You're listening to the piano pod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century.
Hi, Josh. Welcome to the show.
Hi, thanks for having me.
So Josh and I are actually old buddies. We go way back to our undergrad days at Eastwood's
School of Music and University of Rochester. We've had this running conversation just about
as long on the state of classical music and music education. Incidentally, Josh is just
an unbelievable teacher and he's always been my model since I started out as somebody who
is more experienced than me and just has a knack for it. So we talked a lot about that
kind of stuff. And then back in March of this year, 2021, Rolling Stone magazine published
this article. It's become rather infamous, I think, with the title, Juilliard Must Modernize
or It Will Disappear. And this article circulated widely among classical musicians on social
media. And Josh published what I thought was a really thoughtful and articulate response
on Facebook, which I then shared and my friends picked up. A lot of people thought it was
better than the original article, honestly. So we all read that and we thought we should
really bring Josh on the show to talk about these things. So we're going to get into that.
But first, so our audience gets to know you a little bit, Josh. I was wondering if you
could talk a little bit about your musical background and how you came up because it's
a little bit unusual for a classically trained musician.
Yes, I am a jack of all trades is a positive spin of that. And then I think a lot of times
I'm just waiting for someone to discover that I'm a complete and utter fraud. So I'll have
that. Yeah, I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. I'm the only musician in my family, but my
family goes way back there. Actually, before the founding of the country, which is a pretty
cool thing. And so I grew up in a very musical place and my parents were musical enthusiasts.
We were always listening to music. My mom was a dancer when she was younger. And so
music was a big part of my life. And as long as I can remember, I was always listening
to it. Because my mom was a dancer, we had a piano in the house. And so I had an older
brother and he was taking lessons. And I was too young to take lessons. And so I was just
like listening to songs, kind of like a sponge. I was listening to songs on the radio. My
parents had a big LP collection. I would just listen to songs and learn how to play them
by ear. And my musical interests were really have always been super, super diverse. I love
pop and music and rock and blues and jazz. But I also love classical and got really into
classical music around 10 or 11 years old, which is like really young, but also really
late for most classical musicians. So started taking classical lessons then and learned
pretty early on that I had to segregate or compartmentalize aspects of my musicianship.
Never tell my classical teacher that for instance, I didn't learn how to read the entire first
year of my lessons. I knew what lines and spaces were. And so I would just count up
the lines and spaces to figure out the first note and be like, okay, cool. And then just
start playing the piece because she would always play the pieces for me before introducing
them or I would listen to recordings from the library.
So you're mostly playing by ear.
Yeah, I mean, pretty exclusively. But I eventually learned how to read and got really into it
and like so into it that I was a big idiot and left my junior year of high school, had
a chip on my shoulders, like I'm going to apply to colleges. And so somehow they made
a mistake and let me into some great schools. And so I went to Eastman as a baby. I was
16 years old when I went there and found out very quickly that I knew nothing about classical
music. And I spent that first year just being as scrappy as I possibly could. But loved
my experience there. Obviously, like immersing myself in that world for four years was deeply
meaningful to me. And then, you know, took a little bit time off and gigged and eventually
went back to Eastman for my master's and kind of fell in love with teaching after doing
17 different things for a couple years. And I don't know, like the boring story is that
I met my wife at Eastman and we both got jobs here and kind of made Rochester her home.
And it sort of took me teaching at Nazareth College to learn how sort of silly it was
that I had been compartmentalizing aspects of my musicianship for like a really long
time in my life. We were a small liberal arts school. We have a pretty big school of music.
