Simply Music

Welcome to another edition of The Playground.  Our intention with this periodical is to provide you with updates, insights, information and education that you will find valuable, interesting and worthy of your time. Ultimately, our commitment is to support you in both developing and connecting to music in general and musicianship in particular.  As you continue to progress as a student or teacher (or both!), we encourage you to draw on the support of any and all available resources.  One way that we can add to your list of resources is to provide you with ways of staying connected to the Simply Music community as a whole. Our current Social Media platform, (even though we are still learning how to best take advantage of what it offers), is one way that you can keep up with what is happening within Simply Music, as well as in the world of music education as a whole.

There are several ways that you can connect with our Social Media platform, either through Twitter, FaceBook or YouTube, or our Simply Music blog and RSS feed.  Even though each of these can (and will) be peppered with announcements about Simply Music, including day-to-day updates, each has a primary focus:

Our Twitter page (http://twitter.com/simplymusic) will regularly provide you with up-to-date links to recent articles on music education.

Our FaceBook page (http://www.facebook.com/SimplyMusic) will keep you abreast of new teachers in new locations.

Our YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/simplymusic) contains video footage of students and teachers playing repertoire from the curriculum, as well as original compositions and arrangements.  Expect to see lots more footage being posted in the next month or so.

Our blog (http://blog.simplymusic.com/), and RSS feed, gives you access to summary information including archives from previous Playground newsletters.

We hope that you will subscribe to our various Social Media pages, and in doing so, discover that there is an abundance of valuable information for you to refer to on an ongoing basis.

Incidentally, if you have a video of yourself (or your child) playing something that you feel would be of interest to the SM Community, please feel free to send a DVD copy to our Head Office. We may feel that it is an excellent inclusion on our YouTube Channel.  You might also have a great story to share that could be an excellent inclusion in one of out forthcoming Newsletters.  Feel free to send in your submissions. On that note, you might even have a suggestion of what you’d like to see appearing in future editions.  You can find our contact details at http://www.simplymusic.com/ContactUs.  Please know that we welcome your input.

Keep playing!

Neil Moore
Founder & Executive Director
Simply Music International

In this interview, Neil Moore talks with two-time GRAMMY Nominated jazz pianist, Taylor Eigsti. Regarded by many as a child prodigy, Taylor began studying piano at the age of four, and by age eight he was performing with internationally renowned jazz artists. At age 15 he joined the teaching staff at the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University. In this informal dialog, Taylor talks about his earliest experiences of learning music, as well as his thoughts on the future of music education.

Download the interview with Taylor Eigsti or use the player below.

From Gordon Harvey

When your teacher has been a choir accompanist, singer, classically-trained pianist, conductor, classical piano teacher, singing coach, guitarist, violist, flautist, trumpeter and Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown College alumnus, you know your musical voyage will be an adventure.

Jy initially learned piano from age six “as a way of escaping nightly kitchen duty”, but quickly discovered a deeper love of music, studying classical piano in Oxford, England, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and UCLA, at the same time participating in high school musicals, supporting herself through college and beyond playing guitar and singing, performing in various theatrical endeavours, as well as  teaching and coaching musicians and singers.

But it was Jy’s classical background that really framed her view of “proper” piano lessons, and made her skeptical of anything that wasn’t steeped in the traditional values of proper classical technique and reading as the basis of learning to play.  At the same time Jy’s image of a piano teacher as “a housewife producing a second income for the family by teaching about ten students” didn’t fit with her own self-image.  She taught students on the side, but never felt she fitted in with a profession that she now realises she was “too proud” to truly embrace.  She had always felt a strong drive to share her passion for music and the transformation that can bring, but never found a role that inspired her enough to really immerse herself in.

Instead she threw herself into almost every other work you can imagine, from fixing tractors to running corporate retreats, never seriously considering using her musical gifts as a teacher as anything more than a sideline.

