Meet Scarlette Kerr! Scarlette is a piano teacher in North Carolina who specializes in the Barbara Lister-Sink method of technique. In this episode, she talks about her audiation journey and how Music Learning Theory and Music Moves for Piano captured her attention.
Music Learning Academy
Gordon Institute for Music Learning
The Ways Children Learn Music by Eric Bluestine
Audiation in the Wild podcast with Eric Rasmussen and Beau Taillefer
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Introduction to Audiation-based Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano
Ready to learn more about audiation-based piano instruction and Music Moves for Piano? Visit Music Learning Academy for online courses, webinars, and resources.
Want to dive into audiation-based piano instruction? Check out Music Moves for Piano by Marilyn Lowe.
Meet Scarlette Kerr! Scarlette is a piano teacher in North Carolina who specializes in the Barbara Lister-Sink method of technique. In this episode, she talks about her audiation journey and how Music Learning Theory and Music Moves for Piano captured her attention.
Music Learning Academy
Gordon Institute for Music Learning
The Ways Children Learn Music by Eric Bluestine
Audiation in the Wild podcast with Eric Rasmussen and Beau Taillefer
Support Keys to Music Learning through the Keys to Music Learning Community!
Join us on Facebook!
Introduction to Audiation-based Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano
Ready to learn more about audiation-based piano instruction and Music Moves for Piano? Visit Music Learning Academy for online courses, webinars, and resources.
Want to dive into audiation-based piano instruction? Check out Music Moves for Piano by Marilyn Lowe.
Welcome to Keys to Music Learning. I'm Krista Jadro of Music Learning Academy.
Hannah:And I'm Hannah Mayo of Mayo Piano.
Krista:Join us as we discuss common goals and challenges in the piano studio and offer research-based ideas and solutions to guide every one of your students to reach their full musical potential with audiation.
Hannah:Today, we're so excited to be chatting with Scarlette Kerr from Winston Salem, North Carolina, where she teaches privately from her independent studio, Music at 906 LLC, and is an active teacher, performer, artistic collaborator, and curriculum contributor. So welcome, Scarlette.
Scarlette Kerr:Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Krista:And we're so glad you're here. So could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, and perhaps a little bit about your music background?
Scarlette Kerr:Sure. So I guess if we go back to the very beginning, I started taking piano lessons when I was four years old. And it wasn't by choice. My parents forced me to play an instrument because they couldn't take lessons themselves growing up. So they were determined to have all their children be involved in music. So I started when I was four, I hated it, because I hated practicing. I wanted to go outside and play. But it wasn't until I moved cross country that I it was like one of those distance makes the heart grow fonder type of situations. And so I didn't have a piano for about nine months, because it was still on the other side of the country. And when I got it, I just started kind of going to the piano, playing things I was learning in music class by ear. And then eventually, to my parents surprise, I wanted to go back to piano lessons. And it kind of just stayed that way ever since I couldn't keep myself away from the piano. So I grew up playing for choirs. I grew up singing in choir, grew up playing in band and string ensembles, but piano was always my main love. So I ended up going to college for music. I got my Bachelor of Music at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. And my emphasis was accompany because I hated memorizing music. That was always a struggle for me.
Hannah:Same.
Scarlette Kerr:Yeah, and I love to collaborating with people, I love to companies, I did that a lot through my childhood. So I decided to go that route. And then after that, I did a lot of accompanying for choirs and teaching. And I discovered while I was taking a pedagogy class in college, I really loved teaching, and was really fascinated by how I teach children music and how that works. And then I after a gap year, I decided to get my masters degree. And I got my masters in music and piano performance and pedagogy with an emphasis and entry preventive keyboard technique from Salem College. It's very long title, I have to say the whole thing, because it's a very unique program. But yeah, so right now I just teach privately. And I have done some accompanying on the side. But right now I'm just kind of focusing on teaching.
Hannah:Let me ask you about the age that you were whenever you decided that you wanted to go back to piano lessons. About how old were you?
Scarlette Kerr:I was about eight years old, seven or eight years old. We moved. So I was born in Utah. We moved to Virginia when I was seven. And then there was that, you know, almost a year long gap of not having a piano until my grandparents drove it across the country. So about eight years old. And I was just plunking out tunes at the piano, that I was singing in my music class. And I would go to my music teacher and be like, "I can play this on the piano." And she'd be like, "Oh, great play on the piano for everybody." And then eventually, found myself a piano teacher who I absolutely loved. And I just kind of went from there. But over the course of my childhood, I went from being a good plunker by ear to a really good sight-reader. So I was a fantastic sight-reader. I still am but my audiation kind of got lost along the way. And then I was always stressed about the idea of memorization because I was never required to do it much growing up. So when it came time to do that for college auditions, and even in college, that was just something that gave me so much anxiety. So having an audiation come back into my life, knowing what it is, has made a huge difference for me. I know that was not the original question,
Hannah:No, that's great though.
