2023 MTNA Ohio Conference Take-Away: Why developing music appreciation through lessons and concert attendance matters
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Music Teachers National Association 2023 state-level Ohio Conference. It was held here in Columbus, OH from Thursday through Saturday. Thank you to all of my students who moved their lesson time so that I could attend! Continuing professional development is important for individuals in every field. One of the most effective ways to foster growth and creativity, facilitate necessary changes, acquire new skills, be encouraged in your work, navigate important decisions, and expand your professional network is through connecting with fellow professionals in your field. Ultimately, my attendance at an event like this benefits my students, so I wanted to share with you some of my 'big picture’ thoughts post-conference. In a second blog post (linked below), I will give a summary of some of the workshops that might have points useful for beginner pianists and the parents of children in piano lessons.
I was reminded of the potentially profound life-long impact for a student who makes the commitment to taking music lessons and sticking that journey out for some period of time. The impact of taking music lessons can potentially be even greater when a student is able to see and hear high-level artists perform live. It is important to listen to music while actually being in the same space as the performers!
During the conference, I spent hours immersed in listening and watching skilled musicians play and engaged with teachers in conversations about teaching music. This left me reflecting on the genuine significance and value of investing time and effort into studying music and learning to play it with some degree of competence. When I think of ‘playing music well,’ I am not necessarily talking about playing professionally– something that a limited number of people will be interested in pursuing and which even fewer will attain. Rather I am thinking of a person who reaches a solidly intermediate to late intermediate level and can learn new music at that level independently. Achieving that level still will require several years of commitment and effort for the typical student, but it is definitely possible with dedication and a good teacher. I also believe the time, resources, and effort spent on music lessons can produce some intangible results that can really have a valuable contribution to a person’s life in the big picture.
I really believe that studying music can bring about increased human flourishing. While there are many ways in which this is so (Start researching about the benefits of musical study and you will find that there are many!), post-conference I was particularly left with a sense of appreciation for the value of the sum total of all that has gone into a wonderful musical performance. A good performer has put in significant time and effort to develop musical skills. A student who is working for a degree of competence and independence as a musician will most likely gain a greater appreciation not only for music, but for people - because they will understand the performer as a whole person who has persevered through the highs and lows of practice in order to gain the ability to create an effective artistic performance.
Students in music lessons will experience joys and frustrations through the process of growing their skills. Those who learn how to persevere through those challenges will build character personally and will also learn to appreciate many things in life - most of all, the actual person behind the end product. As we work on our skills, the process of musical study has the potential to lead us to a larger and deeper appreciation for the value of human life and the output and impact of that life on others. Every person and every life has inherent and equal value that is not due to our achievements or accomplishments - but, we also each do have gifts and abilities that we can grow and develop for our own benefit and for the benefit of others. When we also encounter others and receive from and appreciate their gifts (including listening to a musical performance live), our own experience of study can give us a much greater appreciation for what that performer is doing when they share their gift with us. Out of that appreciation for the gifts of others and the labor involved in developing our gifts, we can grow in our sense of connectedness with others, love and appreciate others more deeply, and gain greater humility …and all of those things can make us better contributors to those around us. Learning to play music enables us to cultivate the gifts of artistry, effective communication, and meaningful connection with others. So, one of the end results of taking music lessons may be a deeper awareness of the value of a person and gratitude for the gifts that we receive from others when they share their skills and creations with us - whether that gift is an artistic and meaningful musical performance, a well-prepared meal, or something that is designed well and created with expertise for us to use, for example.
Working on musical skills can bring a deeper overall appreciation for the value of human life, the experience of others, and a deeper appreciation for life itself.
Here is what I wrote on my Facebook Business Page immediately following the conference:
“Finished up a 2.5 day piano conference this afternoon and at present one of my biggest take-aways is just my own philosophical musing on the value of music and of the work that I am doing when I teach a student to play an instrument.
“There are a lot of reasons why I think that part of what we develop as we develop the ability to play an instrument is that when we play an instrument with an intention to do so well and to express and communicate something that connects with an audience (artistry) - then whether or not the person playing is spiritual - there is a sacredness to what we are doing in the sense of holding each note with care and knowing that our movements matter, the decisions that we make matter and they are all part of creating a whole and something that has the potential to be truly wonderful. So, I think one of the things that matters about someone learning to play an instrument well, or to sew well, or any number of things that involve the development of a high level of fine motor skills, attention and coordination is that it teaches one to CARE and to hold both the things that we create and the people that create them as sacred - not simply to be easily consumed or thrown away.
I think this is also a good reason to go listen to high level playing LIVE, because to see a performance live is to see someone who has put in the time to craft that skill and who is holding that instrument with a sense of care - and that can also impart to us a sense of appreciation for the cumulative effect of the things that we do and what they produce both personally and corporately. I think the whole world needs more of that right now - so here is your encouragement to go hear some live music soon and to not just listen to it, but to see it being made, because to watch good musicians play is quite a different experience from just listening to music through headphones or over a speaker. Grateful today for the opportunity to both play music and to listen to/watch other musicians.”
