.jpg)
Keys to Music Learning
Keys to Music Learning
Community Chat with Janna Olson (Part 1)
Krista and Hannah are thrilled to welcome Janna Olson to the podcast. Janna has been using Music Moves for Piano in her studio for over 10 years. She is on the faculty of the Gordon Institute for Music Learning and is passionate about connecting piano pedagogy with recent research on how the musical mind works. In this episode, Janna discusses her music background, audiation journey, and how Dr. Gordon inspired her to dive into learning how her students learn music.
Webinars
Beyond the Notes: An enriched aural approach to piano repertoire
Learning through Play: Games and resources for activities to reinforce skills and build audiation
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 auditaion.
Hannah:We are excited to welcome our next community chat guest Janna Olson. Janna is one of our Canadian teachers. And it's very early for her right now. So we very much appreciate having you here early morning. Janna has been using Music Moves for Piano in her studio for over 10 years. And she is on the faculty of the Gordon Institute for Music Learning, and is passionate about connecting piano pedagogy with research on how the musical mind works. So welcome, Janna!
Janna:Thank you so much for having me. I'm pretty excited about getting a chance to talk with both of you about this, what has been a pretty long journey for me. And speaking of long journeys, I live in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada. So if you were to drive about 800 kilometers north and a little west of Great Falls, Montana, you would hopefully eventually arrive in Edmonton, so pretty north. I teach at a local university and do freelance performing while maintaining a pretty busy private piano studio. I have a wonderful, diverse group of students. I love giving workshops, and do a fair amount of seasonal examining and adjudicating. And as you mentioned, Hannah, I have the privilege of serving as a faculty member with the Gordon Institute for Music Learning.
Hannah:Excellent. Could you start by telling... you've told us a little bit about yourself, but could you also tell us more about your music background and how you came up in the piano world and music world?
Janna:It's important and interesting, I think to hear other people's stories about how they started music because it significantly impacts the choices that you make as a teacher later on. I had just turned four when I began music lessons, and I'm pretty privileged to have had a very unusual and eclectic early childhood music experience. My first teacher had Kodaly and Suzuki training. And she put together her own early childhood group class curriculum, which included moving, singing, and chanting rhythm patterns, as well as an away from notation approach to learning. This is in the years before early childhood music for young children was really a thing.
Hannah:That's like a rare gem of a teacher.
Janna:I enjoyed piano a lot. And I had a super supportive musical environment at home. It's really significantly impacting for me as a teacher that I never used the standard method book curriculum. And I can't remember ever not being able to read music notation. It's always been a part of my life in all of my memory. The Suzuki part of that education was adapted. I didn't go beyond book two because we started using the Royal Conservatory of Music exam curriculum. Probably when I was about six years old. There was a lot of music in my family. So I usually attribute so much of my musical journey just to the singing and music making that happened. My dad is a musician, he often wrote tunes for us to sing. I have tunes he wrote for me specifically when I was baby. A lot of the rest of my formal music training, though, would be what we would consider very typical for a Canadian pianist. I took graded conservatory exams through all the way to what we call the associate level. So that's almost as high as you can go with exams. I went on to do a bachelor degree, a couple of bachelor's degrees actually, and then on to a master's degree, began the process of applying for a PhD at the University of Oklahoma to study with Jane Magrath. And then I deferred that program. And it's significant for me, this was a real turning point in my life, because that's what led me to eventually enroll in my first Professional Development Level Course, with the Gordon Institute for Music Learning, where I had the chance to learn in my first course from Edwin Gordon, Cynthia Taggart and Marilyn Lowe, and if I'm not mistaken, Heather Shouldice was also a part of that in some way though not my principal instructor.
Krista:That's a dream team.
Hannah:Yeah, you're like a primary source because you got to be there learning from Gordon and Marylin at the same time.
Krista:And what are some things that you really remember about that PDLC, what really kind of sticks out in your memory?