Scarlette Kerr:But just thinking about it and like I like a streamlined thought. I'm like, yeah, like thinking about my own childhood. I recognize like how much singing played a part in my education and how that It just kind of transferred itself directly to the piano. But then that wasn't always incorporated naturally in my lessons. So yeah. And then I was taught like everybody else.
Hannah:I can relate to that. I grew up in choir. And I think that that really filled in a lot of those kind of audiational gaps, even though there were still tons later. But I think the singing really kind of helped it be better than it could have been. So I absolutely relate to that. Thanks for telling us about that. And speaking of audiation, can you kind of tell us about your audiation journey and when you discovered Music Learning Theory of when you started using Music Moves and what that discovery process was like?
Scarlette Kerr:Yeah, so going back to choir when I was in college, I sang in the University Chorale, I accompanied the university courses. At JMU, it's a very much Kodály-based school. So every beginning of class, they would do a lot of audiation exercises, I guess that's how I would describe it. Doing a lot of Kodály-based methods of training of ear training, I guess, or audiating. And that definitely strengthened my audiation a lot more. But of course, with Kodály, it's kind of intervallic. But it's still helped me with my sight-singing. I was able to kind of use solfege to help me memorize like Bach counterpoint lines in my pieces, memorizing music for marching bands. I was in marching band in college for a couple years. And so as I went into teaching, I was trying to figure out how in the world can I incorporate this skill of audiation into piano lessons, because I know it's important. I know, it's helped me. But I have no idea how to plug that in when I have all these other things I'm doing and these method books at the time. So that was something in the back of my mind, but it wasn't something that I was actively searching answers for. And when I started grad school in 2018, I was doing research for another presentation that a friend and I were doing for MTNA for their collegiate symposium. And it was about how to make your lesson planning kind of have more purposeful activities, as opposed for you doing activities for the sake of doing activities in the lesson, because you see all these presentations about games and activities you can do but it becomes so overwhelming that you think "What am I supposed to do with this? How is this supposed to help them progress in their learning?" So our presentation was about how to choose what's important to you and make that into your planning. But in the process, we were talking about learning theories, and stuff like that, and how to lesson plan around a curriculum. And I think I Googled literally "learning theories, music" or "music learning theories." And there was a whole a, there was a document that popped up. And there was like a chart. And I don't remember what it was on the chart, but I definitely remember seeing Gordon's Music Learning Theory. And it's saying it focuses on audiation. And I was like, "Wait, stop, what does this mean?" And so I remember googling "Music Learning Theory." And whenever I get caught up in a topic, I am known to jump down a rabbit hole very easily. I love Wikipedia and learning that way. So I literally Googled Music Learning Theory, I saw a podcast by Tim Topham pop up because he had an interview with Marilyn Lowe. I listened to that. And I was just absolutely blown away.
Unknown:I knew that this is what I needed to be learning and what my students needed to be doing. And so I listened to that interview, I read Eric Bluestine's How Children Learn Music. And while it was so foreign to me, it also made sense, because I saw how it was incorporated back to my college and how that applied to me with my with singing ability and inner audiation. But I was just trying so much to like, figure out how to put it with piano. And so after doing all this research, I decided to do like a research project for a class in grad school about doing a qualitative study of music teachers who use Music Moves for Piano. And in that process, I actually had to learn more about it. So I read all these articles by Cynthia Taggart, more Gordon articles, Marylin's articles, I just read so much about it. And eventually, I finally had the courage to email Marilyn, and ask her if she could answer any questions I had or what else I could be reading or we could be doing to learn more about this. And she emailed back so quickly. I'm amazed. And she said, "Thank you so much for reaching out, I'm actually going to be out your direction. Because I have a son who lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, (which is about 30 minutes away from me), and I have some connections there and might be doing a teacher's workshop. So stay tuned and I'll get back to you." And I said okay.
