Music learning theory is an explanation of how we learn when we learn music.
And through a carefully sequenced approach, students learn how to audio.
That is, they learn how to listen to, perform, create, improvise, read and write with music understanding.
Welcome back to the PianoPod. I am Yuki Miso.
Thanks for tuning in for the second half of season 3 episode 13 with a guest Krista Yajaro.
So what did you think of part 1 of this episode? Did you find the music learning theory as thought-provoking or inspiring?
In part 2, I asked Krista and the guest co-host, Suleyana Shlyashka, about sequencing in the music learning theory
and the differences between audiation-based and traditional ways of teaching and learning music, and more.
Before continuing the show, I want to welcome everyone listening to the PianoPod for the first time.
I'm a classical pianist and educator from New York City, passionate about creating a thriving and meaningful community of the classical music industry through this podcast.
Please visit yukiminsongsstudio.com to find out more about my work.
In each episode of the PianoPod, I interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground in the industry.
Please rate the show and review it on Apple Podcasts because every rating and review will help people find my show.
So dear friends, here is part 2 of the PianoPod's Season 3, episode 13. Please enjoy the show.
You are listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century.
Now, then another terminology I faced was sequencing. So I know the word sequence, sequencing, but in terms of the sequencing in the music learning theory, that's very new, obviously new to me.
So what does it mean by sequencing?
Yeah. So, and I've already used that word a couple of times as we've been talking these last 40 minutes. So music learning theory lays out a wonderful sequence for teaching students how to audiates.
And I really think the best way to describe the sequence is actually to compare it to the process of language learning. So music learning and language learning.
And when learning a language, five vocabularies are developed. We have listening, speaking, thinking, conversing, kind of the same vocabulary there, reading and writing.
And the listening vocabulary is the foundation of language learning, right? For a native language, it begins as soon as a child can hear, which is in utero.
And it's all about absorption and developing the ability to identify and to discriminate sounds and to build a listening vocabulary of words.
And it's important to note that we build a listening vocabulary of words in language, not individual letters, right?
Individual letters help us to spell out words, but that's not what's important. That's not our communication.
And when a child is born, yeah, the exploration of sounds begins, which we call babbling. And it's the beginning of the speaking vocabulary.
As soon as they begin to discriminate the sounds they hear, though, they begin to imitate. And those sound imitations first have no meaning, right?
They might say da da da da, but it usually doesn't mean the actual da da da da.
But eventually, however, children naturally break the code of language and they begin to put sounds together into words that have meaning.
And it might be short words. It is. It's short words at first. Like they might point to something and say ju ju ju for juice, right? Juice.
But eventually they string those together with the help of their thinking vocabulary and their conversing vocabulary that can I have juice, please?
Right. So that thinking and conversing vocabulary, the thought again is that process that gives meaning to the words that are heard and spoken and communicated.
And now the children are attaching meaning to the words and using them for communication.
And finally, those last two vocabularies, reading and writing, children need a solid foundation of listening, speaking, thinking and conversing,
forming a very rich vocabulary. The richer, the better, right? The more words they have, the better.
Words that are understood and words that are used in communication.
And without those three vocabularies, reading and writing are going to be severely limited.
And comprehension is not going to be easy when reading and writing if we don't have really rich vocabularies before that.
And when you think about it, all those students, I feel like are learning to read and write earlier now than ever,
but they still aren't formally introduced to reading until maybe five, six, seven year old, you know, seven years old, depending on where they are.
So think about all the language that they have had before that. So much practice before they are reading and writing.
So just like language learning, music learning has five vocabularies and one is listening, of course.
The second is going to be performing instead of speaking.
And then we have auditing, improvising instead of thinking and conversing.
And we have reading and writing. So listening like language is the foundation of music learning.
And this vocabulary develops as one absorbs the sounds of music, the sounds of the singing voice, the inflections of rhythmic chanting,
tonal and rhythm contexts, harmonies. There's lots to absorb with music.