Janna:It was a little overwhelming, we were a really large class. So there were a lot of people. I found that comforting because it was a little easier to get lost in the crowd. Two things probably stand out from the actual group sessions that we did. One is the way Dr. Gordon did vocal improvisation with us. And that happened in both of our PDLCs. He was in his 80s already. And in one of them, he sat on the floor for about an hour and a half, and was showing us chord roots with his hands, we were singing parts he was singing tunes, it was a very memorable experience that I'll never forget. And it was a hard wooden floor, so makes it even more amazing to me what he was able to do at that age. The singing together and then the moving was totally new to me. And I remember looking around, watching these people move in these very flowing kind of creative ways and thinking, okay, this is pretty weird. But I kind of like it. And I'm glad I'm with all these other people doing this. And it was really an experience for me that actually was tremendously transforming from my own playing. I went back and played for my teacher, my graduate school teacher after that, and she remarked how much more free my own playing was after doing all of that movement.
Krista:And that kind of brings us to our next question, because these Professional Development Levels Courses, they really are pivotal for a lot of people in their own audiation journey, whether it's something that's completely new to them. Or I know for myself, that's when I really started audiating the tonalities. And feeling, starting to feel comfortable improvising. So can you tell us a little bit about your audiation journey?
Janna:Sure. I'm gonna mention my dad again, because I think this was really significant. He came from a family of 11 children. And music was a huge part of his life growing up, he's from the Minneapolis area. My grandma was a pianist and a piano teacher. So it's quite fun to have that in my family. I inherited a lot of her music. My dad learned primarily what we would call by ear. They sang together as a family, I think twice a day, it was kind of a structure in their family where they would get together and sing around the piano. My dad became a music teacher and musician. And he still to this day, writes a lot of his own music, arranges for piano, he's a good accordion player, and a good singer. So we basically grew up singing. And I know that my sister was singing harmony parts, as we would call it, probably as a preschooler. So it's really interesting to have been part of that experience. When my extended family gets together, we still sound pretty great. It's like being part of a choir when we sing together. It's such a tremendous gift and an influence. Improvising vocally or singing is so much more natural for me than improvising at the keyboard. It's almost like it's two different worlds. And that's pretty impacting. I began accompanying at a really young age, improvised hymns in church and my so my improvisation at the keyboard is very odd. I can take a choral score, such as you might find in a standard hymn book, and improvise into an expanded piano style and create with that, so that's my sort of comfort level. I'm still to this day far more comfortable having something in front of my eyes when I'm creating or improvising. But I thought that improvising, true improvisation needed to be away from notation completely. And so I just assumed I was a sight reader. I couldn't improvise. And I'm telling that because I think this is common for a lot of pianists. But I unconsciously began to build up quite a long list of questions about music learning, I began teaching a little bit as a teenager, under the mentorship of my first teacher, and the list grew. Between my undergrad and grad degrees, I spent a year in Germany teaching at an international school with a large piano class of middle and high school students. Those students represented about 15 to 20 different countries of origin, which was an incredible experience. So I wanted to know, like, how do we develop competent rhythm? They were coming from Russian school of teaching, French school of teaching, I was having all these students that had grown up in different ways learning piano in different methods and systems. Why is reading difficult for so many students, how do we learn to read music fluently and with a sense of confidence? How come some people have the ability to improvise and create and others don't? The most important thing that happened to me while I was over there is that I went on a trip with the faculty at the school to an international conference in northern Germany in Hamburg, where Dr. Edwin Gordon was presenting on Music Learning Theory. After spending a few days learning from him and talking with him, I was totally convinced that I needed to know more, and that I'd finally found a source to all of the answers to my questions about how to learn music. Dr. Gordon remarked, when I talked to him after one session that he could tell I was getting it, I probably would literally had an open mouth while I was sitting there, because I was just trying to breathe it all in. He also mentioned at that time that there was an American woman developing a piano course. So I should keep in touch. He was, of course, referring to Marilyn Lowe, but it was going to be about almost 10 years before I connected with her after that experience. So after that conference, I went back to teaching and I think I was immediately impacted in a few ways. One was that I experimented with the way I taught rhythm. That was really fascinating to me, and I'll talk a little bit more about that later, I explored using rhythm solfege, based on my workshop notes, which was a very imperfect application, I will say, looking back. I also started to observe the learning process from a place of curiosity, rather than a sense of frustration with lack of progress. And the typical piano teacher responses "Did you practice this week?" No. And then discouragement and frustration sets in. So that started to be eliminated from my teaching, because I started to think more about how is this actually working, so kind of observational research. And I also discovered at that time that I could improvise away from score if I just worked at it. And I remember feeling a new sense of encouragement, less ashamed about my own inability to kind of sit down and spontaneously make music.