We have about 300 students in our school of music. We're the second biggest school within
the college. And our primary enrolling programs are music therapy, music education, and music
business. So sort of where I fit in sort of my place in that college and an initiative
that I very intentionally carved out for myself and was lucky to be supported doing that was,
you know, we have obviously music education students who need to be able to, you know,
improvise a complements or do score reductions or I think about my wife all the time who's
like at two different schools and she maybe has her Suzuki cello book at one school and
her Suzuki piano or a violin book in another school. And so she's constantly transposing
the complements because, you know, she has to play them a different key. And then I got
handed this functional piano course for music therapists that like really didn't have a
curriculum or any required text. And like, we have this class that we want to do and
we don't know what to do with it. And I was totally shocked that there were like zero
resources available to give my students. Like you could either find like, you can play pop
piano too and you'd get these super freaking lame arrangements of like the melody jammed
in your right hand pinky and like completely squared out rhythms that just sound awful.
Like you don't have to be a musician to know how terrible those things sound. Or like someone's
dissertation on like 1910 stride piano, you know, styles. And so it's like, there's nothing
in between that really empowers students with these skills or breaks down these elements
into sort of easily digestible and pedagogically sound approaches. So I started making handouts
for my students and those handouts got really long and ridiculous and eventually led to
a book. So it's sort of become a passion of mine. But I don't know, I'm kind of always
been restless as a musician. This is a long story, so coming off. I've always been restless
as a musician. So I'm never happy like sort of doing one thing. I get, I have like a musical
ADD and I get bored. So I tend to say yes to projects that are different or interesting.
And then if I can't find those projects, I tend to just make them. So that's kind of
what I've enjoyed doing throughout my career. And so that means like, like we started teaching
a version of that class that I built for our graduate students, you know, four or five
years ago and sort of had to retool that curriculum. And we're in the process of doing it for music
business students and incorporating like synth and MIDI input and, you know, scoring into
that curriculum too. So like, it's a very cool part of my job. But it's sort of, you
know, like, I think like a lot of 21st century musicians, like we're piecing together a variety
of different niches to sort of make a living and also keep ourselves vibrant and interested.
Yeah. Okay. A lot to respond to there. Josh, first I want to ask you, can you talk a little
bit more about the book and what's in it? Because talking about these two extremes,
right? The bad arrangements on the one hand and the dissertation on the other. What does
functional piano mean to you and how do you teach it?
Yeah. So I mean, functional piano to me is a term that, you know, certainly I didn't
coin, but I've sort of taken ownership with and that it's sort of the, it's the catch
all word I use for everything that kind of falls outside of the realm of what has become
traditional classical training, right? So traditional classical training places emphasis
on very early on, on developing facility and developing reading skills, right? So your
ability to manipulate an instrument at a very high level and your ability to consume a lot
of written music. So those are, those are really important things and not that they're
at all bad skills. I mean, I tell my students every week practically that like, I take it
for granted that I can manipulate my instrument well, like, like I've done the work and I
can do that. I take it for granted that I can read like that's, and that's something
as a kid that I like, oh wait, all these people are so much better at this. It's, it's a skill
like anything else, but I think we've kind of created this mystique around these other
skills like how do I learn a song from a recording or how do I transpose or how do I learn like
what are the three main elements of blues piano stylings on, you know, on the piano
are like, how can I make my pop songs sound like the recordings? So a lot of these started
as like, I mean, I'll be honest, like a lot of it's reversed engineering, right? So this
is stuff that I've been doing my whole life and just kind of do organically. And then
I would have students, I was really lucky. My undergraduate students are enrolled, my
music therapy students are enrolled in clinical placements on campus. So they're taking my
class, but then they're also going, you know, on campus to work with a group of five year
old kids with autism, or they're working with an adult student with aphasia, or they're
working with a senior student with recovering from a stroke, right? So they're having to
manipulate piano and guitar and their voice and use music to accomplish therapeutic goals.
