to play it different than what was on the written page gave her a sense of empowerment and desire to “try it out.” Repetitive, thoughtful practice made a huge difference. I continued to make copies of small sections to work on repeatedly, all in random order. When it came time to put two sections together in order, she felt such a sense of accomplishment. Of course, we had to work on the transitions, which required more thoughtful, repetitive practice, but when she discovered that she had learned the whole piece, she was overjoyed. I never heard her once say, “This is too hard.” Mission accomplished!
 
“Spaced Repetition Practice” is a concept that is being studied, and I’ll have more on this technique of repetitive practice in my next blog post.

Many may remember the old television commercial where the narrator would hold up an egg and say, "This is your brain." He would then crack the egg into a sizzling, hot frying pan and say, "This is your brain on drugs." He would then ask, "Any questions?" It was an extremely effective commercial which is why so many remember it even years later.

Playing the piano (or any instrument for that matter) is fun, but it has also been proven how incredible the brain functions and develops while learning to play the piano. "This is your brain on piano."

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​Classical FM, an independent radio station in the UK, posted this information on Facebook recently. There have been several articles written about brain development while learning how to play the piano, but I especially liked the example shared by Classical FM as it relates to the different lobes of the brain. Here are just a few examples:

• Sight-reading on the piano involves reading two lines of music, each in a different clef. This activates the visual cortex located in the occipital lobe. 
  
  65% of us are visual learners. (http://www.vistacollege.edu/blog/featured/the-7-best-careers-for-visual-thinkers/) Typical skills possessed by visual thinkers are strategic planning, attention to details, spatial reasoning and artistic abilities / hands on skills. Career options for those who are strong visual thinkers could be photography, business consulting, graphic design, and construction technology, as well as today's hot career - robotics.

 

• Both hands often play intricate rhythms independently from each other. This activity stimulates the primary motor cortex located in the frontal lobe of the brain.
  
  People with good hand-eye coordination handily use their visual senses to assess a situation, then use their hands to execute the given task. (http://work.chron.com/careers-those-good-handtoeye-coordination-12465.html) Some careers would include physicians and surgeons as well as commercial airline pilots and all creating and building occupations.

 

• Pianists listen to notes being played and adjust their playing accordingly. Listening involves the auditory cortex of the temporal lobe.
  
  According to Tech News, the breakdown of learning styles varies, but a typical K-12 classroom contains 25 percent auditory learners. Possible careers for those with strong auditory skills are judges, postsecondary foreign language teachers, broadcast and sound engineers, interpreters, speech pathologists, and counselors.
  
  
• Pianists know where all the notes are without having to look at the piano keyboard. This shows strong spatial skills which are developed in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
  
  The development of the prefrontal cortex plays a significant role in maturation. The brain develops in a back to front pattern, and the prefrontal cortex is the last portion of the brain to fully develop. This does not mean that children do not have functional prefrontex cortices. Rather, they do not develop the complex decision-making and planning skills adults have until later in their development. Experience can play a role in the development of the prefrontal cortex, and children exposed to a variety of stimuli and challenges may develop more quickly. (www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/prefrontal-cortex)​
  
  The prefrontal cortex is involved in a wide variety of functions, including:
  
  
• Coordinating and adjusting complex behavior
• Impulse control and control and organization of emotional reactions
• Personality
• Focusing and organizing attention
• Complex planning
• Considering and prioritizing competing and simultaneous information; the ability to ignore external distractions is partially influenced by the prefrontal cortex

One can see the distinct advantages to developing and strengthening the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Careers in science, design, visual arts and manufacturing are optimal for those with strong spatial abilities.

Eyes, ears, hands - these are only a few areas where those who learn piano can excel and accelerate brain development. Also to be taken into consideration are the use of 10 fingers, two feet, keeping time, touch, and artistic interpretation, all using different parts of the brain.




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I was so moved by this inspiring article in my college alumni magazine, that I want to share it with you. Part of the motto of the university I attended is "Enter to learn, go forth to serve." We musicians are given many opportunities to serve but sometimes we get so caught up in teaching, performing and earning a living, that we forget we have the abilities to brighten someone's day and lighten someone's load. Here is the article, written about alumni Karen Merrill Larsen from Elkhorn, Nebraska.

A Dance for the Mind

The ballerina winces as the nurse inserts an IV into the pale crook of her arm, releasing a cocktail of drugs into her body. The middle-aged patient leans back in her chair and closes her eyes. But before she falls asleep, a chorus of "oohs" and "aahs" erupts from the 30 other patients in the cancer-treatment center. She opens her eyes to see a maplewood harp entering through the door, wheeled in by a smiling Karen Larsen. Larsen moves her harp to an empty space in the room, next to the woman's chair.

Larsen's fingers begin to strum, pluck, and dance across the strings, and conversations quiet as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" fills the room.

Larsen says she is amazed at music's power to lift the spirit. In her own experiences coping with death and illness, music gave her strength to carry on. Helping others receive the same comfort "is a great privilege," says Larsen.

An hour and a half later, Larsen stands to leave. "Thank you," the dancer tells her. "I stayed awake the whole time, dancing in my mind."

Lesson 100 in my book Six-Word Lesson for Exceptional Music Lessons is "Teachers, fill your glass full first." The chapter addresses getting enough rest and not skipping meals or routine exercising so to be the "best for your students." Many studies have been done, with astounding and positive results, on how general happiness and "feeling good" can be a direct result from being kind and serving others.

In a study, published in the Journal of Social Psychology, researchers created and administered a survey which measured life satisfaction. After the survey was completed, one group of participants were instructed to perform an act of kindness, on a daily basis, for 10 days. Another group received no such instructions. After 10 days were up, the life satisfaction survey was administered again to all participants.