So she was surprised to say the least when her sister Sheri, having had just a few years of lessons as a child, without Jy’s manifest success, began teaching a new method that produced hordes of happy players and was fun for her as well.  Initially she was very doubtful about Sheri’s new venture, but the more satisfied, self-expressed students she saw emerge from her sister’s studio, the more intrigued she became.  Then, after meeting Neil Moore, she began to get a sense of the bigger picture, and what was possible for her and for music education.  She could see how this new approach could finally collapse the myth that not everyone was musical, and open up musical doors for all, and at the same time help her find the kind of lifestyle her other ventures had never quite provided.

So, in typical style, she went for teaching in a big way, determined to share Simply Music with as many students as she could, talking to anybody and everybody about her new mission.  Working tirelessly, Jy built her studio over the next few years to 250 students, the largest Simply Music studio in the world, employing several teachers.  She explains “It was exciting to discover a career whereby I would be not only emotionally fulfilled, mentally challenged and artistically stimulated and but also be economically rewarded”.

These days, rather than employing teachers, she shares a large commercial location with multiple other Simply Music teachers.  She still teaches a large body of students herself, and her studio is always buzzing, but this doesn’t obscure her obvious care for every one of her students.  She deals with the day-to-day duties of running a business by staying in touch with her original commitment – to spread the word and share the joy of music.  It’s all about the difference musical self-expression can make in the lives of each individual, and Jy does whatever it takes to ensure that every student gets to take home a serving of her musical passion.  She’s discovered she’s a natural teacher.  ”I’ve always been drawn to teaching.  Anything I learn I want to teach.  If if gives me joy, I just love to share that.  I want everybody to feel that joy!”

Jy has been teaching Simply Music to large numbers of students for six and a half years.  Does the prospect of teaching Ode to Joy for the umpteenth time to yet another group of beginners induce terminal ennui?  Not at all.  ”It’s really funny because it never does – it’s not so much about the music.  It’s much more about who am I teaching – who do I get to relate to and who do I get to try to connect with and have them connect with the project I’m asking them to do this time?”   Her students relate stories like her singing and playing on their answering machine for their birthday.

Jy’s spirit is a restless one, and change is built into her character.  Luckily, she’s been able to experience a great deal of change through the time of her teaching, creating projects, seeing how far she can take her studio, how else she can contribute to the vision.  She’s already planning the next major step for her studio.  ”I’ve always needed to make changes – it doesn’t matter what I’m doing, there’s a point that I get to where I just need a change.  What’s nice is that I don’t need to leave Simply Music to change.  This is such a great program and so exciting as an opportunity that if you’re looking at it that way, there’s no limit, really.  It’s about learning my own limits and pushing them a bit more and seeing what I can create.”

Perhaps we should let one of her students’ parents, Tina Zachariou, have the last word:   ”Jy has been the most extroadinary piano teacher Natalie has ever had. Jy is a caring and empathetic teacher who understands and listens to her students. She has tirelessy helped Natalie overcome difficulties even after hours, over the phone or at the studio. Jy’s love and passion for music comes across clearly in her teaching which is fresh, fun and inspiring. She relates well to her students and is always supportive and encouraging of their individual piano learning/playing styles. Thank you Jy!”

From Gordon Harvey

The piano’s exact birth date is lost in the haze of history.  All we know is that it was invented by the Italian harpsichord maker Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700.  He developed his new music machine to overcome the limitations of the keyboard instruments of the time, which had the disadvantage of not being able to vary in volume.  It was either on or off for the harpsichord, take it or leave it.

Cristofori’s innovation has been refined over the centuries with improvements like iron frames and sustain pedals, but it’s testament to its true ‘breakthrough’ nature that its basic design of  strings suspended over a resonating soundboard, played by a mechanism that would hammer the strings instead of plucking them, has remained relevant and greatly loved for three centuries.

But has the piano always continued to grow and develop over that whole time?  Many of the piano’s great developments have been generated by the requirements of the concert hall and the great classical composers, who demanded ever bigger and more powerful instruments to fill bigger halls.  But classical music, by its nature, has required things to be somewhat predictable.  By this I mean that a lover of classical music will want to hear it in a familiar context.  Sure, they’ll be interested to hear how a certain player interprets Chopin, but they’ll expect to hear it played on the same kind of instrument as they’ve heard it on elsewhere.  Equally understandably, many concert performers are very particular about the instrument they use.  Being that the piano is one of the few instruments that doesn’t travel with the player, they don’t want any unpleasant surprises when they arrive at the hall for a performance.

