Community Chat with Jenny Fisher (Part 1)

In this episode, Hannah and Krista talk to Jenny Fisher about her background and audiation journey. Jenny teaches functional piano classes for music majors/minors and group piano pedagogy at Eastern Michigan University and serves on the piano faculty for GIML (Gordon Institute for Music Learning).

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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

Krista: 1:14

Welcome to Keys to Music Learning. I'm Krista Jadro of Music Learning Academy.

Hannah: 1:18

And I'm Hannah Mayo of Mayo Piano.

Krista: 1:21

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: 1:34

Today, we are delighted to have Jenny Fisher from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Did I say it right?

Jenny: 1:43

Yes, you did. Yes.

Hannah: 1:45

Jenny. Jenny is on the GIML, Gordon Institute for Music Learning, piano faculty, and she was my Level One and Level Two instructor. So I'm so excited that you're here today. Welcome, Jenny.

Jenny: 2:00

Thank you very much. Thank you both for doing these podcasts and all the other things that you're doing through Music Learning, Academy, and all just so many things that you guys are providing to this piano teacher community. It's amazing. I know, Marilyn worked really hard to build this community. And she was really blessed Krista to have your help, in those early days, along with some others when social media kind of got started. And first, it was Yahoo. And then it was Facebook. And she urged me strongly, many, many, many times, that I needed to be on Facebook. And I just, for a variety of reasons, felt like I couldn't do that. And so I'm a late comer to Facebook. And it was interesting to me that you guys started these community chats because back, probably around the first or second community chat that you did, I remember thinking, "Wow, there's this amazing community that's growing that Krista has kind of been pulling together." And so I, for many, many years have taught at two universities. And that was one of the reasons I felt like I couldn't add Facebook and Marilyn would say how many hours she would spend a day on Facebook. And I was like,"There's no way. There's no way I can help you do that." But I'm down to one university now and Marilyn is gone now. And I am doing my best to wade into that just a little bit try to fill her shoes just a tiny little bit, even though I can never be her. So thank you. Thank you so much for for kind of helping to propel Music Learning Theory and Music Moves for Piano. I know this is a real blessing to Marilyn.

Krista: 3:58

And we've had so many community members that have stepped up especially in this last year. I mean, I couldn't have done it all without Hannah, obviously. And Sarah Boyd has stepped up. Yes, I can name it. But it's so wonderful to have you in the Facebook group. And the Facebook group that Jenny is talking about is that Introduction to Audiation-based Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano. So be on the lookout if you're part of that group for Jenny's wonderful answers to your questions.

Jenny: 4:30

Thanks.

Hannah: 4:32

Jenny, could you tell us about yourself who you are what you do your music background?

Jenny: 4:39

Sure. I'm from a small farming town. And it grew up in Illinois with traditional piano lessons. I remember in second grade, my mom asked me if I wanted to take piano lessons and I was the oldest of four. And I had no clue what taking piano lessons even meant, but I had this amazing thought that Oh, I was gonna go and the teacher was gonna like, I don't know, unlock some cool mystery and I was gonna come home playing fun songs that I knew or something. I went and I came home playing a middle C song, it was a middle C approach. And I was pretty underwhelmed. Actually, in third grade, one of my best friends had an older sister who was wiser of course, and said, "Oh, we're gonna quit piano lessons." And I was like, "Oh, I didn't know you could do that." Of course. I asked my mom if I could quit piano lessons. And she said no. I continued taking piano lessons, went on to my second piano teacher who I think I could have learned a lot from. She taught me that thing. I didn't really know what it was or what it was good for. But it was the I-IV-I-V-I, those cadences I could do that in every key and it was kind of cool, but I didn't really know why I was doing it. I learned how to play inversions. I learned how to I do arpeggios. I started doing things that were a little bit more interesting and fun. And then she decided to leave because she had to teach at the elementary school. She was going to teach the music classes and then also the middle school choir. Well, at that point, I had enough skills that I was able to accompany the choir and that's kind of when I got hooked because I had something kind of special that I could do. It was amazing to play the piano and all my friends were standing around singing with me. And so I got hooked at that point. In high school then, had to switch to another teacher. And I went from playing Clementi Sonatinas to very quickly to like Chopin Polonaise and Rachmaninoff pieces. And I did not realize how big of a leap that was at the time. I thought, "Okay, I guess this is what I'm supposed to do." I was a fairly skilled decoder. So it worked. But I don't think, looking back, I don't think that was appropriate for me.