So they're going to their sessions mean like, Hey, Massaco, sorry, everyone calls me Massaco
and not Professor Massaco. I don't know how that happened, but it happened. So like, Hey,
Massaco, I was doing this thing in a session and like, how do you ground the blues because
my student needs a really steady beat, but like, you know, how do I also imbue it with
piano? So they would just ask me a lot of questions and I'm like, I don't know, let's
figure it out. So that's really what functional pianism is to me because the things that my
students have to be able to do and prioritize in very authentic and meaningful ways are
very different skill set than what classical musicians, you know, prioritize. My students
have to be able to be really comfortable transposing, right? Like they'll have a student who comes
in just starts singing our client coming in, just start singing a song and a key and they
have to figure out what key that's in and play an accompaniment to it, you know, or
whatever, like horrendous ultimate guitar tab they get where like every second chord
is wrong. They have to know how to fix that on the spot. They don't have time to prep
for it. They have to keep a catalog of, you know, dozens and eventually hundreds and thousands
of songs in their heads and how do you maintain that and work on that skill? So those are
all, you know, really sort of different prioritization of skill sets. They don't have to be able
to understand everything about classical technique or how to manipulate their instrument. You
know, I'm much more interested in function over form with those students because I don't
have them for very long. So yes, I would love them to play the instrument in the way that's
healthiest and most comfortable and most efficient for them, but I can't prioritize that over
their ability to be able to look at a lead sheet for flying me to the moon and not completely
freak out at what flat 13 means, you know, like there has to be that foundation for them
to go on. So it's just sort of a different level of prioritization of skills. I know
that's a long answer, but it's one of those things that I think is a little confusing
at first. Sure, sure. Well, I think I could probably sum it up as functional piano is
essentially practical piano skills for what these musicians need to do. And there seems
to be a disconnect that you're describing between the work that they do and what is
traditionally taught in a classical curriculum. Now somebody might say, okay, well, these
people are training specifically to be music therapists. Is there the same disconnect for
somebody that's going a more traditional route? And that's where we start to get into philosophical
issues, right? Which is kind of the reason we're here today. So let's get to the article
because this is a very contentious article. I think there's a certain consensus among
opinions that I read anyway, that it has its flaws, but basically the author made several
stipulations. Number one being that orchestras are dying because they're not profitable and
they rely on donors to survive. Number two, if you graduate from Juilliard with a degree,
you're not guaranteed a job. In fact, a New York Times report from 2004 tracked down the
class of Juilliard from 10 years earlier and found that only 25% of them had full-time
or orchestral jobs. Also that classical schools should teach technology and business skills
and also that they should introduce different genres of music to their students, audiences
and donors alike, not just classical. So Josh, tell us what you think about all this.
I have way too many opinions. That's what you're here for. Yeah, it's too early to have a couple
beers in me, but I'll have even more later this evening. I'm sure when I'm thinking about
this. It won't hear everything. Yeah, you know, there's a lot to unpack, not just in
that article, but that surround the assumptions made within that article. And maybe that's
the thing that's sort of, to use a word triggered me to rant on Facebook about it. You know,
I think genre playing is such a dumb word. And, you know, anytime classical musicians
start to talk about like incorporating more styles or genres, I just, I have to like hide
the visible disdain that's in my face. Because, and I think it comes from a good place, but
it always comes from a place of looking down upon music that does not fit a very narrow
definition of what great music is, you know, and we can of course have this conversation.
I'm, you know, I have a 50% panel female panel right now. And, you know, we're all saying
that the music of dead white Europeans is somehow better than what everyone else has
ever made in the history of music, and discounting the thousands of years of making music that
happened outside of that system, right? So I think anytime, you know, even as a musician
that has extraordinary reverence for like all types of music, I'm always careful about
how I phrase that discussion. And I think classical musicians really should do a better
job of doing that, that they just don't. And there's a lot of baggage there that that's
sort of just like, oh, you know, well, sure, I should listen to a pop song or like I'm
in a string quartet, I should arrange, you know, like some Apex Twin song, I'm like,
well, that the Apex Twin has been around for 30 years, right? Like, you're not going to
reach a new audience with an Apex Twin song. So, you know, there's sort of this arrogance
and ignorance that is equal parts in that conversation that I find, you know, problematic
at best.
