Community Chat with Felicity Breen (Part 2)

In this episode, Felicity discusses how she introduced Music Moves for Piano to her students and why she chose to delay telling parents. She also talks about specific challenges, such as overcoming the newness of moving, singing, and chanting and successes, such as her increased retention rate, the comfort students have at her recitals, and teaching a very special person in her life to play.

Notation Observations for Little Gems Pieces
Keyboard Games Course 

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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.

Transcript

Hannah: 1:14

Welcome to Keys to Music Learning. I'm Hannah Mayo of Mayo Piano.

Krista: 1:18

And I'm Krista Jadro of Music Learning Academy.

Hannah: 1:22

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.

Krista: 1:36

We are back today with our friend Felicity Breen. Welcome back, Felicity.

Felicity: 1:42

Thank you. Lovely to be here.

Krista: 1:44

Felicity is a piano teacher from Perth, Australia. And today we would love to focus on your Music Moves Piano journey. And to start, maybe you could tell us about how you introduced Music Moves to your piano studio? Did you go all in with your students? Or did you slowly start to incorporate it into what you were already doing?

Felicity: 2:09

Yeah, so I went pretty slowly. I did go pretty slowly. So I told my students, not the parents, just the students that I'd been reading about this interesting guy called Gordon(1927 to 2015). They know all their composers dates, so they needed to know Gordon as well. And I told him that this guy had done a lot of research about how we learn when we learn music. I showed them a photo of Dr. Edwin E. Gordon. And we'd been through this already with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865 to 1950). So they knew about Dacroze, when I was doing my training, I had my students then. The students got to see a photo of Jaques-Dalcroze as well. And I don't know if you've seen a photo of him, but he's got this very curly mustache, and it's quite a fashionable man. Very interesting looking. So Dalcroze compared to Dr. Gordon, Dr. Gordon look much more like a scientist. Anyway, they found that entertaining, and I asked each and every one of my students if they would mind if I spent a few minutes experimenting on some newer ideas. In the lecture CDs, this was Gordon's suggestion. He said that we just asked our students directly, "Can I experiment on you?" I've took him literally. And he also added, I think you'll find students will be glad to oblige. And my students were absolutely glad to oblige. I actually didn't tell parents at first, because I'd already told them about my Dalcroze activities that I were doing, they were either super keen or completely neutral. They trusted me. Just a little segway, when I grew up in the 1970s, it was a time of educational experiment, experimentation. kindy and school was situated close to the university, so there was a culture of constant learning. And I remember being the subject of experiments on proprioception in kindy, and just being fascinated by the student teachers, and they were learning from me. So that just felt so cool. And both my violin and piano teachers were really upfront about experimenting with the Suzuki method. And looking back now I absorbed much of that experimental approach to teaching and learning. I never felt compelled to give big announcements to parents. But I did send an important newsletter home after I could see things were really, really working quite dramatically. And I framed it as we're having a lot of fun with these new methods. And students seem to be grasping concepts a lot faster than traditional method books that we've been using. So by the end of 2019, I started the task of transitioning to crossover lessons, and that's still what I do now. So students will have 30 to 40, 45 minutes on their own, and 15 to 30 minutes with with a partner. And it still works really, really well. So that whole social learning, individualizing instruction in groups, (or just two), and ensemble playing, became so much more part of my curriculum. And so I think the path to MLT in my studio felt very natural and parents are busy people these days. I'm lucky they mostly trusted me it was an organic process.

Hannah: 5:31

I like your point about just being direct with the students. And there have been many times where I will tell students, "We're going to try this. I do not know if it's going to work. I don't know if I'll try it ever again after this moment, but we're going to try it and see how it goes." And they're just like, "okay."

Felicity: 5:52

Totally accepting.

Hannah: 5:57

So that sounds like a pretty lovely way to find MLT and to start incorporating these approaches and audiation. But did you run into any challenges? Could you tell us about that?