Hannah: 7:19

Jenny, I knew that our stories were very parallel, but I had no idea how parallel they were because we both teach class piano, we're both really into Music Learning Theory and Music Moves for Piano, but I didn't realize we had such similar beginning stories, because that's that's my story. I got hooked being the choir accompanist. I made a leap I wasn't quite ready for. We have so many parallels. I love this.

Jenny: 7:46

Yeah. It was it was amazing. I found myself, at the end of high school, I knew I wanted to do music. But I didn't want to teach. And I didn't want to perform. So I thought, what else can I do? And I heard of this thing called Music Therapy. So I went and studied that. One of the things I discovered when I was in university, I went to Western Illinois University. I had a theory teacher who was also a pianist. And she invited us at the end of our first year to join a pedagogy class that was going to be happening. Of course, it was for the graduate students, but they wanted to encourage undergrads to get in on it. And I remember my first thought was, "I do not want to teach piano." Because my experience was, I went, I sat on a bench, I stared straight ahead for 30 minutes, or maybe I looked over at my teacher while she wrote in my little notebook. I didn't want to do that. But I thought to myself, you know, I probably will teach piano someday, and maybe be good if I knew what I was doing. So I took the class, and lo and behold, I loved it. Now, it wasn't Music Learning Theory, it was all using Alfred. But I discovered, oh, maybe I would like to teach. So I sort of put that thought in the back of my head. You know, I'm pursuing a Music therapy degree, but maybe I'll get a piano pedagogy degree, maybe I'll get a master's degree after this. As I finished my undergrad, I was teaching in the piano preparatory school, getting a little bit of experience and loving it. They also had a class for young children, ages three to five called Sing and Play, which was still fairly notation based, but it was kind of moving in the right direction.

Unknown: 9:49

And then, you know, life happened. I I went, and I was working as a music therapist. I went to this other small town in Illinois, and I just fell into a piano studio. My first day as a music therapist, one of the nurses asked me if I taught piano and I said, "Yeah, I can teach piano." That was it. All of a sudden, I started getting phone calls. I had no idea that six to nine months before I arrived, the longtime piano teacher had retired. So just by answering that one nurse's question, I started getting phone calls, and without even trying, I had 20 students. After I would work at the nursing home with Alzheimer's patients, I would come home and I would teach piano lessons and of course, you know, the way I taught, I sat there, I had the little notebook and they sat on the bench, and they were feeling uncomfortable the way I felt uncomfortable. And I was correcting things and pointing out know things about notation. But I love my students, and I loved music. And the students seemed to love me and the parents were happy and so we did that. I did that for a year and a half before I moved to Michigan. And that was, I think that was an amazing step for me to have a studio like that. And to have an experience of teaching the traditional way, you know, a nice chunk of an experience so that I have something to compare to. Not just my own personal experience, but my own teaching experience in the traditional way. So, life happened, I moved to Michigan. I kind of came back I was like five or eight years without teaching any piano. And then somebody asked me to teach a little piano again. So I took on a student, and then I took on another student, and I remember thinking, Okay, I can do this. But something about this just doesn't feel. The only way I could describe it at the time was I just didn't feel sharp. As a teacher, I didn't feel sharp. I don't even know what that means. But that's what was in my head at the time. So I found out that there was a piano pedagogy program right here at Eastern Michigan, and I was living here. And so I decided to come back and it had been, you know, now several years since I've even played or taken lessons are taught. So I felt a little nervous coming back, but I came back and, and I took a very long time going through this two year program, because I was still working full time at the same time. So it was like one or two classes every semester and some piano lessons. So that was from 2002 until 2007. And my introduction to Music Learning Theory was in a class with Dr. Garrick Peterson. And it was my second semester of a piano pedagogy degree. And there were several of us there, like eight of us in the classroom. And we were actually sitting in this very room, all catching up with each other, you know, after the summer, and he was fussing with something at the front of the room. And pretty soon this sound came out of the CD player. And it was (Jenny chants) "Ba-ba Ba Ba-ba Ba." And we all stopped talking. And pretty soon "Ba Ba Ba-ba Ba." And we're looking around at each other. And it him. And by the third pattern, he's turned around, and he's he's echoing back, "Ba Ba Ba-ba Ba-ba." And now he's gesturing to us to echo back. And I remember being in that moment just arrested. Because I was like, what on earth? This is, this is a graduate piano pedagogy class, what is happening? And I mean, he got my attention, he started teaching us a little bit about the skill learning sequence that day and about music aptitude. And I'm sure I did not wrap my brain hardly at all around the information that he was giving me. But I knew there was something super important about what I was learning that day. And I needed to know more.