Scarlette Kerr:So then December came because it was going to be the during the holiday season and I reached out to her asking about more details. And she said, "Well, it did fall through. But you were more than welcome to come and sit down with me and ask any questions that you had." And I did. And we were there for three hours. And I think we were talking nonstop. It was just fantastic. I was just so excited to ask her all these questions. And she was excited to answer these questions. And I recorded that conversation, because I knew it was going to be like a nugget of knowledge. On the I remember going back and listening to it when I was picking my drive up to Virginia, for that conference that I ended up presenting for. And I was just trying to piece things together in my mind. And it was a lot to take in at first, I think it was just one of those things that when I decide to do something, I'm going to do it because this is exactly what I needed to do. So yeah, that's how I started my journey. And since then, it's been a matter of asking questions to her, reading things that she's put out, taking Krista's courses and seeing a lot of webinars through Music Learning Academy and GIML. And finally, most recently doing the PDLC. So I is just continuing to learn. And I'm just very grateful for Marilyn, for taking the time to sit down and answer these questions for me.
Krista:I think it's amazing to that you started this journey by yourself. When you were doing all this research and going down all these rabbit holes, were you talking to anybody else? Or was Marilyn, kind of that first person that you reached out to and really dove into it?
Scarlette Kerr:Yeah she was that first person. And at the same time, in the midst of my grad school courses, because I was studying something different, but related, and I'll get to that later. But I was just kind of telling my my friends in school like oh my gosh, like, I've discovered this method of teaching and it's absolutely fantastic. And it plugs so well with what we are learning when it comes to technique, because that's kind of what we were focused on in our graduate program. And everybody, of course, like everyone's like, "Oh, yeah, really, really cool." But I just kept talking about it. And I don't have to convince anybody. But I had to kind of explain it because of course it's foreign to anybody that comes across it. But once I had Marilyn join us for a pedagogy class, she Zoomed in. I think that was the beginning of her everybody else is at Salem's journey. When I first met her, but I met her for the first time and heard her speak, they were like, "Okay, I understand what our classmate's been talking about. I needed a little more for myself.
Hannah:So you actually got other teachers to kind of come over to the Music Moves/audiaiton side of teaching. That's amazing.
Scarlette Kerr:Yeah. And and I think it was kind of like the universe colliding, because she came and spoke to us, oh, well zoomed in and spoke to us in Spring of 2019. And Fall 2019, there was another student who had joined the master's program from Canada, who was one of Janna Olsen's former students, and so she had been introduced to Music Moves for Piano as So we were already on that same mindset. And we, all of us there well. And that fall, we had Marylin come and do a workshop at Salem in person. And so it was just the right timing of the right minded students. Because of course, every cohort is different. Every cohort has their own priorities. But all of us at the time, were really passionate about being good piano teachers, good pedagogues. And because we were so focused on the pedagogy of training, motor skills, and also training for good healthy technique at the piano, that same process is embedded with Music Learning Theory. were like, "Yeah, this is it." And so it was like a whole group of converters, I guess, to Music Learning Theory. And at the same time in Marylin joined Salem colleges graduate certificate program for injury-preventative keyboard technique, she was just as enthusiastic about it, and in turn, brought a lot of MLT or Music Moves teachers to Salem's program with Dr. Barbara Lister-Sink. And so we have this like, small unique, but continually growing community, of teachers that just kind of understand what it means to sequence not only like music learning, but also motor skill learning, and try to tie that together at the same time. And I don't think I've ever met a group of teachers, and more so within the whole broad Music Moves community, whether or not they have been to Salem or not, I've never met a group of teachers who have been so mindful of how students learn in all aspects of life, not just music, but also like how they physically develop, how they mentally and emotionally develop. I've never seen that anywhere else, in no other professional forum. So it's been an awesome journey to experience since Fallof 2018 and here we are four years later.
Hannah:Yeah, that is one of the beauties of our community is like you're always hearing about what does the student need? My student needs this or I have a student that's... this is happening with a student-please help and less about I need to be teaching this way, or how can I teach this? Or how can I teach that but more about how will they learn this? How will they learn that? Yeah, it's a beutiful thing.
Krista:And it really is a special community too. And I don't know if you remember, but I met you in Quincy. Right. Because Maryland did a workshop there that must have been was that 2019 too. I don't know, I'm lost.
Scarlette Kerr:Yeah that was August, I think 2019. And so that's what another classmate and I went up there and did it again. And I we learned even more. And so we just asked, we just wanted more all the time. And I think even now, it's like, we could always be learning something new, like I'm learning something new every day. But it's hard to grasp at the beginning. But I think the more that you hear someone talk about it and kind of walk through it with you, the more you're like, okay, it clicks, then you revisit it again later. And it clicks. I'm trying to read Learning Sequences in Music right now. And I'm on like, chapter five or six. And I remember when I attended, I attempted to read it back in 2018. Everything was like, over my head. It was almost like trying to read a different language. I'm reading in English, but I have no idea what Gordon is saying. Now, when they come back to it four years later, I'm like, "Yes, yes. Oh, yes. That's what he's talking about. I understand this. I understand that." So if you've ever, anybody who's listening, if you've ever tried to read Learning Sequences in Music, and have been absolutely overwhelmed, take a break from it, come back to it in six months, a year, two years. And it'll make more sense every time.