So anyone who needs to make the huge investment of a full-size concert grand will be tempted to go with something they know will meet the expectations of the largest number of people.  As a result, in the realm of high-end pianos, an ‘industry standard’ has emerged, which hasn’t changed much over the last 100 or so years.  This goes from size and construction right down to the familiar gloss black colour scheme.

The trouble is that if we all use pianos designed for the music of 100 years ago, it’s possible that it will lose its relevance as music continues to evolve.  If we’re to continue to create new piano music, shouldn’t we be creating new pianos too?

Luckily there are still new developments in piano manufacture, but largely they are coming not from the familiar brands but from courageous independent makers in small factories and workshops around the world.

One of these innovators is right here in Australia.  Neil Moore and I had the pleasure of a day spent with Wayne Stuart, founder of Stuart and Sons, in Newcastle in regional New South Wales.  We found Wayne to be a passionate and eloquent spokesperson for fresh thinking and new ideas in music.  He spoke at length about why we need to keep advancing the piano, and why his pianos are so different, as we toured his factory where a small band of craftspeople hand-make each instrument.

With the first glance at a Stuart piano, you know you’re dealing with something different.  Each instrument is unique-looking, made from a variety of different (usually Australian) timbers.  My breath was taken away by an instrument made from Huon Pine, a beautiful, knotty blond wood, with darker inlays.  Playing an instrument like this is a double pleasure – making music with something that is itself a work of art.

A second glance makes you do a double-take – this piano has four pedals!  Wayne explains that, along with the usual three pedals on a grand piano, he adds one that moves the hammers closer to the strings (like an upright piano) and reduces the travel of the keys.  Using this along with the usual soft pedal allows for an extraordinarily soft and delicate sound.

Next, you wonder if your eyes are playing tricks until you realise that this piano has more keys than the usual 88.  A Stuart piano has 97, or even 102, keys, extending the range to the practical limits of music.

But the most important innovation of the Stuart is the bridge agraffe, a special system of securing the strings which allows them to vibrate freely and evenly, giving a clearer sound and a longer sustain.

I asked Wayne about this feature, and some of his views about the past and future of our most important musical instrument.

What inspired you to create this project?

After studying piano technology in Japan, Europe and elsewhere during the 1970’s I came to the conclusion that the instrument had been technically moribund for a very long time. Contemporary composition, to my ears, was not being represented by the standard piano sound inherited from the 19th century.

I decided that if I should spend my life with pianos, rather than pursue the road of ‘reproduction of proven form’, I should put my efforts to exploring where modern thinking and technology could take the instrument forward in a more relevant guise.

Thus, the primary motivation behind the Stuart piano is discontent with the status quo and the need to explore new boundaries. I’m not alone in this pursuit, there are now a number of individual makers to be found around the world.

What makes the Stuart piano different?  What is possible from a Stuart piano that another high quality piano can’t offer?

The principle of vertical string coupling is at the core of the Stuart design concept. This principle focuses on how the string is anchored to the bridge and soundboard. In the standard piano the string is anchored horizontally between two pins.  This system leads to variable decay characteristics in the sound due to ‘cross polarization’ as the string changes the direction of its vibrations from the initial vertical hammer strike to the more horizontal later vibrations. In the Stuart piano a sophisticated device couples the strings to the bridge in the vertical plane, the same direction of the hammer’s strike. This encourages the vibrations to stay in the initial strike plane which produces a clearer, cleaner and more sustained sound with greater dynamic control.

There is little doubt in my mind this new sound is more sympathetic to the repertoire from the Impressionists onwards. It offers the characteristics needed to realize the essential ethos in these new forms of expression, such as clarity, minimal frequency masking (muddiness) and long sustain.

The increased dynamic range and an extraordinary sensitivity to different music styles make the instrument almost chameleon-like – the sound works effectively in all styles of piano repertoire.