Jenny: 14:16

Well, it was the pedagogy class where we were going to work with elementary students, brand new beginners, and Marilyn's Book One, Student Book One and Teacher Book One were in pre-publication form. And so the second week of class, he had this big box, and he handed out all these pre-publication books to us. And this is what we did. For the rest of the class, we learned a little bit more about Music Learning Theory, and we studied those books, we studied the teachers book, and we watched Dr. Peterson, teach those classes. And then as we went on through the semester, he would give us little sections of Activity Time to do. So we kind of got our feet wet in that. I had then the next semester and opportunity to do like an independent study with him. Because of course, you know, the question everybody has, this doesn't look anything like beginning piano instruction that I've done, or I was taught to do. So I want to know how and when do they read? And so he said I'm going to take these students a little farther if you want to see where this goes next. And I'm thinking yes, I do. Of course, by the second semester, they're still in Book One. They're not like doing a whole lot of reading in what I would have called reading at that time, but I was definitely hooked by then. And I was convinced that Music Learning Theory was important. I was convinced that I wanted to use Music Moves for Piano, but I really didn't know how to do that very well. And so for about five more years, I muddled through and did very, very poorly. In the process, Marilyn actually visited Eastern in 2004. And unfortunately, I was out of state. So I missed her when she was there in 2004. But I was able to meet her when she came back in 2007. And I'm so grateful Dr. Peterson, I didn't even realize she was coming. Somehow I'd never heard that she was coming until, like, the week before, and Dr. Peterson said, you know, I need some help.

Unknown: 16:30

If you could help me, then you know, I'll pay your way to this workshop. And I was like, Oh, sure. I mean, I can help you. I mean, I'm glad to know she's here, I want to know more. My help was, I had to assemble a binder and make a title page and, like put out coffee and bagels every morning. It was not that not that big of a deal. But I remember that session or that workshop. Two important things. Number one, I had my Book One Student and Teacher's Book. And she was going through it in a very detailed way, about what was happening, about how she was weaving rhythm patterns and tonal patterns, and the skill learning sequence and the technical development, like how all of that was being woven together. And I have lots of notes in that Teacher's Book, from that day, or from that workshop. The second thing that was really impactful was Andrea Apostoli, was with us. And he, at the time was the president of the Italian equivalent of the Gordon Institute for Music learning. He came, and he did a lot of musicianship things with us, actually, and he told us more about early childhood music, which I had heard enough about, to know that I was intrigued, but I didn't know how to find out more. So I learned some from him. And I remember the big thing, my big takeaway from him was when he would just encourage us to be the music, like, embody the music, and I was like, Wow, no one's ever said that, to me, like music was always on the paper. It was not in me. So those were my two big takeaways from my first meeting with Marilyn was also getting to meet Andrea Aposteli.

Krista: 18:23

So that's pretty amazing that shortly after you were introduced to Music Moves for Piano, you actually got to meet Marilyn. And have her bring you through that Book One. I hope you still own that book. One. Do you still own that Book One with

Jenny: 18:37

I do. And in fact, I don't know if you remember, you all the notes? might not have been in the room. But in one of those two times, we were at Brookline, I had that. It's got this just like plain yellow cover. And I was holding it and she was a gas. She was like, get rid of that. And I think it's because in her mind, she's been like updating and revising. And you know, and I was like, never. I will never throw this away or give this away. This is gold.

Krista: 19:10

That's amazing. It's precious to me.

Hannah: 19:12

It's history.

Jenny: 19:13

I mean, it is history.

Krista: 19:14

It is history. Right.

Jenny: 19:16

It is history.