Hannah:Yeah, I think we go back to it at least once a year. Yeah. And it does make a little bit more sense. And I'm actually since you brought it up about going to the PDLC this summer, we talk about PDLCs a lot on this podcast. And I think not everybody has a clear image of what that is. So maybe you could tell us just a little bit about your PDLC experience this summer.
Scarlette Kerr:Yeah, I mean, technically, it's not done. Because we have our virtual, we have our virtual sessions coming up. But this year, I did the Piano Level One. And we had, like 20, or 21 of us were in Burlington, Massachusetts for a week. And we were just learning about the practical aspects of using Music Learning Theory, in the piano studio. So every morning we had musicianship time, we sang, we chanted, we were the student, essentially, and the sang and audiatied in different tonalities, we improvise singing and chanting in different tonalities. We learned what a Keyboard Games lesson looks like, and how we would set that up. And we would practice teaching that in groups. We learned what the lesson plan looks like for Book One, and also did that in groups. So we talked about repertoire, and how we would kind of scaffold the sequence of introducing a repertoire piece with the student, which having incorporated that in my studio, immediately afterwards has been absolutely a game changer. I love it. I'm just I got so much out of that PDLC. Oh, my goodness, we wrote our own chants, we wrote our own songs. We got to improvise with the piano from a piece from Music Moves. And it was just, I always learned by being a student. And I'm always watching what the teacher is doing. But at the same time, I'm also enjoying this experience as a student, and I got so much out of it. Because when you get to experience something, you're able to process it better, and then be able to look at that perspective of being a student. And that informs how you are as a teacher. I think if anybody is ever interested in a PDLC is something that you should do, because I thought I knew a lot going into the pdlc turned out I do like maybe, like 5% and I was like doing like 5% of what I should be doing. So my goal this year is to be doing like least 25% of what I should be doing as a teacher. And as always more and it's going to be overwhelming at first, I think you just kind of add these things little by little. And you're reminded when you go to these workshops and webinars or when you listen to podcasts of other things that you can be doing. And then your it'll be a different state of mind at that point. And that you can incorporate that. So yeah, I had a fantastic time. And I'm looking forward to the virtual sessions, starting this week to finish the PDLC.
Krista:Yeah, we're gonna dive more into the Learning Sequences in Music also during the virtual sessions. But there is an energy that really can't be matched virtually when you're together with all of these other teachers and as you said, getting into the small groups, really connecting, teaching each other, getting each other's feedback. I think that's just so important. That's why there can never be...we've had people ask...there could never be an entirely virtual PDLC because we would not have that same experience with the musicianship and singing together. And it was just, there were a lot of wonderful, memorable moments as a group.
Scarlette Kerr:Absolutely.
Hannah:Something very therapeutic about a group of people singing together where some are singing melody and some are singing bass line. And then we start adding harmony to these baselines, and we're singing in three part harmony. I mean, there's nothing like it.
Scarlette Kerr:No, there isn't. It is so cool. We should start an audiation acapella group and just do this.
Hannah:I have thought the same thing. We need the Gordon choir.
Scarlette Kerr:Exactly. And the cool part is that not everybody is a choral singer, but they felt that they can still contribute to singing. Singing is still that foundational aspect of it And you don't necessarily have to be a choral singer to participate in that. And I thought that was awesome.
Hannah:And I just want to circle back to Eric Bluestine, and the author of The Ways Children Learn Music. If anybody's interested in hearing him speak, he did an interview on the podcast Audiation in the Wild with Beau Taillefer and Eric Rasmussen. I highly recommend it. He's a really wonderful person to listen to. Very thoughtful. And I'm glad you brought that up. So I can announce that.
Scarlette Kerr:Yeah, I've heard about that. I need to listen to that episode.
Krista:So Scarlett, thanks so much for talking about your audiation journey. But we'd love to have you on for another episode to talk about your studies with Dr. Lister-Sink and how you've combined what you've learned in her program with Music Moves for Piano.
Scarlette Kerr:Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it.
Krista:Great, thank you so much, and we'll see you soon.