Simply Music

From Gordon Harvey

Dr Katrina McFerran is a music therapist, researcher and a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne.  Author of many works including Adolescents, Music and Music Therapy, she has a special interest in reaching adolescents through music, but she has wide experience of many aspects of music therapy.  We spoke to her about this under-appreciated field, where much wonderful work is done using music’s unique ability to help us connect with the world.

Use the player below to listen to the interview.

From Mark S. Meritt

Students and parents/coaches often believe that the Simply Music method is demanding. It can be a challenge to be as diligent as the method instructs. It can be hard for parents to actively involve themselves in supporting and taking responsibility for their kids’ practice routines. At first, it may have seemed relatively easy to produce satisfying and impressive results. With the need to maintain a growing repertoire while also regularly taking on new and increasingly complex material, some may wonder, where did the “simple” in Simply Music go? Is it really easier than traditional methods after all?

The answer is most definitely yes. Here’s why.

As discussed in the initial Foundation Session and also at various times throughout your lesson experience, we’re not only interested in a novel and effective way of cultivating musical expression for a student. We also want to be aware of the learning process in general and what it takes to ensure that it goes as well as possible, both for the sake of music learning as well as for the many ways that this awareness can impact almost every area of one’s experience.

With Simply Music, the musical content certainly makes it much easier to achieve great piano performance results than other methods, while also providing the most natural foundation for more advanced material such as reading and theory. As for the rest, the managing of the learning process, Simply Music just makes explicit what is always true about learning for people in general. Other methods leave such things substantially, or even entirely, unmentioned.

In other words, Simply Music may demand more than other methods, but that’s only because it’s aware of what should be demanded by any method. If other methods wanted to succeed as well as they could even on their own terms, they’d demand all the same things about managing the learning process — and then they still wouldn’t produce the same results because of the differences in the approach to musical content itself.

When it comes down to it, Simply Music and traditional methods are like two mountains. Getting to the top means fulfilling whatever potential a student has as a musician. The mountains peaks are at the same altitude, and each different height represents the same amount of performance skill no matter which mountain you’re on. The difference between them is that the Simply Music mountain is very wide with a gentle slope all the way from base to summit, while the traditional method mountain is narrow with a much steeper incline.

Climbing the steep traditional mountain, most people find it a somewhat difficult trek each step of the way. Some will make it up a ways, fewer people the next bit, fewer still beyond that, and so on. Unless you just happen to be someone naturally built for mountain climbing — i.e., unless you already have certain amounts of particular musical abilities, such as interpreting written symbols, translating symbols quickly into physical action, a “good ear,” etc. — you’re not likely to get far. And, indeed, on the whole, few people do.

The Simply Music mountain’s slope, though, is gradual enough that everyone can find a nice pace for themselves, making each step of the way easy to cover. The only thing that can make it too hard to climb is going faster than what your muscles are ready for at any given time. You can always slow down and find the right pace for you to keep making steady progress all the way up the mountain. Not true for just anyone on that steeper mountain.

There’s another big difference between the mountains. The base of the Simply Music mountain lies right at regular ground level, while from there you have to go down a fairly big hill first in order to get to the base of the traditional mountain. That’s because the traditional mountain puts reading in the way of performance, forcing you to start at an extremely simple level of performance and slog your way back up to the level where Simply Music starts — where anyone can start if only they take on the Simply Music mountain as opposed to the traditional one.

The opportunity to start at that more satisfying level of performance is further compounded by the terrain of the Simply Music mountain also being more interesting at even its lower heights. Right from the start, there are variations and arrangements, the opportunity to compose and improvise, accompaniment, a wider variety of musical styles, a larger number of positions on the keyboard, and so on. These are all things that traditional methods either begin only far above the base of their mountain or never even get to. Yes, the reading and theory is missing from the Simply Music mountain’s low terrain, even though it is a constant presence from the bottom of the traditional mountain on upward. Those things, though, exist farther up the Simply Music mountain, at heights where students will be vastly better prepared to take them on and make real use of them.

The differences between these mountains explain why Simply Music can be a great thing even for someone who has had some or even quite a lot of traditional method experience. If you’re interested in getting as high into the atmosphere as possible, then, unless you’re already substantially on your way to fulfilling your potential scaling some other method’s mountain, it’s likely to be easier to get there by stopping where you are and starting at the bottom of the Simply Music mountain. And by the way, if you decide to do that, you get a free hang glider ride, no need to climb back down the current mountain and then back up that crazy hill back to the regular ground level. Just make the decision, and you’re right there, ready to go.