Krista: 19:17

Absolutely. And she kept everything of Gordon's

Jenny: 19:19

There you go.

Krista: 19:20

I mean, she kept it all. She kept all of her notes for all of his workshop. So that really is gold. So you mentioned, you mentioned that you learned about Music Moves for Piano, you were introduced to this idea of us being the music, right, we are the music. How did you then go about developing your own musicianship skills and your own ability to

Jenny: 19:50

Yes. Well, at the very beginning of this, I didn't know audiate? I will totally agree with that. That's really where I got to the there was such a thing as a PDLC, professional development levels course. It was actually kind of almost in tandem with that 2007 workshop, Dr. Peterson, told me that somebody Brenda Marshall. I don't know if anybody would recognize the name, Brenda Marshall. She had taken one of those early PDLCs and studied early childhood with Butch Marshall. No relation. And exposure happened at the PDLC. And then I took all that first she was teaching in Ann Arbor, which is right next door here. And she needed a substitute for one of her Music Play classes in the summer. And Dr. Peterson said, oh, you could probably do that. And I thought, Well, I don't know that much about that. But he put me in touch with her. And she said, why don't you come level of PDLC home and really went for it in preschool. And I and observe a couple of times, and I did and it was amazing. And so I did end up subbing for her a couple of times. And then in 2008 I found out oh, there's training for this. And so I went to Michigan State University in Lansing and took their Early Childhood Level One. And that was, I mean, everybody says it, found that my ears were not sharp, I liked actually, your but I definitely experienced it. It was life changing. As a musician, I heard things that I never knew were there before. Of course, I heard them, but I didn't understand them. And that was the whole difference. It was so much fun. I remember going with Rachel Zerk, who was also, she was the Director of the word about being sharp, I feel that. Sharp up! And being able Community Music Academy, which you'll hear me talk about, along the way here. She and I went. We couldn't even get in the elevator without like hearing resting tones and things like I didn't even know that was a thing. And it was just my audiation was being opened up, I think is what was really to sing all of these songs in different tonalities, like in a happening. It was absolutely life changing and impactful for me. So I did that early childhood class. And then I immediately started teaching some early childhood music classes, Music Play classes. And I did that in two different locations. One was at a music school and one was in a very natural and organic "I own this" kind of way, because I'm childcare center. So I would probably say all totaled seven or eight years of Music Play classes. And those were amazing for developing my musicianship too, because I was forced to be the music. I mean, I had to do that. I had to sing it, I had to move it. It was really good for me. I agree. I agree. bringing it to these little people. Oh, that was probably

Hannah: 22:46

Early childhood all the way.

Jenny: 22:53

It sounds counterintuitive for a piano teacher to start with early childhood music. But I firmly the number one thing that really kicked it into high drive. believe that is the place to begin, especially if you're going to teach audiation-based piano and especially if you're going to consider doing something like Keyboard Games and start children young. I think that is indispensable, that early childhood training. I loved it so much. And you know was then doing it and felt so eager to take the Level Two course, because I knew they were they really only emphasize the beginning part of preparatory audiation. They taught us about it, but they didn't emphasize how you help bring students to the point of coordination. So that they can then transition into formal learning. So I was so eager to take that Level Two course. And I waited. I mean, every year when those courses came out, I was looking for Where's level two or level two? It didn't happen. It didn't happen until 2012. I think that was the year. So I finally did the level two. And that was fantastic for me. I really felt like I needed that with my preschool students.

Krista: 25:00

So I agree with Jenny and every piano teacher should take a PDLC in early childhood, I took early childhood level one and Jenny, I think I just missed you because I took it I think in 2006. So right before you came, but I did take it at Michigan State as well. And it was such an amazing experience. I recommend it to everybody listening the early childhood level and EC II has been on my list. So I hope to take that one day. So Jenny, thank you so much for sharing a little bit about your past and your audiation journey. And we would love to have you back to talk then about your Music Moves for Piano journey and how you jumped into teaching audiation-based piano instruction.

Jenny: 25:44

You got it.

Krista: 25:46

If you're not already a part of our Facebook group, please join us at Introduction to Audiation-based Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano. We are excited to have Jenny back for another episode soon. Thank you so much. We'll see you soon.