Felicity: 6:09

So yeah, in a nutshell, I think the word would be "weirdness." So my youngest daughter, then around 14 said,"Mom, weird is your strength." And I carried that mantra with me as I started work each day. Until one day, it started to feel like the new normal. It's uncomfortable to move when you haven't been moving. It's uncomfortable to sing when you haven't been singing. Chanting is even weirder. The chanting took me quite a while to get my mind around that you could take the tonal strand out of music and you're left with a chant with vocal inflection. These were real challenges and I felt them. That feeling just dissipated over time. I was lucky that the Kodaly tonal solfege system is used in many schools around me. So that wasn't a challenge for students. But unfortunately the Kodaly rhythm syllable system is used widely here. And it caused confusion to begin with. Different teachers also have different, slightly different, systems. But my students tell me now they much prefer the Du-des, the Gordon/Froseth beat function syllable system is so intuitive that it works immediately. Another challenge I faced was I had trouble piecing together all the elements of the Keyboard Games lesson. So this was before Krista's amazing course which everyone has to do. So I reached out to Emma Barson, she had been teaching Music Music Piano in Adelaide for quite a few years and had a couple of sessions with her. And she just ran through the lesson plan. And it all just made sense. She also showed me a Trello board she had and she had all these different sections that she could move things around and I suddenly saw Keyboard Games listen as a giant mosaic. So that really helped.

Hannah: 8:00

It's like that Rachmaninoff quote, "Music is It is a challenge to try and do everything but I have never try to. And can I quote Janna Olson she recently said, "If you're waiting to arrive at a place of fully understanding everything MLT don't, it's a process." enough for a lifetime. A lifetime is not enough for music." I feel exactly the same way about Music Learning Theory and about audiation-based piano, it never stops. And that that's one of the things that was so inspiring about Marilyn, is that she just had such this love of learning. And you could feel that in the method. And you could feel that in her mentorship. And what an inspiration to never cease learning and to have something in your life that will never get old, you'll always be learning something new. It's a great point.

Felicity: 8:55

That's very true. That Marilyn being that model for us.

Krista: 8:59

She was teaching Luci. And even earlier this year, she was telling me I have been working on some new things. And she was trying them with Luci and she was trying them with her students. And she was just so excited, because she was constantly learning. We're all constantly learning with Music Learning Theory, and it's exciting.

Hannah: 9:20

And experimenting.

Krista: 9:21

And experimenting. Absolutely. So you mentioned that your students were learning and they were learning quicker. And you told the parents about these successes. What were some of the other successes that your students were having? And how did you know that it was working for them?

Felicity: 9:46

Well, my incredibly high retention rate. It was unbelievable. It still is. That's one thing. And I hear a lot of people talk about that as well. Students are happy. Another thing was a recital that I had in September, might have been August, I can't remember now. This year, I had my middle of the year recital. And it really represented four and a half years of me using MLT in my lessons. I felt relaxed. For the first time I felt really really relaxed. The students were at ease. They were changing their pieces. Slips were not stressful. There was no "I made a mistake." They just carried on. They knew they were audiating. They were excited to share and all that baggage that I was carrying about technique was all irrelevant. I'm sure some students are still learning how to coordinate but the motivation, the engagement, the creativity and the audiation was so obviously present in each student. I get regular comments from students that they enjoy music. They enjoy being in a music class at school and being able to play for their classmates. They identify as musicians. I get regular comments that students are beatboxing, singing, and creating at the piano constantly. There are some reluctant practices and they come in and they create something new and they just don't want to leave. Many students just don't want to go home. There's laughter in the lessons now. One little five year old loves to end on a note that shocks me. He loves unusual sounds. A regular method book would have put a lid on that. And these results from all students. Early in 2020, just before the pandemic, here's another example. My husband who never had any music growing up, happened to mention that it was too late for him to learn to play the piano. I saw this as a challenge. And I asked if I could teach him so we went through book one, and we both witnessed something, you know, like a miracle. By the end of the year, he was playing the slow movement of the Moonlight Sonata, the following year, he was playing Scott Joplin's The Entertainer. He was creating. He was improvising. Yeah, it was just really quite amazing. MLT has helped me keep students who would have walked away, thinking music is not for them. And that just means the world to me. And I think Marilyn gave us this huge gift. It renewed my interest in teaching, in music and art, in learning and sharing with others and in life.