The challenge is for the player to be sufficiently open minded to want to discover and realize these mysteries.

Why does the world need a new kind of piano?

This is not a new piano as such but rather a better piano, a piano that can do more things to encourage the furtherance of creative artistry.

People’s insatiable capacity to seek and learn underpins the nature of human endeavour. It’s not only normal but of necessity that musical instruments adopt new technologies and methodologies from generation to generation to avoid stagnation and decline. Art is ultimately for art’s sake – other options will not survive. So whether the world likes it or not, it will have better pianos that explore new sound aesthetics so long as players and makers can be and are excited about it.

I’ve heard your piano playing music from Bach to contemporary.  It would appear to be designed mostly for modern music, but I also feel that its clarity and dynamic range brings a fresh perspective to earlier music.  How important is the design of a piano to the style of music played?

The essential element common to the performance of all music must surely be clarity, for without this there is limited communication. The definition of clarity is ever changing as we find better means to reveal it. The fact that early music can be played on modern instruments, and is accepted, is testimony to the evolutionary nature of music and musical instrument technology. In fact, any new musical instrument must of necessity, be able to play earlier music forms and fashions. However, this cannot be said of early musical instruments when playing modern compositions, they just do not work!

Is an acoustic piano still relevant in the 21st century?  Or will technology eventually make it redundant?

This is a complex and increasingly difficult question to answer with a degree of confidence and certainty. There is no doubt that the acoustic piano has a devoted following but the trends towards electrically generated sound and the extraordinary variety and flexibility this offers is a serious diversion to the straight-laced acoustic world.

It would seem that there is a case for a dual role but I’m cautious in that unless the standard acoustic piano can offer the potential for renewed interest in its sound through innovation, younger musicians will be coaxed towards the freshness and seemingly limitless dynamics of the electronic age.

What other projects can you imagine yourself attempting?

It’s taken most of my working life to achieve what I have to date. There is much new application that needs to be seriously contemplated which will put the current achievements into perspective.

Technology is constantly shifting the barriers forward. I think the real challenge is for the players of the acoustic piano to move forward with this work and embrace it or it will not be able to proceed and the instrument will, in such a scenario, be deemed unchangeable and therefore, artistically dead.

What music do you listen to?

As I have grown older I have focused more on contemporary music.  One can only listen so many times to standard repertoire before something new is desired. I hate the re-release of the re-release of old works by old players. I look for new experiences that are relevant to me and our times. There is little hope for advancement should we lock ourselves into any other scenario!

By Anneka Hoorn (formerly Anneka Sparkes) with Gordon Harvey

Simply Music is all about music as a lifelong companion.  Not necessarily a calling or a career or a life-force, but occurring in a way that our musicality becomes an everyday friend, a natural part of how we express ourselves in the world.

Sometimes, though, a student will grab that newfound spirit and run with it until it’s something that’s truly their own.

Ronen started learning with me in a large group of 12 adults in a church hall in April 2006. From the beginning Ronen stood out as someone who had both a sharp mind for learning and an eagerness to commit to practice, as well as having an outstandingly beautiful artistic feel. Ronen had never learned the piano before, so I wanted to take him through the program right from the start and for him to have the opportunity to benefit from all the different backgrounds and learning styles of all the other students. In order to keep him adequately stimulated though, I encouraged him particularly to explore the Arrangements and Composition components of the Simply Music program. From early on Ronen started to contribute to the class little ideas of notes that sounded nice together, inspiring and impressing the other members not only with his talent, but also with his warmth, integrity and authentic modesty. One of his strengths that played out early was that he wasn’t scared of using the black notes. On the contrary, they often were his foundation, searching for the right white notes to piece them together.

Ronen has a very instinctive and physical learning and playing style, which is always a delight to watch. In class we sometimes watch him searching with his fingers over the piano to retrace the kinesthetic feel of his playing until he finds himself in familiar terrain, like a masseur searching until finding the knot in someone’s back. He may tilt his head to the side like a bird to tune in his ear better to the sounds that he is searching for, or look upwards as if in order to receive the divine music to ascend through his body, spilling out of his fingers into the piano keys.