Many students — and Simply Music teachers — who have taken even 5-10 years of traditional lessons and/or studied music in conservatories have found that doing Simply Music provided the path of least resistance to the higher altitudes that they weren’t able to reach through the steeper slopes of those other pursuits. Because of the satisfying pieces and the variety of challenges that Simply Music offers right from the beginning, they have very little sense of “starting over,” instead having a great experience from the start just like students whose first piano lessons were with Simply Music.

But none of this means that life will always be easy there on the Simply Music mountain! Physics tells us that it takes the same amount of energy to move something one foot up in the air no matter whether it’s moving vertically straight up, or a longer distance up a steep slope, or an even longer distance up a gradual slope. The work simply has to be put in. It’s just easier to do it gradually, over time, up the shallower slope.

The key is a moderate pace and consistent effort. Go too fast, forget to keep your repertoire alive, fail to follow the method’s instructions, and one way or other you’ll start to struggle, not yet ready for the headier terrain you’ve proceeded into too quickly. You’ll have to come back down the mountain a bit and retrace some of that old ground before you can keep going upward effectively. But rest assured, as challenging as Simply Music may ever appear, as much as it may seem to demand of you, if you want piano musicianship in your life, it’s only likely to be that much harder a climb on some other mountain.

From Gordon Harvey

In the last edition we talked about what music moves you as a listener.  This month we’d like to know more about the music you play – what are the pieces that move you and why?  Do you have a piece that you’ve always wanted to play?  Why do you think you like what you like?  What role does playing music have in your life? What’s more important to you, playing or listening?  Why do you play?  Why do you like what you listen to?

These days I’ve been finding improvisation to be a marvellous journey.  I’ve always improvised, but since going a little deeper into it with a teacher, I’ve started discovering that I can contribute something unique.  Do you feel you have your own musical voice?  Or do you have a particular composer or songwriter who somehow reflects you better than any other?

Let us know what music means the most to you.

From Mark S Meritt

Last month, you saw how the Formula for Success could help you better understand yourself as a student and point the way toward improving your results. The 100 possible points came from ten different success factors.

But the success factors actually go to 11, and so we need a new formula!

A seat can’t be held up by two legs. It needs three. Just the same, Simply Music lessons succeed when three roles are played. The student learns, the teacher is the method coach, and someone must serve as the student’s life/practice coach. The importance of the coach has been discussed here before. The key points:

• Students who are children have an adult playing the role of practice coach for them, supporting their practice routine, helping them learn how to navigate the ups and down of a long-term relationship with music, because they haven’t yet learned how to maintain long-term relationships themselves.
• Adult students may play the role of practice coach for themselves, though adults who for whatever reason have trouble managing a successful practice routine on their own can benefit greatly from finding someone else to play that role for them.

Whatever the situation, the coach role cannot be underestimated. Indeed, Simply Music teachers all around the world generally require the involvement of a practice coach for all students under age 18 — even those who have been in the program for many years and may seem self-sufficient. The skills involved in coaching — including self-coaching — are very different from those involved in most of the rest of piano practice, so needing support is something that is truly okay for anyone of any age.

When looking at the Formula for Success, one may find a student having room for improvement in any number of areas. Low scores on those success factors, though, may not indicate a failure on the part of a student. The student may be doing his or her best with an insufficiently developed ability. A crucial question is whether or not that ability will develop further without assistance.

It’s always worthwhile to ask what more the student can do to improve with any success factors. When students are doing all they can on their own and not achieving the desired results, though, they may simply need someone else’s support to help them learn how to do better. The same holds true of a student achieving good results who could be attaining excellence. So while the Formula for Success is a valuable self-assessment tool for students, the practice coach should have a self-assessment tool as well, a coach-specific formula for success.

This much simpler formula has just one success factor, and it is coaching itself. As with the students’ success factors, coaches can score themselves from 1-10 on how well they fulfill the coaching role for the students in their charge. Here’s what a score of 10 out of 10 points looks like:

Coaching — All students must have someone fulfilling the practice coach role for them, whether they do it themselves or have an adult do it for them. Coaches understand that the simple fact of students being unable to do something on their own is itself evidence that those students require someone else’s support in order to eventually learn how to do it themselves. Therefore, practice coaches take full responsibility for — and understand that teachers will hold them responsible for — students’ engagement in all the factors involved in the student Formula for Success. By attending lessons and understanding the method content as well as possible, the coach can help the student with the details of practice, participating hands-on as needed to help the student achieve excellent results. Most importantly, by supporting the management of a student’s practice routine through peaks and valley’s alike, the practice coach ensures that the student achieves ongoing success with music, gains all the benefits that musical success has to offer, and also continually improves in the ability to effectively navigate long-term relationships in general.

