Simpedia

Jan D., Ohio

I shared this story with Neil a few months ago, but wanted to wait awhile before passing it on, so I could share with you how the situation worked itself out.

I have had a (traditional) student, Erin, for several years that I recently transitioned to Simply Music. She has always been a wonderful student. She is quite advanced, reads well, knows all of her chords and scales, and practices diligently. However, she has always been reluctant to play from a lead sheet even though she is capable of doing so, has always hated to play without the music in front of her even though she memorizes almost everything she plays, and has always been shy about improvising and composing. She is also very advanced on flute and has played marimba in the high school band for the past three years, acting as a section leader for much of that time. She is considering majoring or minoring in music in college next year.

When I started her with Simply Music, she had total faith in me, but her parents didn’t see the benefit of it right away. Her dad is very analytical and being a retired military officer (most people find him quite intimidating), as nice as can be, but intimidating none the less. I was worried about explaining to him the benefits she would gain from Simply Music because just having gone through the training process myself, even though I had a good idea of where we were going, I couldn’t tell him exactly how we were going to get there. When Erin was practicing, her dad would make comments about how simple the pieces were that she was playing and he wanted to know if “that was all there was?”. Her mom also made comments about how simple the pieces sounded.

During the time that I was worrying about what to tell Erin’s dad, I ran across a very special collection of arrangements in my file as well as pages and pages of ‘patterns’. When I was a senior in high school, I took lessons from a somewhat famous gospel pianist – performer, teacher, arranger, producer, with his own television show, etc. We made a 90 mile round trip every Saturday morning for a year, so that I could learn how to turn hymns into “concert” arrangements. At that time, my church had a talent competition on the state, regional and national level every year, with scholarships being awarded to the church colleges. Over the next year, we arranged several hymns just by adding various RH and LH patterns, runs, fills, intros, interludes, and endings. The week before the competition, I remember standing in his driveway complaining that I didn’t think the piece that we had arranged was difficult enough or impressive enough to win the competition, although he thought that I couldn’t be beaten with the arrangement we had worked on.

Wasn’t my reaction the exact same reaction that some of my students were having in regards to their Simply Music lessons? Weren’t they equating the lack of struggle, the lack of boredom, etc., with the lack of learning? This piece was effortless to play and I performed it time after time without my usual stage fright. Even though I never struggled with anything musical, wasn’t I equating the perceived simplicity of this piece with lack of substance, even though I was definitely doing something completely new and different from my previous musical experience? What a revelation!

The next weekend, I played effortlessly in front of a large audience and several judges. I won, and one of the judges stopped me afterwards and told me what an amazing arrangement I had played – there was never any question who was going to win. Over the next year, I played the piece at several church functions, even in front of an audience of 5,000+ at the state youth convention. I had totally forgotten about this, but I think I now fully understand the struggle that some students have accepting Simply Music, and I can now reassure them that a vast amount of learning is occurring even though they don’t perceive it that way. Every one of my students that has had prior experience, has heard this story.

Just recently, Erin told me that she practices more than she ever has, and she wants to take lessons during summer breaks when she is in college. She is working really hard to get through as much of the program as she can before she heads off to college next year. When band practice began last month, she was pulled off marimba and put on keyboards because she was the only one capable enough to play the keyboard parts. She laughed as she told me that the pieces were really hard but she was seeing patterns all over the place. How exciting that a whole new world of music has been opened up for her. Having been a piano performance major myself, I can already see how Simply Music will make her college career so much easier if she does decide to major in music – that dreaded Sight Singing and Dictation class won’t be nearly so frightening, hour long solo recitals from memory can be fun instead of misery, theory class is covered, and analyzing pieces will be no problem at all. Oh, and by the way, I haven’t had to explain the benefits of Simply Music to her mom or dad.