We asked Ronen about his writing style to try to get a picture of how music occurs to him.

“It can start with a random chord, which I play either intentionally, by deciding to try it, or by coming unintentionally across a chord and finding that that sound grabs my attention – in other words, it just sounds nice.  In some cases I can then hear the next chord in my head so I just need to find it on the keys.  However, when I get stuck I need to wander around the keys until I find a chord which sounds good after the previous one.  Later on I tend to break up the chords into single notes, which to my ears makes it sound richer and more melodic.

“The phrases of the music usually ’form themselves’ according to the way the music develops. I can not say exactly how, but the music seems to ‘tell’ at what point a group of chords should be ended.

“About the rhythm: after I formulate the chord sequence, I sometimes come across the idea of a different rhythm which better fits a phrase or the whole piece. Again, it can come up intentionally or unintentionally (coming across a different rhythm while playing), when the new rhythm presents the harmonies better.”

As his musical vocabularly has increased over 160 lessons, and his understanding of chords, music structure and key signature has solidified, his compositions have matured to an astonishing melange of a unique complexity, yet organic perfection. I would love to think that sharing his piano playing here may lead to Ronen to finding more significant opportunities and applications to contribute his musical gifts to the world.

Firstly, let me start by extending a heart-felt “welcome” to you.  Thank you for taking some to check out this first edition of Simply Music’s newsletter, “The Playground”.  This has been a project that has taken quite some time to bring to fruition, however, we look forward now to this being a regular feature, and hope that it becomes one of your overall music resources.
Our intention is to keep you up-to-date with what’s going on in the Simply Music world, as well as to provide you with a selection of other music-related matters that you may find valuable, entertaining, educational and inspiring. You can look forward to regular features such as: audio interviews with accomplished individuals from within the music and entertainment industries; book, DVD and CD reviews; featured teachers and students (including performances and compositions); links to valuable articles and video clips etc.
Essentially, our focus is about being in communication and providing you with a valuable, information resource. Please feel free to forward along this issue to anybody who you think might be interested in what we are offering.
Finally, thanks for being a part of the Simply Music community. Whether you are a student, a parent of a student, a music educator, a performing or recording artist or one of our associates, thank you for your commitment to music and its importance in the world.

Keep playing!

Neil Moore

Simply Music Founder

An Interview with Ben Niles, Director and Producer of the Award Winning documentary, Note By Note – The Making of Steinway L1037

In this installment, Neil Moore talks with Ben Niles, the Director and Producer of the Award Winning documentary, Note By Note. This documentary follows the journey of a tree – from forest floor to concert hall floor, as a 9 foot, Steinway Grand Piano.  It explores the relationship between artist and instrument, master craftsmanship and raw materials.  Ben talks with Neil about his experience and the process as a whole.

Download the Ben Niles Interview or use the player below.

Learn more about the movie.

Kerry Hanley, Melbourne, Australia

My name is Kerry Hanley (nee Halbert) and I am a Senior Associate Teacher and a Senior Teacher Trainer with Simply Music. I have had the privilege of working with Neil Moore since 1992, longer than anyone else in the Simply Music organization. I was one of the two people who introduced Neil’s Simply Music program into Australia (with Gordon Harvey) and I believe I am the only teacher to have taught the program on two continents!

I have been involved with music for most of my life. I studied classical piano as a child and have also studied both voice and double bass. I have a Certificate of Music (in Jazz) from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and have been teaching piano for more than twenty years – I taught a more traditional approach for nine years and have been teaching Simply Music since it’s inception in 1998.

I consider myself fortunate to have been born to a family in which music was an enormous part of our lives. We lived on a farm outside a very small country town called Cunderdin, in the wheatbelt of Western Australia.

Both my parents loved to sing and had beautiful voices. My late mother was an accomplished pianist/organist, and played for the local church, directed the church choir and put on musicals in the town. Her church singing group released an album and performed around the state – many of the songs she composed. My father still sings in a choir.