The group that practiced kindness showed a significant boost in happiness; the other group didn't express any different level of happiness from when they took the first survey. "The findings suggest that good deeds do in fact make people feel good - even when performed over as little as 10 days . . . " (Acts of Kindness and Acts of Novelty Affect Life Satisfaction Kathryn E. Buchanan & Anat Bardi Journal of Social Psychology Vol. 150 , Iss. 3,2010)

Teachers and musicians, let's remember to fill our glasses first by providing kind service and compassion to others using the talents with which we have been blessed.

“I was lucky enough to have parents who started me on music early, but most kids don’t get that kind of exposure.”  Joshua Bell, American violinist (picturequotes.com)

Chapter 9: How Parents Can Be Super Supportive
Lesson 82: Expose students to lots of music

At one of my city’s local malls, there is a little stage where some sort of musical performance happens every Friday night. While my granddaughter and I were having dinner at a café near the stage, the music started up, a little jazz ensemble, and she hopped down from the bar stool and just started dancing. Her mom used to do the same thing. I decided at that moment that I was going to expose this little one to as much music as I could whenever we had the opportunity to “hang out.” This is where being a “super supportive parent (and grandparent) becomes a whole lot of fun!

One weekend I took my granddaughter into Seattle to the Experimental Music Project Museum to see a Hello Kitty exhibit. While we were passing from one area to the next, we encountered a junior high school orchestra playing in the large area off the entrance. I thought my granddaughter would just hurry right through on her way to see more Hello Kitty stuff. Contrary to what I thought, she wanted to sit down and listen, so we did. She sat very politely, listened intently, shushing me at one point when I said something to her, and clapped loudly when they were finished. I don’t even think she knew what classical music was, but she knew it sounded pretty and wanted to listen.

We have seen a couple of animated musical movies together – Moana, Sing, and the recent dance movie, Leap. There is no way we can leave once the credits start rolling because she wants to get in the aisle and start dancing . . . until the music stops. And that “dancing to the music” doesn’t just happen at the movies. When she was around three years old, she would jump off my lap during church and dance as the congregation would sing the hymns.

She has attended a few of my studio recitals, loves to sit in the front row, and is pretty attentive for a six-year old! One of my students was performing at a park with another studio and I wanted to go hear him but I was caring for my granddaughter at the time. I told her I wanted to go hear some music in the park and she started jumping up and down and clapping. The weather was not very cooperative, but she stood and listened to the music, and was joined by a friend who was at the park that day.

And most recently I took her to see Aladdin at Seattle’s historic Paramount Theatre. We had tickets two rows back from the stage, right in the middle of all the more mature season ticket holders. I was a little nervous about the wiggles and nonstop talking that is characteristic of a first grader, but she did great sitting for those 2.5 hours. I was watching her reactions almost more than I was watching the show! She loved the music and as we were walking back to the car, she was skipping and humming.

The cherry on top? Just this week she asked her mom if she could take “singing lessons” from gramma!

Kids won’t know all the styles and genres of music unless they are exposed to them. Granted, they get exposed, possibly overexposed, to what’s playing on the radio or their phone’s playlist, but the world is so much wider than what they are listening too. Be a super supportive parent and open their musical world. Check out your local listings of entertainment and arts events. Just recently I saw an ad for a Halloween Children’s Concert produced by the Lake Washington Symphony Orchestra, including an instrument “petting zoo.” Can’t wait to take my granddaughter to this event. Fun times!
    

Inspiration author, William Arthur Ward, said it best: “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” (Goodreads.com)

This has been my teaching motto for as long as I can remember. I believe I was born to teach and that I was also gifted with musical abilities beyond my understanding from a very young age. The combination of these two gifts set me on my life’s path, that of being a music teacher.
 
I have recently been nominated for an educator award, and when these types of nominations come my way I never feel adequate because I did not get my degree in Music Education or Piano Pedagogy. Instead, I opted for a degree in the field of human behavior, specifically with a passion towards adolescent behavior. I believe the most critical part of teaching is understanding what makes a student “tick.” Oftentimes parents have told me that they would have terminated lessons “long ago” except they liked the way I related to their child and vice versa. 

​My natural goal in teaching is to help produce musicians that are well-rounded human beings, with the ability and desire to share their talents and to provide service in society. I don’t recall ever making it a priority to be a knuckle-rapping, wrist-slapping, perfection demanding teacher. I have had students go on to do great things (piano performance majors, Broadway performers), but I believe it’s more because I related to them as individuals and helped them to express their musical passions in their own unique ways. 
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I’ve always understood that kids may not remember all that I have taught them but they will remember how they felt during the learning experience and I have made it a point to create a joyful and passionate learning environment. Don’t get me wrong, I have extremely high expectations of my students. I set the bar high because 99.9% of the time students will meet and exceed the standard I set. (Lesson 95 – Achieving when the bar is high) We work hard, but we work hard with purpose. 

My motivation in joining various music associations has been strictly for the benefit of my students. First, these associations provide opportunities for my students to set goals to perform and be adjudicated, and second, they provide me with opportunities, through workshops and masterclasses, to better my teaching techniques and style. I believe in continuing education and a lifetime of learning. 
As a teacher, I have my students set goals at the beginning of each year. These goals are designed to teach them life skills, such as choice and accountability, time management, setting priorities, integrity, responsibility, public speaking and performing, and, of course, goal-setting. I also encourage them to explore other artistic ways to express themselves through art, poetry and writing. (Lesson 92 – Helping students prepare for the future)

So, where other teachers may have wonderful lists of degrees and certifications, that’s not me. I spend a lot of my time in volunteer positions that will benefit me as a teacher which in turn benefits my students. I love my job as a teacher! There is no greater calling!