I agree. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt, but the superiority you mentioned, that's something
that I face this every day. I'm a classical musician, but I teach children and they have
this understanding of classical music being, you know, polished and education that's the
that if you want to be educated, you have to go through this path of classical music,
not knowing anything else. Although probably they have never heard a single symphony in
their lifetime, but that's their mindset. So, so did the classical music market themselves
very well in this country? Is that, is that why people have this kind of mindset? And
I also have a problem with the fact that I'm a teacher. Okay. I'm a classical pianist too,
but I make a living by teaching piano and I love it. But teaching piano sometimes is
considered to be something secondary. And, you know, hush, hush. When I first came to
New York 10 years ago or, oh, sorry, 13 years ago. Oh my gosh. Oh, 15. Yeah. And then it
was like this. Oh, so you teach. Oh, you know, as a pianist, oh, you teach that kind of mentality.
So, you know, the artists started to having to have this two different almost persona.
One is the pianist, one is the piano teacher. So where does this superiority and inferiority
come from? I'm just, you know, I mean, yeah, this is, these are such great points. You
know, I think, I think there's some real speak and there's a lot to impact there, but there's
some like sort of things that we have to get out of the way when we talk about classical
music as, as a thing that functions in a modern musical economy. Right. So classical, like
the entirety of the classical musical industry accounts for about 2% of total revenue of
the music industry. So anytime we're having a conversation about why, why or why not a
symphony is succeeding or failing or why or why not a Juilliard grad can get a job. I
mean, we have to acknowledge that it's 2% of, I mean, we're a consumer economy, right?
It's 2% of the industry. And we have to be real about that and recognize that a, that's
something we have to work against. Right. And that within this very narrow 2% slice
of the industry, there's intense competition for a limited number of audience members and
a limited number of funds. And, and that's just the reality of the industry. Like we
keep waiting for like some magic thing to happen where suddenly classical music becomes
10% of the industry. And that's something we have let happen as a culture. We've let
it happen as, as consumers, but we've also been very, very complicit in, in, I think
accelerated as, as classical musicians. You know, it, it, it breaks my heart that, you
know, a lot of musicians that I went to school with, and this is like, we can talk about
the non-musical benefits of being a well-earned musician. And like a big one of them is people
skills, right? Like classical musicians go off in a practice room and they work for hours
and hours and hours by themselves to produce a product. And then they present that product
in a place where they're not allowed to be human beings. They're not allowed to have
opinions or have conversations or talk or much less improvise or experiment or try new
things. Right. And then they present that in an extraordinary fourth wall stuffy environment
and people politely clap and never in between movements. And then they leave and we wonder
why like that's dying because I can go to a rock concert and I can feel a kick in my
chest. Right. I make this elemental connection with the people around me. We're all experiencing
part of the same thing. There's a light show, right? There's like a set list. Performers
are directly connecting. I just like the first concert I saw when the regulations lifted
was Brandy Carlile. Right. So I went to our local big, and if you guys haven't seen Brandy
Carlile or listened to Brandy Carlile, you should listen to Brandy Carlile. Brandy Carlile
is incredible singer and songwriter. She has a voice that, you know, as soon as she opens
her mouth, it just makes you stop doing anything you're doing and listen. And she makes music
with the Hanselrath twins. So two identical twins who sing impeccable three part harmony
with her and play guitar and bass. And just, you know, being an audience with about 6,000
people there and watching three musicians have 6,000 people in the palm of their hand.