Hannah: 12:22

That is inspiring. It makes me think of the many times... because I grew up with a very middle C notation based approach. And it just reminds me of all the times where I did not feel like a musician. And I thought, "This is not for me, I'm not good enough. I'm not musical enough." And then I somehow got through all of that and I managed to continue studying music. And then when someone finally showed me that I was musical, and that happened before MLT. But when MLT came around, it just solidified all of my inner musicality so much. And it started with an aural approach in college. And we got away from notation quite a bit with my college piano professor. And that was sort of the beginning. And I just remember all of the new feelings that I was having after 12-13 years of piano lessons. And then here it is, all it took was just to put the notation aside for a minute and get in your body and get in your ears and get in your mind and then, oh, you're musical. That's amazing that your husband was playing the Moonlight Sonata.

Felicity: 13:48

Can you imagine? Yeah, his feeling and now he just can't get off the piano. I actually, it kind of annoys me a little bit. We've, we kind of fight for it now.

Hannah: 14:03

And the students fight for it too. You know, you say,"Okay, we're gonna have a little practice recital, who wants to go first?" And they're all their hands shoot up, and they all want to play or they come in and they tell you stories of, "I played the piano for my music class this week."

Felicity: 14:17

I've had that so many times.

Hannah: 14:18

That's great, you just wanted to do that. So amazing. And I remember feeling I would never do that. As a child, I would not want to play. People had to coax me to play the piano in front of people.

Felicity: 14:31

Yeah, yeah, I got to that point, too.

Hannah: 14:34

So in the last episode, you mentioned the parents didn't seem to have many questions and that they trusted you. And I'm wondering, did you ever have any parents that were skeptical? Did anyone ever question you about it? And if so, how did you handle that?

Felicity: 14:59

Yes, and I have a good recent example. One parent just recently asked what would happen if I was to stop teaching at any point would her daughter be able to transfer to a traditional teacher, like a teacher who teaches in a traditional method? So it was kind of a loaded question, I felt, this parent has also been quite skeptical about the patterns, and occasionally wanting to change the way I do things. The grandmother was a piano teacher, and the husband was having lessons with another piano teacher. The student herself was transferred from that teacher. There was quite a lot of checking up going on, and I think the student picked up on this tension. So as calmly as I could, again, I explained MLT using the language learning analogy as best I could. I reminded her that I use an audiation-based method and that we work on music skills that we can bring to notation eventually. When I explain this to her (I've done it several times), she seems to understand at that moment, but there's only so much explaining we can do. And it's hard for teachers to understand MLT, let alone for parents, I feel. After a while, it can get a little bit draining. So I was inspired to create an information video for parents that they could refer to and I could refer them to. Incidentally, many parents instinctively understand the process. I feel it's harder for parents who have been exposed to traditional instruction. So the video the aim is to better match suitable families to the way I teach. I don't expect parents to watch the whole thing. But at least now I can refer to it at the first sign of skepticism. So in say, six months, if parents say, Why isn't their six year-old not reading? I can point to the video. "Did you see the video?" And, you know, ask them perhaps to watch it again and see if they can get some more out of it.

Unknown: 17:06

The video is also for finding families who value my philosophy and skill set, and reminding families of my philosophy and skill set if and when questions arise. And in terms of that big question, when is my child going to be able to read music, I now actually incorporate notation in my lessons a lot more than I used to. But I do it informally, like printed words are in a child's environment and children see their parents read. I think it's actually quite good for students to see a music notation environment and to see me reading music. I also teach the five note parts earlier than I used to, point out melodic direction, tell them that when they see a dot after a note here, that's the three underlying microbeats. And I'll have them start to think about, you know, when they're writing out, and they forgot to the reading and writing book and they're writing Du-de Du Du-de Du, I'll say to them, or what do you think, Duta-deta Duta-deta ta ta Du looks like and so I get them to, you know, think about notation. And perhaps that kind of puts parents mind at ease that the, the children are actually talking about notation, even if they're not actually directly decoding.

