Keys to Music Learning
Keys to Music Learning
Community Chat with Scarlette Kerr (Part 3)
In this episode, Scarlette talks about why she loves teaching using an audiation-based piano method and what it brings to the table that other methods might not.
Music Moves for Piano
Music Learning Academy
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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.
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:So we're back one more time with Scarlette Kerr. We are having a most excellent conversation with her about how she started Music Moves and her audiation journey. And we talked about the Barbara Lister-Sink approach to technique. And now we're going to ask the woowoo questions, if you will. These are my favorite questions. Starting with what advice would you give new teachers who are getting started with audiation-based piano teaching and dabbling in Music Moves for Piano?
Scarlette Kerr:Alright, so first off it this is genuine,(this is not like a plug or anything) is to check out Krista's course at Music Learning Academy. I love how well presented it is. She breaks everything down to make it very digestible. And I'm a visual person. So watching somebody do it, for me, is like easier than reading about it in a book, even though reading a book is also very important. But if you want to watch someone do it, that is like an added bonus of her course. So I would say go there, watch, and just do it. I was really lucky, in the sense that I didn't have an established studio when I learned about MLT and Music Moves. So I just kind of just started doing it. So I didn't have to like, stick my toe in both parties, in the old method book and the new one. But thinking about it, if you're somebody who's trying to transition out of one series into Music Moves, I think just incorporating Activity Time.
Unknown:So when you're up away from the piano, and you are moving, and singing songs with flow, and chanting, and just kind of bathing your student in different tonalities and meters, I think that is such a great bridging aspect of going from one series to the other because at least you're starting to engage them in audiation activities. Because you don't necessarily have to start that at the piano. If that's something you're worried about, I think you start that all away from the piano. So you just begin your lesson with five to ten minutes just singing, having to move with you, chanting a pattern to them, they repeat it back to you. Or you can just do it informally just sing to them, and chant to them. And they can respond however they want to. And then eventually, just kind of think about how you would approach teaching the songs in the book by rote with the MLT aspect in mind. So picking out rhythm patterns, trying to label it, or you telling them whether it's duple or triple, chanting those patterns, pointing out important tonal pattern to the song, having your students sing this total patterns, having them find them on the piano, having them improvise with those said rhythm patterns and tonal patterns. That way they can embody that piece deeply as opposed to just reading what's on the page. I think that's one way you can incorporate that aspect of Music Moves. And then if you're still on the fence about just kind of hopping straight into Music Moves, I would say Music Moves sequences those audition activities beautifully, perfectly. Marilyn, I can tell she spent decades of work on this. And I can tell that she thought through every little detail that I'm now starting to see as I go back, you know, in these lesson plans, and then you just make the jump. I think you just got to do it and let the forest fires burn as you're trying to figure it out. Because once you come out of that fire, I think you're going to be... it's kind of like in a forest fire, the regress is an important aspect of change and regrowth because it allows things to grow and provides nutrients in the soil. It's same thing with you, as a teacher, it'll provide you just the nutrients for you to grow more as a teacher and help you provide better teaching for your students so they can learn more about music, and not just look at notes on a page and try to decode them. So yeah, I think just kind of if you want to dip your toe, break it down to the core elements of whole-part-whole and just singing and chanting. And then you got to make the leap at some point, because your kids will not benefit unless you make the leap I think. And I think I'm very unapologetic about that. Because no other methods sequences that idea of audiation as well as Marylin's method.
Hannah:I agree and that's like a great bold analogy you made about the forest fire.
Krista:So how has teaching with this audiation-based approach? How has Music Learning Theory been valuable to your own personal musicianship?