And remember in language, we don't form a vocabulary of individual letters.
We form a vocabulary of words. In music, we form a vocabulary of tonal patterns and rhythm patterns.
Patterns are the words of music, and those are necessary for audiation development.
And similar to the speaking vocabulary of language, the performing vocabulary, which includes singing, chanting, even playing an instrument,
begins exploration and with babble. And eventually this babbling will begin to imitate the sounds of that musical environment and children will break the code.
They'll begin to sing and chant and play patterns, the words of music more accurately and with musical meaning and coordination as well.
And then, yeah, and then this brings us to the auditing, improvising vocabulary, the most important one.
And audiation, again, is what thought is to language, that process that brings meaning to what we're listening to, performing, creating, reading and writing.
And the ability to improvise, which I was never taught growing up, not in any of my programs, not in general music, not in band, not in piano,
is really important because it, one, it demonstrates one's understanding. It allows them to use their vocabulary to create something new.
It also, and I love this, Marilyn Lowe had said this, but improvisation cements music learning.
That act of taking what we know and using it in our own way is so important. It's vital for our retention of what we're learning.
So that auditing, improvising vocabulary is really important. And then finally, and I usually put this on a pyramid with listening on the bottom because it's really the foundation.
And then reading and writing are at the top. They're the tip of my pyramid.
And what students can understand the music that they're listening to, performing and improvising, once they have the labels for the music, their understanding, like major tonality, dominant, tonic, duple meter, triple meter, those labels are really important.
When they've had a lot of practice with those first three vocabularies, then they can learn to read and write with understanding.
And I have many students now that are reading and writing music and they're older. They're 12 years old.
They are abstract thinkers now, which really helps with notational audiation.
But what they see on the page, they hear in their heads. We sing it. We sing it in parts. Sometimes they'll take the treble clap and I'll take the bass clap and we'll sing it in parts.
And this is all before going to the piano to play it. And then when they take the music to the piano, they play patterns, not individual notes.
And that makes a big difference, not only in their understanding, of course, but once they play the piece, they can transpose it like that.
They just can play it and it's not a memorization thing. They haven't memorized the piece.
It's because they're looking at the patterns and they're really fluent in many different keyalities.
And they can take that music almost right away. And I can say if it's a C Ceto piece, I can say, OK, now play it in G Ceto. Now play it in E Ceto. Now play it in F Ceto. Now play it in F sharp Ceto.
And they'd OK. Wow. And it's it's amazing. It is. And some of the things that you mentioned, I, you know, because I was trained, so I learned.
But you talk about hours and hours and hours and years of training I had. And I find I'm being able to dictate, you know, because I learned dictation.
But in a very boring way, you know, you have to sit down an hour and then listen to the melody and then, you know, do this.
But that's that's really fascinating when being able to really teach that to students of all levels.
That's that's really fascinating. And it also reminded me of how I learn English, because this is my obviously my second language.
And then for 20 years, I couldn't speak because the way they teach you English language in Japan was kind of wrong.
Right. Because it starts with the reading. And that's not how you associate language with.
You know, basically you're reading letter by letter. And that's not how. And then half of that class classmates asleep because it's boring.
And then I was so frustrated. I want to speak just like one sentence out of my mouth.
But it took me 20 years and finally came to the United States. What I was able to do it because I was forced to do.
And then right. Yeah, I hear so many stories like that. Right.
You take years and years of the language and you go to that country or whatever and you don't your loss. Right.
I went to Spain after taking seven years of Spanish and I I like froze. I could not do it.
But then you there was an exchange student, one of my friends in high school, went to Germany for a year and he came back speaking German like because he had to do it.
He was surrounded by it. He was immersed in the language.
And he likely went through all those stages, likely at first just sounded like a run on sentence.
And then he was able to differentiate the words and start to say them and communicate with them. And then you learn.
I know. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for really clarifying this.