Hannah: 18:26

In talking about notation, and using it as kind of an informal, we're just looking, we're not trying to decode just yet, as an intermediate step to notational audiation reminded me of some notes on the Music Moves for Piano website that I just want everyone to know about if they don't already. And if you go to the Music Moves site and find the supplemental materials and scroll down to the Little Gems for Piano, it's called Creative Primer Level now, but it used to be called Advanced Primer Level. There are two downloadable PDFs. One is notes, and one is the the insert that has all the keyboard maps for the pieces and also some blank keyboard maps that I love using. But in those notes, Marylin goes through meticulous steps for each individual piece and all of the different activities that you can do, just to look at the notation and to absorb it kind of more informally, like you were saying, without decoding or reading it from notation. And it is just a treasure trove of activities and ideas. So I encourage anyone who is looking for ways to kind of compromise in a MLT-appropriate way, with those students who are curious about notation or those parents who think that their students should be reading sooner than they are. That's a really great way to include those kinds of activities for notation.

Felicity: 20:10

Yeah, and Hannah, I also use your game with the folded paper. That's such a winner in my studio.

Hannah: 20:18

Oh, I got that idea from another teacher in my local association. She was using it for music terms and music history. It's a matching game. And it was such a great idea. I said "well we can do this with note parts." Yeah, you can you can do a lot before the age of abstract thinking with looking and absorbing and comparing. And Marylin uses these words a lot: notice, compare, point out, look at. Yeah.

Krista: 20:54

I also love how you created a video to be almost one step ahead of the parents and the caregivers in your studio.

Felicity: 21:03

That's exactly what I was trying to do.

Krista: 21:06

Yes. So that's, you know, if they are interested in what you're doing before they even join, or if they're a new student, you can point them to that. Or if they forget what you're doing, you can say,"Remember that video. Maybe you should watch it again." That really is is wonderful. And it's a resource that you're going to be using. I know it probably took a lot of work to create. But it's a resource that you'll be using again and again, with the families in your studio.

Felicity: 21:36

That's right

Krista: 21:36

Which is wonderful. Absolutely. So Felicity, again, we'd love to have you back. And thank you so much for talking with us today about just I guess we could call it your Music Moves for Piano journey, and how you introduce it, what your challenges, what your successes were. We would love for us to talk about how you took this experience and what you could tell new teachers, what advice and what message you have for them as you reflect upon your experiences with it all. So we'd love to have you back.

Felicity: 22:12

I'd love to be back.

Hannah: 22:14

And as you mentioned, Felicity Krista's Keyboard Games course is wonderful. And also now available again. Yes,

Krista: 22:25

Oh, yes. So the Keyboard Games course is taking on a Krista? little bit of a change. And we're really excited. We are going to, instead of it being completely asynchronous with some Q&A sessions, we are going to I say we... I'm going to release it at specific times. And the next session for Keyboard Games is going to start in January. And each week, when a module is released, there is going to be a practice session, which I'm so excited about because it's really important. Once you learn these concepts and these new activities that you're going to be doing, it's really important to do them and to do them in a safe environment. And with a cohort of teachers and with a Music Moves for Piano instructor to provide that feedback. So I'm really excited. We're actually going to have Sarah Boyd who is a fantastic Music Moves for Piano teacher, also early childhood teacher. She's going to be leading the practice sessions. And the Q&As during that session. It goes from January to April and registration is open. So if you're interested, I'll put the link in the show notes.

Hannah: 23:45

Wonderful. That sounds great. I know for me personally, it was such a help to be able to practice with my fellow teachers before taking it into a lesson with a student. So that is a wonderful addition. Join us for one more episode with Felicity next week. Thanks so much, and we'll see you soon.