Scarlette Kerr:Growing up, I always was fearful of the idea of improvisation. And I was always amazed that those who could just do it just could do it. They had that ability. It wasn't necessarily something that I got, but I've learned through Music Learning Theory of audiation, that improvisation is a skill that can be developed at any point in anybody's career. And so for me, I think it's just a lot easier for me to process what it is to improvise, I just got to keep it simple. You pick a rhythm pattern, you just mess around with it, you could pick a key and once you've been able to audiate the different functions of that key, which has, which definitely makes you think about music differently, I just hear it more innately as opposed to kind of figure out what is that tonic or dominant chord, you just know, you just know. And you are able to just kind of play using tonic and dominant eye. And then eventually, we'll add other chords to it. But I hear music differently. Like I'm more engaged when I'm listening to, I hear those functions appear in music, I can kind of label that all the time. But sometimes I'm like, "Oh, that's a division pattern in duple meter that I'm hearing or an elongation. Oh!" And when I am teaching music to students, I make connections to other pieces, as well a lot more. I'm working on a Handel Passacaglia with one of my high school students. And like the beginning, you know, how it's the same four chords, or however many chords, they say over and over again, over the course of the piece, like the first four chords, I think sounded the exact same as progression to Weezer's "Island in the Sun." And I was like, "Stop!" And so I played it. And I looked at my student, and I was like, "Does that sound familiar to you?" And he's "like, yes, it does sound familiar. I just don't know what it's from." And then I pull out Spotify, like type in "Island in the Sun", and I'm pretty sure it's the same chord progression. And we're like, "oh my gosh," so we're never going to forget that. And so you just make these connections to other music. And you realize that music is just patterns. And they reoccur over and over again, they're not like new, unique ideas that someone has come up with out of nowhere. It's something that has been used over millennia, or centuries, and that someone has just kind of used in their own way. And you've picked out these patterns more. I can learn music a lot faster for some reason. I think because I am able to kind of connect that more. Like I like I can tell when I'm audiating, I can tell when I'm not audiating. When I'm sight reading, I still go into that like sight reading mode, which is where I'm just like, gotta get through it. But sometimes when I decide to pay attention, when I'm listening to I can hear, okay, I know where this is going. And when I teach classical music, like when I was teaching for like the beginning of Fur Elise to somebody recently, I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I see what Beethoven is doing. He's going from here, and he's going to here and he goes here, and oh, my gosh, that's amazing." And I just have a deeper appreciation when I'm listening to as opposed to that sounds really cool. That sounds really good. I know that Gordon talks about that in his book, too, having just read that. Students can hear it as opposed to appreciate it or appreciate as opposed to just hearing it. Yeah. And I can audiate pulse, if that makes sense. So when I am looking at a piece, and I haven't played it yet, I just look at it. And I'm like, we're in triple. What is the macrobeat? This is the macrobeat. And I'm just kind of playing with a sense of just a solid pulse, which I don't think I ever had. Even through college, I think that was just a common comment, my teacher said that I rushed all the time. And that was a mixture. It was a combination of many things. But I think most, most specifically being that I would never just develop that innate sense of pulse, or audiate that. And so I just feel that pulse very differently, I audiate it very differently. That's just something more inherent. And not something that I have to like, count out if that makes sense. I'm not counting the rhythm anymore. I'm just reading it. It's interesting. And that's kind of messed with me a little bit, because I'm like, "How am I supposed to feel this? Or how am I supposed to like, look at this as a whole as opposed to break it down?" But once that call comes together, it's just clicks. I don't know how else to describe it, but it's just easier to play. It's easier to listen, I kind of like him memorize things. Not like deep complex classical repertoire. But if I'm teaching a piece to a student, I'm memorizing it with them, because we're both digging deep into that piece together. And so I remember it, they remember it. I don't have to be looking at the page all the time to remember how it goes.
Hannah:That's one of my favorite things about this approach is how many pieces I've been able to learn. And I could just sit down and play all these pieces. I couldn't do that before.
Scarlette Kerr:And then you can kind of mess around with it you know, and you can kind of like make it your own and add stuff to it and take away from it. And it's just more accessible than when we were learning in a traditional way, like what improv means or what just playing meant, because I couldn't just play anything. And I'm still on that weird stage of like, I can't just sit down at the piano and play anything. But I think, because I'm still in that mindset of like, if I play something, it has to be something legit. It has to be something like, quote, unquote, legit, it has to be like a piece of classical repertoire. But no, I'm getting out of this mindset that just playing can literally mean anything. Because that's the mindset I give to my students just play something. And so I need to learn to incorporate that mindset for myself. So I can just get comfortable just sitting down and just playing and not care what comes out. Or just learning from what comes out and audiating and using what I'm using at the keyboard.
Hannah:And that activity is more in line with the actual definition of play, right? Just what we're doing. And you know, as opposed to serious performance, like a big classical repertoire or something like that. So to allow yourself to play is not something that I ever personally allowed myself to do until I got into this whole world of audiation. So what do you think the Music Moves method brings to the table that other piano approaches or methods do not?
Scarlette Kerr:What doesn't it brings, oh, my gosh, it brings everything, it brings everything that matters.
Hannah:Oh, I love that it brings everything that matters.
