Simpedia

Cindy B. Illinois

First thing I’d do if I were you, is really go over the Free Introductory Session Video – the body of what you present to inquiring minds is all about the differences between traditional/Simply Music.

That said – I’m a former traditional teacher who couldn’t switch to SM fast enough! Looking at my 15 years of teaching traditionally, I could only define
the entire 15 years as a failure. Did I say that loud enough? FAILURE!! How else can you look at an ongoing parade of children and adults who wanted to learn to play the piano and who, after years, still couldn’t? Most of them could read notes and rhythms by the time they quit. Big deal. Is that making music?

I took traditional piano lessons from second grade on. I could be defined as that one in thirty who ‘gets it’ and learns to read and play the piano quite well – well enough to be told I ought to consider majoring in piano performance.

I spent thousands of my parent’s dollars for a bachelor’s degree in music ed., and then thousands of my own setting up a studio and getting students. Yet I couldn’t play a thing on the piano without my music. I couldn’t compose anything with chords more complicated than I, IV, and V. I didn’t know what a split chord was. My ability to make music was severely limited to whatever the written page said, and I was therefore limited in what I could pass on to my students. I still cry over the students I instilled my own limitations in. Especially those dozens who are now saying, “I tried lessons for a few years – guess I’m not musical.”

The other day, one of my very quick students, who happened to have been a traditional student with me, got a peek at the written music of an Arrangement he’s learning (Jackson 3). He was quite impressed, and said something to the effect of, “and to think that I was struggling to read music twice as easy as this just last year!”

With his repertoire of more than 30 songs – he can sit down at any piano today and play any one of them. Exactly one year and one month ago, he could play nothing without his music, and even then, he didn’t want to.

You said “I want to make sure I can deliver, or at least help her to understand that there is more to playing the piano than reading well” ….. I say that
reading well has nothing to do with making music, which is to say, expressing one’s self musically.

Sheri R. California

I want to tell you how wonderful it’s been for me learning the SM way. I never taught traditionally but have played piano most of my life, and have been teaching SM for about two years now. After learning about 70 SM songs, I finally had some time to open some music books and do something I used to really enjoy – just going through books and sight-reading songs. I wasn’t ever extremely fluent, but good enough so that it was enjoyable.

Well, the minute I opened the book to the first page (Bach Solfeggio) I began to play and the notes jumped out at me in a completely different way than they ever had. Instead of seeing isolated notes (like picking up a book and only seeing each letter as an individual entity, not a word, sentence, paragraph) I saw patterns, shapes, and sequences! Hurrah! – All the tools in the SM songs were right there in front of me. I spent about an hour memorizing the two-page piece, a feat unimaginable only a year and a half before. In fact I had never in my life memorized a piece of music except for Chopsticks and Heart and Soul. My whole piano life had been spent reading music.

Some of the wonderful things about memorizing music is that it is much easier to incorporate feeling into the music as well as it being easier to play quickly, not to mention the previously noted fact of being able to play anywhere. And it just feels more like playing. Also I had never imagined I could compose and improvise, but those are things I have begun doing as well, and it is certainly due to Simply Music.

So I tell people my experience and they are very impressed with that. Some people who learn traditionally have a very easy time memorizing music, so that may not be an issue, but for those for whom it is a problem, I think this reason is very compelling.