Sorry, I have to edit myself. The entire time, you know, seeing people have amazing personable
reactions, right? Seeing people cry, seeing people cheer, seeing people laugh. That's
what it means to be an audience member when you're in music, right? Like, and to experience
a concert. And we've gotten so incredibly far away from that experience. I'll leave
you with one quick story. My wife and I are big hikers and before all this, every year
we'd go to Europe and do a big cross track. And a few years ago, we were in Italy, but
we were passing through Verona and realized, oh, if we stop in Verona, we can go see an
opera, right? So we think about opera here and we go to the Met and it's an incredibly
stuffy affair and only the rich people go and we dress up and we hold our pinkies like
that and we leave right after the first intermission because we're bored and we want to go back
to our, you know, apartment. So, right. Opera there starts in the Verona Amphitheater, which
is a, you know, ancient amphitheater where they used to do circus fights and you're sitting
on stone granite steps. They start the opera at around nine o'clock, just as the sun is
setting. Tickets are about 20 bucks and, you know, like baseball games, you have people
selling like hot dogs. So those people are there, but they're selling glasses of wine
and gelato and sandwiches and you're hanging out and people are talking. Anytime there's
an aria, people are yelling and screaming and clapping. It's this huge spectacle where
they're like live horses walking on stage. At one point, we saw Aida at one point, there's
a choir of 16 harpists on stage. I mean, so it's this huge epic sports spectacle. Everyone
knows the music. Everyone has a connection to it, but also people are having conversations
with their family in the middle of it, right? Like during the wretches when it's a little
quiet, but then like, okay, 20 extras are going to go backstage behind the theater and
light torches so that as the sun sets, the torches are the lights for the stage and everyone
goes, wow. Oh, wow. How beautiful, right? Like they are chiefly aware of making a spectacle
and entertaining a large group of people. And they're being honest about that and open
about that. And that, that was, I mean, we were up until 1 a.m. and then we went with
a bunch of Italians down to like the local bar and got drunk, right? And like, where
is that experience in the States? It doesn't exist and we don't have that connection. And
I know it's part of its culture, right? Like we haven't maintained that culture. We're
a new culture. We haven't carved that out for us. But that seems to me to be a very
convenient excuse. I don't think classical musicians have frankly bothered to work hard
enough to create those kinds of experience or really have seen value in doing so. You
know, like most classical musicians I went to school with want to go, you know, to an
annex of Carnegie Hall and play a concert for people who don't clap between movements
and put it on their resume. And like we wonder why it's honestly like the question I would
pose, not the class, why is class going to be dying? It's like, why is, how have we been
able to keep it alive for this long? So the classical music not being integrated into
our daily lives in this, in this, in America, right? We're all Americans here so we can
talk about, but so then, but when, when I used to live in Florida, my friends took me
to a bluegrass concert or blues and then the situation was completely different. As
in people are really enjoying themselves, immersing themselves into music and clapping
and enjoying their drinks outside. And really, so the music was so alive and the musicians
were directly communicating to the audience and there was this amazing connections to
one another. So, and then honestly, and Eric and Clara and I tried to do that last spring
by doing the live stream concert. And I think classical musicians should do that sort of
audience engaging concerts more.
Yeah. And you know, and it's like, it's one of the, I absolutely agree. And it's one of
those things like, like anything else, you have to practice at doing it and you have
to suck at it, right? Like the first time you're on stage and you're performing your
own music and you have to like practice audience banter in between songs. Like you suck at
it. You say stupid things, you say, um, there are weird changes. The first time you play
with a guitarist, you're like, oh, oh, they have to tune and I now I have to fill time.
Right? Like, ah, you, then you notice like you do this thing and you go to enough concerts,
you go, oh, okay. It's like, have any of you seen like the same artist, um, multiple times,
like the same, like a commercial music artist perform at multiple times, you'll notice they
tell the same stories. Their banter that seems very off the cuff is very planned, you know?
