Playing an Instrument is Like a Superhero Quest

One of your core principles is that music is transformative. And I love your infographic on that, thank you for allowing me to post it. Would you speak on that topic a bit?

I think that when we're training to be a musician, especially a creative musician, it’s like superhero or Jedi master training. It's a challenging adventure. It is transformative and it's character building. We have the physical training, but there is a lot of mental training that goes with it too. Actually, I used to teach martial arts. That's how I put myself through music school, teaching karate. Music training is similar to martial arts training except the outcome isn't physical like self-defense – musicians are warriors of creativity.

Ninety-nine percent of the world thinks when they're learning music that they're learning a creative art. But when we look at how music is taught still today, 2020, most students are learning other people's songs and basically regurgitating music other people wrote. So, they're very much at the level of rote and recall and it's not a creative process at all.

I want to support the creative aspect of music. And one of my biggest passions that I advocate for is encouraging and developing creativity.

Music is a language and we're meant to communicate the truth of our own heart... our playfulness and our every emotion through the language of music. But really, the way we're learning music would be the equivalent of learning to type instead of learning to write your own story just typing in somebody else's story that you've copied. So, we can become robots and just uncreative people.

I feel that going through a music conservatory or a college music program in certain instances can even suck the creativity out of people. At least that's how I feel about my own journey of going to college for music. When I first became interested in music as a kid, I was really creative and made up songs and just kind of noodled around or picked up melodies by ear. And then by the time I was done with music school, I was playing classical music passages over and over and then beating myself up when I made a mistake. And then 10 years go by and where did my creativity go? So at that point I had to take a step back and reclaim my joy for music because it has become like a rote, repetition kind of practice somehow.

Your story is actually normal. That's the majority of people. You start out creative and then quickly become afraid of making a mistake. It's a big issue that you do become afraid of making that mistake. And then your skills are so high technically that you don't give yourself permission to create. It's a big deal. So part of the MW Teacher Training is about holding that safe space for kids to create and look at music as an art.

When you think of a child learning to paint: if they scribble something on a piece of paper and hand it to you, you might say "Well, that's amazing. Look at the colors." Then you might even ask "What was it?" Kids always have a story… this scribble means that and this means this and this means that. So, we can have these same finger-painting activities from day 1 with music students where they can plunk or tinkle or tinker and go, "Oh, this is the elephant in the sky on a star and this is that." Or whatever is happening. If they could articulate it and accept the safe space, then more and more musicality emerges over time.

If someone wants to develop into a great musician, they need to master more advanced concepts and techniques. Sometimes those things are not exactly fun to learn at the moment we are learning, but satisfying later, after we are empowered by our hard work. How do you find that balance of having fun and also incorporating serious study?

When we have a young student, if they want to become a serious musician, that will probably emerge after some initial successes and we don't need to transfer our own ideals onto them. That will emerge on its own. They'll have to take the initiative for that. So we don't need to overlay that pressure early on. And what we do need to do is get results.

Music is a language. So, when we think about learning a language, first we learn a couple of words and then baby talk and start by just playing around. We would never set a child down and say, "You can't talk or make up stories until you can read all of these words perfectly.” But that's often done at early music lessons. The teacher says "Here is the C, here is the D, now play CDCD..." which is boring and also it's bad teaching because it's not the way language is taught.

My books, even though they have comics, are actually incredibly serious. I have a degree in elementary education. I really studied language arts and how the brain learns languages. I'm incredibly serious about those patterns, and play is important for the formation of an individual and our brain. Learning the patterns, which is the vocabulary of music, is essential to have music happening immediately as well as creative exploration.

Do you think parents should make their kids practice?

I never hear people saying that they resent their parents making them continue. But I hear a lot of stories that people think their parents should not have let them quit. I think there is something positive to be said about a parent who commits to music being a part of the child's education.

We're going to have peaks and valleys and oftentimes progress isn't linear. Progress usually stays level, breakthrough, then level up, pause, breakthrough... So, it's up to the parent and the teacher to provide high-quality instruction.

What kinds of things do you start beginners out with?

Well, there is an individualized component. One of our school's core principles is interest-based learning or free-range learning. So, if some students are more interested in rhythm, others are interested in improvisation or storytelling. We can do a lot based on their interest and individualize it. And we have a lot of material. It's not all on Amazon. I have 50 books and some of them are just only exclusive to the MW school right now. Some of them will come out over time. But the Super Start Piano Books are on Amazon and All-Star Piano Patterns which is a Core Crash Course for younger kids. Note Quest is a collection of drills for note reading.

The Super Start and All Star books are a small taste of what all of our teachers are trained at... encouraging improv and creativity right away. Part of what we do is just jam and explore on the piano or guitar. Let's explore, let's do it from day 1. Also, we start out with making our own storm just to teach that there is no wrong note. Let's crash, let's play high, let's play well. Let's have a freedom to sound terrible and make mistakes and creative freedom is established at the beginning.

Patterns are like the Legos of music. So, during training, we make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the PB, is for pattern book where we're teaching patterns. And then jam, we're always doing some kind of jam. And the regular lesson books are just like bread. You got to have them, they're nice. But teaching only with lesson books is not well rounded. Repertoire and lesson books are the bread. So, what we're adding is the patterns and the jam which are essential. There are many lesson books to choose from. I don't like the older beginner lesson books because they move too fast. To learn to read, you just need frequent repetition and you want it to be easy. So, you could pick up any of the common lesson books that are out there. They all have flaws. They all have pros and cons.

But without teaching as a language, without the patterns and the empowerment, without the jamming, teaching just from lesson books is very low-level learning.

The classical players I know mostly say the same thing. "I'm terrible at improvising. I'm terrible at jazz. It's so hard." I have a friend who is a phenomenal classical player. One day she asked me, "Is this a major chord or minor chord?" And it blew my mind that she could be so great, but yet doesn't know the difference between a major and a minor chord. Wow, how does that happen?

Some people don't take too well to divergent thinking and it can lead to a little less confidence than joy. So, they have somebody celebrating that innovation and creativity and courage of not being afraid of playing a wrong note. Play is really crucial for those divergent thinkers.

The world needs creative solutions for a brighter future. We need people to be creative or at the very least understand and celebrate the creative process. You'll see many articles coming out now that say creativity is a crucial skill for the future. That's where the transformation comes in, with a safe space that allows opportunities for creativity.