I yeah, I it's it's I totally agree with you. And so, yeah.
Is there anything else that you want to end? Yeah, I have my own story about learning our language.
So when I was in fourth grade in Bulgaria, we had to learn Russian.
And they I always tell that story because it relates so much.
I was the best reader in the class. So the teacher always picked me, you know, Siljana, read.
And I would read and read and read the whole year. I would read and I would not understand a word of what I was reading.
But I was reading so well and so fluently and I knew all the rules of pronunciation.
Even I could figure out inflection and all that stuff.
But it was meaningless to me. And that's what I see my or I used to see my students do in their performance, that it was even at the advanced level.
They just didn't put so much meaning in it. And the music didn't give so much meaning to them, which I think is one reason to do music in the first place.
Right. Yeah, that's a good point. And I can so relate to that, Siljana, as a piano teacher, too.
Yeah, like almost like they're just memorizing everything and there's no frame of reference to the music because they don't understand, first of all.
And there's no cultural reference either. When you first encounter music learning theory, Krista, what did you think was missing from the traditional way of teaching and learning music?
Yeah, that's a good question. So I think the sound before sight and not only the sound before sight,
because there are methods out there that don't introduce reading right away and there are teachers that see the value of not introducing reading right away.
But really the sequenced sound before sight, right, that is purposeful and research based.
And really, there's not a rush to read. And while my students definitely, my young students definitely see music notation, I don't shy away from it.
It's on the piano as we're playing a piece and I'll point to patterns sometimes and say, look at the musical pattern that we just chanted.
It's right here. Do you see another one of the same pattern somewhere? And they'll look and they'll do matching.
But really, the goal is for the students to audio and to understand music, right, and to have a robust and organized vocabulary of rhythm patterns and tonal patterns,
as well as experience creating and improvising using their audiation pattern vocabulary.
Like I mentioned, learning lots of folk songs and piano repertoire, knowing how to play in many keys and many tonalities.
That's my sound, right? That's my sound before sight, because those are all necessary readinesses for notational audiation, which is a reading and writing.
As I am learning MLT, little reading here and there, and I noticed that there's a lot of attention to tonal and rhythmic patterns in audiation.
So why is there so much attention focused on the tonal and rhythmic audiation?
So that's what's going to help us develop that musical understanding, the tonal audiation and the rhythm audiation.
And of course, we audit other things. There's actually aptitude tests that test for not only tonal and rhythm aptitude, but also phrasing and structure and style and things like that as well.
But Gordon found that really when we're doing the tonal and rhythm audiation, that's what's giving us the most understanding.
So that's what we're going to focus on. And to develop that, we need that vocabulary of patterns, of rhythm patterns and tonal patterns.
That outline functions, right? And that we can organize into contexts with our major tonality, minor tonality, duple meter, triple meter.
Yeah, because context is really important, right? I can give you a pattern, bum, bum, bum, but that means nothing.
You might say, oh, that kind of sounds like this, or that sounds like this, or it could be this, but really it doesn't mean anything. It's just our word, right? A pattern.
The context is what's going to give it meaning because we can't examine the parts, the patterns without context.
So just for an example, ba-da-da-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum, listen to my song, listen for bum, bum, bum, which is do-mi-so.
Bum, bum, bum, bum-bum-bum. So likely you heard...
... as my tonic in major tonality.
I want you to keep your ears open for Do Mi So, but I'm gonna change something.
Bum bum bum da da da da dum bum bum
So you're listening for Do Mi So bum.
Ya da da da dum bum bum bum bum
Ya da da da dum bum ba da da dum
Ya da da dum bum bum bum bum bum
So now that Do Mi So was entirely different, right?
Because it served as my subtonic in Dorian tonality.
So it's really important to have that whole, that context, and part those patterns, and then back to the whole.
So we established that context with a song, a chant, a piece of repertoire that the students are working on and learning.
