It's not just another piano lesson… It's a physical, intellectual, and spiritual journey!
Learning Goals Isn’t it curious (and so very unfortunate) that we all go to school for years and years without ever learning how our brain, the very organ that we are trying to change in the process, works? It is no wonder that piano lessons (and education in general) are often synonymous with drudgery and frustration.
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Did you know… that talented musicians do not have some kind of rare and special superhuman capability to think about enormous strings and sequences of random unrelated isolated notes? Nobody is that “smart”! Watch to learn more about to make maximum use of your naturally pattern-loving, pattern-seeking brain… learn more… Physical Ease
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Unfortunately most of us are never taught to play music.. we’re taught how to play notation! We can do better… lots better! learn more… Theory & Practice
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“Memorization” is in quotes because the goal of studying is not to memorize a piece of music like you memorize a sequence of random numbers. The real goal is to understand a piece intimately… by tapping into all aspects of the music: sight, sound, thought, action, and emotion… thus absorbing its patterns and essence into your eyes, ears,
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In order to illustrate the amazing power of patterns, let’s try a fun little memory challenge in four parts… Part 1. Memorize the following letter/symbol pairs… Give yourself about 30 seconds to do so, then scroll down to Part 2… | | | | | | | | | | | | Part 2. Count backwards
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Your brain is a natural seeker, recognizer, discriminator, assimilator, interpreter, relater, combiner, connector, and creator of PATTERNS. Your brain loves patterns and hates randomness. For example: “!nkcsrveeeoo htB” is no fun to read because it’s just an apparent jumble of random symbols with no apparent meaning. “Beethoven rocks!” is fun to read because it contains recognizable
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Recall is a much tougher memory task than recognition, as illustrated by two everyday examples: It is easier to remember someone’s face than to remember someone’s name. This is because you recognize a face, but you have to recall a name. Reciting something by heart is tougher than reading something out loud. This is because you have
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A major goal of studying music is to turn several disconnected pieces of information or behaviors into one unified, meaningful idea or behavior. Such integration of many parts into integrated wholes is called chunking. Chunking is a huge contributor to music mastery because it simplifies the work that our brains have to do. Chunking allows us
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“Memorization” is in quotes because the goal of studying is not to memorize something like you memorize a sequence of random numbers. Instead, you want to know something intimately in multiple dimensions. Knowing transcends mere memorization; it is deeper and broader and all encompassing. Such intimacy with the music is achieved by getting its patterns and essence
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