Hannah:That's one of the things I love about our community is its, it acts as a safe space, because so many of us come from this long tradition of not improvising, and just reading what's on the page in front of us. And we get very good at that, what we think we're good at it until we do music learning theory. And we see that we can get even better at that, because we're improvising. And we're adding that extra layer. And as Marylin says, "improvisation cements learning." And so a lot of what we thought we knew, we're actually relearning in a new way for the first time. And it is so uncomfortable. And it is a little embarrassing sometimes when we realize what we don't know. And we're supposed to be these top notch professionals that are teaching other students. And so that's one of my favorite things about this community is how you described it's kind of a putting away of the the shame and embarrassment that might come along with trying something new for the first time and not getting it exactly right when we're so used to getting things right.
Janna:Yes. And it's one of the things I feel is very unfortunate, even when I function in more of a performance world that there is so much fear, attached to performing and creating. And I had as I said, I had a pretty deep seated sense of shame that I couldn't do this and wondered why and my identity was tied up with that a little bit that okay, I do this well. And I know I understand, and I feel music. So why can't I have the freedom to sit down and create and explore on the keyboard. But I also grew up in a community where people did that really well. And so that was a bit intimidating. I just thought that you woke up one morning and could do it. And I didn't view it as a skill that needed to be worked on which I would stress everybody can learn to improvise. This is not limited to only a few people kind of activity.
Hannah:I totally relate to that. Being from Louisiana, we are a full of improvisers because we have the New Orleans jazz tradition, and the Cajun music tradition. And all of those people do not read. I mean, they might read but that's not their background. And so I always wondered how they did that. And it's because they grew up that way.
Janna:Yes. I'll go on just a little bit because after deciding not to pursue that PhD degree as I mentioned, I went to Michigan State and I took two summer professional development level courses. And those were amazing. I had Jennifer Bailey for my early childhood. And I just have to express how grateful I am for those experiences taking an early childhood course was so valuable for my understanding of music learning. And it was something that Marylin strongly recommended. And I'm so grateful that I did that. And at that time, honestly, I would have never dreamed that someday I would be a member of the faculty for the Gordon Institute for Music Learning and teaching Professional Development Courses myself, just mind blowing to me, that happened to me. So I'm very grateful.
Unknown:I had already been presenting workshops, on site reading, it was an area of interest for me, because I didn't know how it worked, because I'd always been able to do it. So immediately following one of those summer courses at Michigan State, I had an opportunity to put together a presentation about Music Learning Theory at our provincial conference. I was very enthusiastic. And the response, I have to say, was a bit discouraging. I realized I had a long way to go to articulate this is a very dramatic shift in thinking about piano learning. And I needed to be patient with my own learning process. At the same time, I thought everybody was just going to be as enthusiastic as I was about it. So those first years of implementing Music Learning Theory, and using Music Moves for Piano curriculum, were both exciting, but very difficult. It was a lonely journey. And I felt pretty isolated, just being quite a long way from any other teachers. But I really had a clear sense that I was on the right road. And I couldn't go back to what I was doing before. I think I'll have a chance to share a little bit more about this later, in hopes that I can encourage others who might be experiencing something similar.
Hannah:Yeah. And that brings us up to speed on how you discovered Music Learning Theory, and you met Ed Gordon, but you mentioned that you would not meet Marilyn until some 10 years later. So can you tell us about meeting her and using Music Moves? Or maybe Music Moves came before meeting her? How did that go?