I hope that sometime previously you have already enjoyed listening to Alicia Keys' music in the styles that she is most well-known for. She is an award winning R&B pop, soul and hip-hop artist - but I think it’s worth noting that prior to that success, she had learned to read music (you can see her reading the score on stage), interpret classical music artistically, and probably (since she is a composer) she had developed an understanding of music theory. Alicia Keys is "a classically trained pianist, Keys started composing songs when she was 12 and was signed at 15 years old by Columbia Records” Wikipedia Alicia Keys
A couple of weeks ago, Taylor Swift’s music director, David Cook, was here in Columbus, Ohio – visiting his mom! His mother Janice Cook was a local piano teacher who taught for 50 years (she is still active in MTNA and the piano community at large). She taught her son through the Bastien piano method. (I occasionally use that method as a supplement, but I believe the newer Piano Safari method offers parallel skills with additional strengths and greater accessibility, as well as more variety of musical styles.) Janice’s son David, is not only the music director for Taylor Swift, he is also the music director for several other high-level popular artists. He got his start with learning many of the same basic skills in the Bastien piano method that students are learning at FFMS – and at the conference I heard that he has said that he still uses those basics every day in his work - things such as scales and transposition. (Read about what a music director does for an artist at Berklee - Music Director)
Throughout my years of professional-level music involvement, I have bumped up against artists who hold space in a variety of corners of the music world. When I ask them about their background, I have frequently found that the highest-level artists of any genre have at least some 'classical' background and training. While a person may not remain primarily a classical musician, the background of skills and artistry gained through this type of study seems to have set a path for success for many accomplished musicians. In my own conversations with performing artists, I have also found that most of them do actually read music, which is a skill that does require some considerable time and effort to acquire. In the video above we see that Alicia Keys is reading the music for the Moonlight Sonata on stage. (By the way, that’s not an easy piece she is playing. See it and download it for free here: Moonlight Sonata) Keys is playing expressively -and not only due to her emotions surrounding Kobe Bryant’s death- as a musical artist she feels the emotions that Beethoven wrote into the Moonlight Sonata and finds that these musical sounds are fit for the mixture of grief, loss, loneliness and maybe even anger surrounding Bryant’s untimely death.
To truly be an artist who connects with an audience, one has to care about developing the necessary tools for expression. This commonly takes years of patient, intentional effort and ongoing engagement. Personally, I am not really aiming for my students to become classical pianists. I hope they play pop music and I will incorporate it into lessons when I see that the student has acquired the skills to play it. (This week several students in my studio are working on an arrangement of Love Story by Taylor Swift).
I do want to emphasize to both parents and students however, that you can unknowingly undermine the process of becoming even a truly competent and good intermediate-level musician; a musician who has the ability to learn new music independently (without the help of a teacher) and a musician who may even perform some as an adult - even if it’s just locally and not at a high-level event. How can reaching these goals be unknowingly undermined? I think there are two primary ways. The first is attempting to skip over truly gaining necessary foundational skills for the end goal of playing only songs the student knows and wants to play. The second is not understanding how long it will likely take to learn those skills. I believe sometimes this happens out of a parent or student mistakenly believing that the methods are solely useful for developing the skills for classical music and that they just want to play ‘real songs’. (The music in the method books is real music by the way! These songs and skills are also not strictly classical and they are relevant to other genres. Many of the accompaniments are definitely not classical in style!) I think undermining reaching musical goals can also happen when the amount of time that it takes to really develop these skills is not understood. For most people, it will take years of practice and study to reach these goals. My hope then, for both parents and students reading this is to shed some light on what is the foundation for making music in any style and to encourage patience.
I definitely want my students to find and play music that they love! I don’t want to see their ability to actually gain the necessary skills to play that music fail due to either a mistaken belief about the length of time it takes to develop those skills or a mistaken understanding about what are the actually necessary tools that are being acquired through the lessons and the use of methods.
It is important to realize that the training that has led to the success of your favorite pop, rock and other artists of diverse genres, has quite likely included at least some of the same training and development of tools and skills that we are working through in lessons at FFMS. It is also important to realize that while these well-known artists may not currently be performing classical music, many of these musicians have worked hard through practice to hone their skills and artistry- including through having played actual classical music. My teaching approach is aimed at unlocking the doors for artistic expression and developing a student’s ability to be an independent musician in whatever genre they choose. There is a development of necessary skills needed to play music that can’t really be skipped over. These are skills that folks like Alicia Keys or Taylor Swift's music director have developed, at least in part from pretty standard approaches to learning the piano in lessons! Everyone has to start somewhere and will need to cover much of the same ground regardless of what one hopes to play or what level one will reach. Some things are fundamentally the same for the majority of excellent musicians.
If you have time and interest, here is another Flourishing Foundations Blog post with a synopsis of some of the workshops that I attended at the MTNA conference. 2023 MTNA Ohio Conference: Notes for Parents and Students
Wishing you musical flourishing!
Christine, FFMS Owner/Teacher