Because of the unique position a coach holds in the program, the quality of the students’ 10 success factors is in a very real sense determined by the support provided by factor number 11, the coach. Each improvement of just one point for a coach can lead to improvements of any number of points in any number of success factors for a student.

Given the value available in student’s Formula for Success and this new supplementary formula for coaches, the Lesson Line newsletter is now going to grow into a new phase. More in-depth writings of the kind you’ve seen so far will become less frequent. At the same time, other more brief references and points of interest may arrive more frequently. Enjoy!

How would you like to win a new keyboard? Check out Simply Music (@SimplyMusic) on Twitter for how to win.

DRM-650B keyboard

From Mark S Meritt

However long you’ve been taking Simply Music piano lessons, it’s probably safe to say that you’ve achieved far more than what you could have in the same amount of time with other methods. Maybe you’ve even achieved far more than you imagined you could.

In your best moments in the program, you’ve seen the possibilities. You’ve seen how a fantastic result can come together fairly quickly and easily. You’ve had that feeling of mastery that comes from playing an older song that’s become second nature, maybe even the amazement of playing it with your eyes closed. You’ve recognized that true musical creativity isn’t just for the Mozarts and Beatles of the world, that even you, just months or even weeks into lessons, can be creating your own original music and even improvising something brand new in the spur of the moment.

You can connect the dots between these experiences and the profound benefits that are yours to have in your relationship with music. You can sense that that’s where the path leads. By following the Simply Music method, you can get there. The method works.

If you follow it.

You’re aware that the closer you get to fully following the method, the more success you’ll achieve, that there is still room for success even if you can’t reach that ideal — and that there is some point where putting in not enough effort can only lead to an end to your relationship with music. As long as you’re in the success zone, you’ll be fine. At the same time, the farther into that zone you can be, the more you can find even greater success in the program — and live up to your own potential.

Neil Moore says that the difference between a student who does 99% of what is asked and 100% of what is asked is astonishing. So you can imagine how valuable it is for you to do as much as you can to follow the program, especially during times when you aren’t able to do it all.

To get there, it helps to know where you are already, so that you can see what else there may be for you to do to keep improving. A great way to do this is to use my Formula for Success.

As you’ll see, there are ten success factors. For each, you can rate yourself from 1-10, 10 being best. When you achieve all 100 possible points, you’ll experience the greatest success and the quickest, easiest progress. The first page provides a simple form that you can print and fill in, while the second provides a description of what a 10 would look like for each of the success factors.

Since we are always changing, it would be great to check in with the formula periodically. Monthly might be ideal, but you could do it less often — or even more often. Even if you do hit 100 at one point, it’s still worth continuing to check in with yourself regularly, because the one thing we can say about a long-term relationship is that it’s always changing.

When you rate yourself, be as honest as possible. The numbers have meaning only as a guide to help you keep becoming a better learner, and they can’t do that job for you if you fudge them. If at any time you fill in the numbers you feel sad or frustrated because you wish they were higher, let yourself experience those feelings, and then remind yourself that all the success you’ve achieved so far goes hand in hand with those very numbers. Celebrate that past success, and see the gap between your current score and 100 as what it really is — a fantastic opportunity for you to achieve even more success!

The Simply Music message is simple: We want the whole world to know that they are “musical”. And what better way to share that message than through stories. Stories about…

· a blind person’s journey in becoming a Simply Music teacher

· an autistic child’s ability to musically express themselves through piano playing

· an adult who made the decision to teach before he could even play

· the healing of a stroke victim through Simply Music.

The new book release, A World Where Everyone Plays, by Bernadette Ashby, is a collection of inspiring Simply Music stories that will encourage and challenge students, parents, and teachers, alike. It’s for anyone who has ever doubted – it’s a book about achieving dreams and breaking barriers.

PRODUCT DETAILS

· Paperback: 288 pages

· Publisher: Efting Press; First Edition (2011)

· ISBN 978-1-60330-001-8

Retail Value: $19.95 Special Simply Music Price $16.95

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!