Janna:It did. And I'll I'll go into a little bit more detail about that. But since her passing in September, I've done a lot of reflecting as have many of u. I have so much gratitude for her mentorship and her generosity to me and other teachers in those early years. We asked a lot of questions. She had already been doing this for a long time. And so it was at times challenging for her, I think, to see how far we needed to go where we were coming from. But it was a long and slow process. I met her at that first PDLC. So it was Dr. Gordon and doing a lot of our theory sessions in the mornings. And then we had Marylin in the afternoon. When I started, a lot of the Music Moves curriculum was just in development as well. So it made it kind of challenging just to figure out where... I think I didn't know where it was going. I had not a clear sense of where the what the end goal was. But as I started to apply it, I just have to say, I'm so grateful for colleagues that I have here in my community that have supported this. They're onlookers at times just wondering how this is going to turn out for me, but they're supportive and interested. I have amazing students. And it's been proof over the years of what this approach to learning can do, not only to build music literacy, but also in the confidence that students have and in their expressive musical communication skills, just phenomenal.
Unknown:It helped me to keep in mind as I was teaching and kind of struggling in the early years, what my goals were in teaching and then returning to review my teaching philosophy and reevaluate what was working. Marylin talked a lot about peeling back layers. And I wasn't always sure what that meant initially. But now I get that a lot more. This is part of understanding in the learning process, how to best engage with my students. So what is it that they need to know? So I'm peeling back that layer, and then underneath that, oh, I realized that there's another super important component to laying a foundation for music literacy that they need. And Marylin was absolutely brilliant at being able to do that at seeing how we sequenced our learning in a way that best served our students needs. And I love quoting Francis Clark, you've heard me say this before. But it allowed me to meet my students where they were at, she used to say, you need to meet them not where you are at or where you want them to be. But where they are really, at. So teaching with audiation as my focus allows me to do this in a way that I would have never dreamed possible.
Hannah:And I think also, having gone through it, as a new teacher, there's a connection you feel with your students, because you're both kind of learning it for the first time. And you're both engaged in this learning process, you as the person trying to deliver all this material and them as the students. So it's, there's like a vulnerability a little bit on the teachers part, which I think is really nice for this teacher-student relationship.
Janna:I totally agree. And I've learned to be very honest with my students, then I'm learning along with them. And I ask them when things are difficult. I want to know what is going on for you when you're finding this challenging so that I can understand it better. So it's not that it creates in the lesson, an atmosphere of curiosity, and learning rather than fixing or mistakes, or, you know, this kind of idea that I have to come in and try to be perfect here. They know it's the opposite that I'm really curious about why that happened. In the learning process. Why after you've been able to play that pretty comfortably for a while that it suddenly feel like you didn't know it anymore. That's really interesting. It's just part of the natural sequence of learning and the time that it takes to build comfort and confidence in learning. And I'm totally okay with that now. My students hear me say all the time, okay, erase that. Let me try that again. That was not what I intended, or they correct me, because solfege is always just a little bit of a challenge for me, tonal solfege.
Hannah:Yes, I do that all the time. "That's not the pattern I meant to sing. Let me try that again."
Krista:Yes, exactly. So Janna, I feel like we have a lot more to talk about. So we would love to have you on for a couple more episodes, if you would be willing.
Janna:I would love that. I have a lot to share.
Krista:Excellent. And we are so lucky because Janna is also part of the Music Learning Academy team and has presented two wonderful webinars that you can find on MusicLearningAcademy.com/webinars. I'll also link them in the show notes. One is called Learning Through Play: Games and Resources for Activities to Reinforce Skills and Build Audiation. And I loved this one because she went through Marylin's resources and showed how she used them with her students. It is a great webinar. And the second is Beyond the
Notes:An Enriched Aural Approach to Piano Repertoire. If you have any questions, if you're just starting out, be sure to join our Facebook group, Introduction to audiation-based Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano. Hannah's on there. Janna is on there. I am on there. We welcome new teachers and experienced teachers who are just interested in learning this approach and including audiation in there piano studios. Thank you so much, and we'll see you soon.