And once you realize that you're like, oh, okay. So that's what I need to do. I need
to plan how to do that. Um, I listened to a great podcast called the working songwriters
podcast, um, that, uh, uh, Joe Pug hosts and he brings a lot of people on and sometimes
people who have had very long and distinguished careers. Um, he asked a series of questions
and some of them are, are, are the same questions, but I really like it. It's a very like long
form deep dive, uh, about what it means to be an industry musician. And, um, you know,
uh, one of the things that always comes up is like every single one of those great musicians
that are now part of acts that fill auditoriums have played bar gigs where there was literally
no one in the bar. There were zero people there and they played an entire two hours
set to no one. Right? It's like they've had those experiences and they've learned from
them and they've grown from them. They've gone back and like, okay, here's what we need
to do differently. Like here's how we need to change it. Here's how we need to pound
pavement, you know? Um, and I don't, I don't see that happening. And I think you're absolutely
right. Like, great, we're going to do a live stream and three of our friends are going
to show up. Okay. Next time let's do better. What can we do differently? Can we do a sponsor?
Like, you know, when I do a gig, like again, like Mike, I try to gently, um, convince even
my own classical colleagues who like know the crazy person that I am, you know, my institution,
like we'll do a piano faculty concert and like, we won't do a sponsored post and maybe
we'll do a couple of things on the website and like, maybe we'll do a press release in
the newspaper that no one reads. Um, and maybe 40 people will show up at the audience, you
know, and they're mostly our friends. Like when I do, uh, I'm doing a Jackson Brown tribute,
um, next month, uh, if you don't know Jackson Brown's music, you shouldn't know Jackson
Brown's music. It's deeply incredible music. Uh, he's still making music. He's on tour
right now. He just put out a record last year. He's 72 years old. He still sounds beautiful.
Um, and, uh, he's a fabulous, uh, piano player and some of the great session musicians of
the last 40 years have been a part of his band. Um, so, uh, it's like always been a
dream of mine, right? So I put together this crazy eight person band and we're all super
invested in the material and learned everything. Um, and we're doing our sort of first show
and you know, the venue is like intentionally small. It's only about 150 people. Um, and
so like, this is going to be our first run so that we can take it to Buffalo and Syracuse
and different markets. Um, but like we, uh, have already begun a presale, right? So every
band member has 20 tickets that we're all responsible for, for moving to our friends,
right? And then once that presale is done, like we have a hundred people that we know
are going to show up to our concert. They've already committed financially and then we're
going to do radio spots and then we're going to do a Facebook like targeted ads and we're
going to do a series of videos that we're going to release, right? It's like little
teasers from rehearsals and like, this is a whole thing that we do because all of us
have done this thing before and we know what gets butts in seats, right? And we're all
willing to do it. Um, and so, you know, I'll play a classical concert and 40 people will
be there and they'll like politely clap and then I'll leave and I'll be happy because
I made music with good people, right? But I'll also feel, uh, sad that I couldn't make
this moment happen. I couldn't, I couldn't bring people together to have a collective
experience, right? And then I'll go to a venue where everyone's having a drink and a nice
meal and, uh, there'll be 150 people there and it'll, it'll be packed and it, you know,
will smell like a concert and people will cheer and I'll play songs that have been the
soundtrack to people's lives for 40 years. Well, maybe we can just, uh, we have to start
to introduce drinks into classical concert. I don't know, you know, and then we are taking
notes here, Josh. I'm sorry to interrupt. I actually, oh my gosh, this is such a wonderful
conversation. You know, when you were talking about the experience you had in Europe, I
just actually came back from a month long Europe trip yesterday. Uh, and I flew in from
Italy, but you know, with all the COVID restrictions, um, everything is a little different. I was
only able to go to one little outdoor concert, you know, smaller, quite similar, but it's
a different touch, you know? So I, as I'm, you're talking and I'm thinking, you know,
this is something I think it's not only that when we are, when you are talking with, with
your friend responsible for these 20 tickets or something, sure. But that's also a skill
that as musicians, sometimes we just, uh, we don't have, you know, like we, we go through
institutions, we go through like our music schools. And I remember it, like I came here
from China when I was 17 and I went to Kansas and you know, our concert hall is the same
size as Carnegie Hall and every single recital, I mean, it's booked every day, but every recital,
there's like maybe 50 people, you know, a hundred people shows up and I had to convince
my mom to come here from China to cook for everybody. So finally I had like 300 people
show up in my, and it was like the most people, but I think it was really for her food. So
I mean, with all that, and I'm curious to know, since we do all teach children, I, you
know, over the years, I have had some interesting ideas with, um, how to approach, right? Teaching
children, like how to, I wouldn't want to say, um, you know, brainwash them, but I also
want them to understand classical music is not just for old people, not just for grandparents,
right? It's just something they can enjoy with their friends. So what is your philosophy
on this? That's what I'm most curious. And, um, what do you think the difference, like
if you were going to explain to a child, what's the difference between like fine arts, classical
fine art versus entertainment, right? Because sometimes like at the teenagers, they rather
go to a BTS concert than go to Carnegie Hall, right? And what's your take on that?