Scarlette Kerr:And I don't want to put down the work of those who they put into their own pedagogical methods. But I think that their priorities are very different than Music Moves, and to the whole of the music learning lommunity. Music Moves prioritizes inner musicality, it promotes you listening, and you making connections independently, without the help of somebody else, or symbols, you can just hear music, or just have an understanding of it. And you can just use it anytime, anyplace, without you having to say, "Oh, I don't have any music with me, so I can't play." And that's how I was like. "If I don't have any music with me, like I can't play." I tell my parents that I work with, my goal is that your child can play whatever they want, whenever they want. And if they learn how to read music, that's awesome. That's an important part of learning music. But if they don't get to that point, because I know that's still a struggle for a lot of people, with or without a good sequence. That should not keep them from playing the piano or from being a good musician, because there's loads of wonderful musicians out there that never learn how to read music. And I think that can be the same for any student. We'll still work to get there. But they don't get there. It's okay. They can always come later. I want their musicality, their musical output to be the priority.
Hannah:And for the students who have, you know, tracking issues or eye issue, visual impairments and things like this, you know, there are real scientific reasons why some students are not going to get to that high level reading stage, or even a lower level reading stage, and it doesn't exclude them. And that's really beautiful...it's an inclusive method.
Scarlette Kerr:Yes, absolutely.
Hannah:And I also ask this to people a lot when we start talking about methods and my method versus your method, and but it's like, can you take that musicianship away from the piano? Yes, or no? Are these methods teaching us how to be musicians without a piano because you don't always have a piano
Scarlette Kerr:Right!
Hannah:And you still want to be able to participate in music, you want to sing and chant and move and listen with more understanding.
Scarlette Kerr:I've had this conversation with other people in our little like MLT group that like, even though we have a child leave a studio, that doesn't mean they didn't have a solid music education. You still gave them a wonderful music experience, whether or not that was obvious to the student or the parent, that is still going to be with them. So I'm sure if they go into another studio, that it's more traditional-based, they'll be more than prepared to take on what the teacher throws at them because they have a solid foundation.
Krista:Absolutely. Or another instrument. instrument.
Scarlette Kerr:Exactly. Yes. They'll be ready to go.
Krista:I had one student that loved piano went to take cello and the cello teacher said, "She is just amazing. I discovered that all she has to do is sing it and then she can play it." And I was like, "Yes. There we go." So you've talked about so many things that you love about Music Moves for Piano and teaching. But if you were to identify one, what would be your absolute favorite part of teaching piano using an audiation-based method?
Scarlette Kerr:The creativity aspect of it. There are an infinite number of opportunities to have a student improvise in a lesson. And I think that is so much fun. And I think they think it's fine to, because they there's no right or wrong answers, really. I mean, there's like a criteria you want them to do. But in terms of what you're asking to do with it, the level of success, it's very high every time and you want those small, experiences of success frequently in a lesson. If not all the time. I mean, of course, like, it's okay for a student to struggle with something as part of the learning process. But you also want them to walk out of the lesson thinking, "Oh, I did something today. I made something up today. I create something today. I learned something new today."
Hannah:I know stuff.
Scarlette Kerr:I know stuff. I can do things. And I just love that about Music Moves for Piano. You prep them for that success. And they can just do it. And they might be amazed by that. I think I'm amazed by that every single time not because I didn't think they could do it. But because that's just another testament to me that it works. You know, I'm like, "Oh, that's so great. Oh, that's so cool." I get really excited about the smallest things.
Krista:Me too.
Scarlette Kerr:I just love it. I just love it. I can't, I don't know what else to say. It's just that it allows you to create, it invites you to create. And sometimes we feel like we have to be invited to create something for us to do it. And I think it it makes a creates a culture of creativity, where it's just part of it, it's not something "special" that we do, or it's something that you only get to do once in a while. We do it all the time. And I think that gives them a lot of confidence. And that gives them ownership. And they feel like musicians or pianists because they can create. And that's the whole point to be able to come up with your own stuff and not just play the works of others. I think it should be part. I mean, if you want to do that, that's great. But you should also be able to make up your own music because you are your own person.
Krista:Absolutely. So thank you so much Scarlette for joining us. We will link to everything that we've talked about these past three episodes on our show notes for sure. You could also follow Scarlette on Instagram where she posts videos of her students making music, as well as things about Music Learning Theory and Music Moves for Piano. You can follow her at@musicat906. Thank you again, Scarlette for being here with us.
Scarlette Kerr:And thank you so much for having me. It's been absolutely wonderful.
Krista:Of course. Thank you all for listening, and we'll see you soon