I am the eldest of five children who all sing. We all had to learn the piano and ended up learning at least one other instrument each. My parents often had visitors on weekends and typically, everyone would end up gathering around for a sing-along while my Mum played the piano – sometimes assisted by one or more of us on guitar, double-bass, flute, violin or trumpet.

I did traditional piano lessons from the age of eight, but mostly hated it. Piano teachers didn’t stay long in the country, and I had seven different teachers in nine years. Each new teacher wanted me to review what I had been doing and I would end up spending 18 months on the same six songs and some scales! I was bored out of my mind, but I wanted to be able to play like my Mum and that was what kept me going. Apparently, I used to say to her, ‘there must be an easier way to learn this!’

On weekends, I would spend hours at the piano – not practicing what I was ‘supposed’ to, but poring over the hardest music I could find in my Mum’s music collection and painstakingly working out 4-note chords, note-by-note. In High School, I told my teacher I was going to quit lessons if I had to continue doing exams, and if I couldn’t learn what I wanted to learn. She reluctantly agreed. I chose much more advanced songs and a wider variety of styles and began to enjoy it.

The goal of Simply Music is to ‘maximize the likelihood of students having music as a lifelong companion’. It has definitely been that for me. I remember as a teenager going through times of anger and frustration with my parents, and how being able to sit down at the piano and just play, helped me through it. I had a very dramatic piece of music that I loved to play, and within seconds, all my anger was gone and I was lost in the music. I played when I was happy, sad, angry, lonely and depressed. The music always filled me up so much that it felt as if my heart would almost burst with joy! And it still does.

Piano was a great foundation for other musical pursuits and I participated in singing groups and bands (double bass) and ‘busked’ (street performing) in London Underground Train Stations while I lived there in 1984, and subsequently in Perth.

I began teaching piano in 1989. For nine years, I taught a more traditional approach. In 1992, I met Neil Moore, when he joined the organization I was with. We worked together from opposite sides of the country and then from opposite sides of the world, after he and his wife and children moved to the US in 1994. When Neil started developing Simply Music and I heard of the results he was achieving, I wanted to do the same. I traveled to the US with Gordon Harvey, (who had been working with us also), and participated in the first official Teacher Training for Simply Music at the beginning of 1998. Gordon and I returned to Australia and started Simply Music in our respective cities. I had around 70 students at the time and changed them all over to the Simply Music method. I saw results, unlike anything I’d ever witnessed previously. I had never loved teaching so much and my students had never loved learning so much.

After setting up a network of teachers in Perth, an opportunity arose for me to move to the US and work in the Simply Music Global Headquarters in Sacramento, to help with growing the organization there. Neil called me one morning in September 1999 and said that an investor had come on board and that they would be commencing filming of an infomercial and new Teacher Training and Student Home Materials in 10 days time, and that if I wanted to come over and participate, I would need to be there by then. I handed over my 70 students to the other teachers in Perth, packed up, sold belongings and left!

My years in the US were incredibly exciting and also some of the most challenging in my life. I learned so much about myself, made many mistakes and (I hope!) grew an enormous amount. I made some wonderful friends and had some incredible experiences.

However, after four years and much deliberation, I decided to move back to Australia to be nearer to family. I moved to Melbourne, Victoria – on the eastern side of Australia – where I felt I would meet the man of my dreams, which I did in 2005 and married him six months later! I have become a stepmother to my husband Michael’s three teenage daughters.

I teach from commercial premises in North Balwyn, in the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Currently, over half of my students are adults. From time to time, I conduct workshops for Simply Music teachers and offer private coaching sessions for teachers.

I love this program! I want my students to experience the joy of playing music. I want to pass on the gift that was given to me by my Mother, using the vessel that was given to us by Neil Moore. I share the dream of a world where everyone plays music, and where people learn in a way that’s fun, simple and gets great results quickly, and I love supporting teachers in achieving this with their students. After more than twelve years, I am still thrilled to be a part of this organization and its huge vision, and I am excited about what the future holds. I look forward to being involved and contributing in whatever way I can, long into the future.