Um, I don't make a distinction. So I, I'm very upfront with, with not only the, the
college students I teach, but the children I teach that I only teach music that I love
and I only teach music that sort of passes this test of being able to communicate something
to me. And I know that seems really silly, but like, yeah, in a method book, I won't
teach half the pieces in them because I don't think they have musical merit. You know, I
don't want to play them. I don't want to sing them. Um, and, uh, I don't ever play the duets
that are written in the book because I can improvise ones that are better and more meaningful
and more applicable to the student that I'm sitting in a room with. Right. So, uh, I don't
make a distinction, you know, no distinction was ever made to me. Um, I think the most
important thing I can do is provide my students with a model of musicianship and provide them
with access. Right. Like I inherently believe as I did as a kid that like, Oh, you know,
come on, like you're going to hear a Chopin nocturne and like not, not like reach someplace
in someone's heart. Like their 17 year old breakup with their first girlfriend, like
it hits you in this place. That's deeply, uh, fundamentally, uh, emotional and accessible.
Um, you know, and that music for all the complexity we give to it is incredibly simple music.
It's a beautiful melody with great chord changes. It's a pop song. I mean, that's what Chopin
is, you know, it's a melody that's great that you hear over and over again. And, um, we
make this, I think this like really early on, this completely arbitrary, unnecessary
and elitist distinction between classical music and all other types of music. Um, so,
you know, the first thing I, I get to do with my students, um, you know, obviously with
COVID I haven't met new students in a while and young students, but like I get to know
what they like and what they listen to and what they love. And I get to sort of like
gently steer that, which is an incredible responsibility as a teacher, you know, I can,
I can open a door to music. And, uh, I've been doing this long enough that I think some
of my, some of the things that I'm most proud about, um, with students I've worked with,
I just got coffee with a student who's finishing up at Tisch, um, as a, um, a filmmaker. And,
uh, I taught her a piano from the time she was seven years old. Right. And, um, she's
like, of course become this just beautiful, amazing, uh, human being. Um, but like she's
sitting here just sort of casually telling me like what she's been listening to and what
she's going to concerts to, and we're talking about, um, you know, we're talking just like
free flow talking about classical music and talking about R and B, uh, and talking about
Kendrick Lamar and talking like all the concerts she's been to since she's been at the city.
And I'm like, this is all stuff I love. Like she's like, yeah, you're the reason like I
love music. Like I listen to music all the time because of you, because of the things
that we did in lessons, you know, and like who cares if she never plays piano again,
if she is, if music is a narrative to her life, um, then I've done something good. Um,
so yeah, I mean, I know that's a very like, uh, uh, obnoxious answer to your very simple
question, but, um, but I think, you know, even like in those, when I teach pedagogy,
it's, it's a, it's a point I make that like, this is your opportunity to broaden and not
restrict what music is or is not. Um, and you need to take that, that opportunity very
seriously.
This concludes part one of our interview with Josh Massico. Tune in next time to hear about
some of Josh's own artistic influences, his advice for young musicians, and his thoughts
on creating a more musical society.