And then we can explore those parts, the tonal parts and the rhythm parts, and we do those separately,
because that's how our brain learns and that's how our brain processes pitch and rhythm.
We do it separately and then we put them together.
And then when our students go back to the whole, they bring more understanding of what they're hearing or performing.
Wow, you literally tricked me.
I was hearing just Do Mi So the whole time.
Yeah, context is very important.
Yes, thank you. You approved it.
Does the focus on tonal and rhythm audiation mean that the other elements of music are ignored?
It does not.
So I feel like if we were just singing tonal and rhythm patterns the entire time, then it would be ignored.
But we're taking the skills and that audiation to piano repertoire, to classroom activities.
And really, they lay a really important foundation for developing musicality and style and phrasing.
We can't understand phrasing without understanding rhythm, right?
And understanding of harmonic functions.
We can't understand harmonic functions if we don't have those tonal patterns that outline the harmonic functions.
So really, the tonal and the rhythm focus lay an important foundation for learning all the different elements of music.
And just the fact that we as teachers bring all those different elements in naturally through the repertoire
and through the class activities that we're doing with our students.
Does using music learning theory mean abandoning the traditions?
The traditions that we were taught, traditions that I have growing up and even as a teacher I use?
So is all the training I received as a student is total a waste?
Well, I'm going to answer this now, but I also would love to hear from Siljana after I talk a little bit.
Because I was lucky enough to be introduced to music learning theory when I was 18.
I mean, at the very beginning of my teaching career, I was introduced to it.
So while I had a kind of a thought of what music teaching would look like, I was still very flexible.
You know, I hadn't actually done it yet, but it doesn't mean abandoning what you know.
But it's definitely a shift of thinking and maybe even of your philosophy.
So, you know, what do you want your students to learn?
What do you want them to know?
How do you want them to interact with music?
And for those students that you have that don't continue piano instruction after middle school or high school,
because kids are busy, like what do you want them to carry with them through, I guess, the rest of their life?
Right. And I want my students to be lifelong musicians.
I don't want them to have to rely on notation to play Happy Birthday at a party.
Or I don't want them to freeze if they see a piano and somebody asks them to play something.
Because for years I froze. I don't know what to play.
I need music of some sort. I need some notation.
But when music is a part of them, when they are the musicians and the piano is an extension of themselves,
that is carried with them for a long time after they stop lessons.
And when they see that piano and are asked to play, then they can create something on the spot.
And I just I know every student that walks through my door can learn music.
And the majority will not go on to study at a university or college.
But music is a right, right? They have the right to learn music.
They have the aptitude. And, you know, I'm there for that.
I'm ready. I'm ready to have them walk through my door.
And, you know, there is currently a way of teaching music, of teaching piano, of teaching band, right?
That's notation based and that's accepted.
And that's likely the way we were all taught music.
But it's not the way music was always taught and was always learned.
And I think it's important to remember that before the invention of the printing press,
what did people do? They audited, right?
They audited when music started being printed. That's when a change happened.
That's when composed music could reach lots and lots of people.
And music started to be taught more from the page than from listening and from, you know, by ear.
And I firmly believe that I cannot change people's minds.
I don't think I can change even if they're listening to this.
I don't think I'm changing anybody's mind.
But I can plant a seed. And that's my goal.
I can plant a seed that might not sprout tomorrow.
It might not sprout next year.
But maybe it'll be just enough that when, you know, whoever is listening experiences
a challenge or a situation in the future, they'll reach out to me or they'll reach out
to the Facebook group or pick up a book or listen to a podcast to, you know,
to learn more about this way of teaching.
That sprouting of the seed in me was quite slow, to be honest,
because I had a lot of questions as a classically trained pianist.
And I had a lot of questions about how this would look in long term.
What would be the long term results?
And would I be still able to do everything that I am inspired to do,
which is teach classical music in a classical tradition?
But as Krista just mentioned, and that's very true, you know,
in the time of Bach and Mozart and Beethoven, people were improvising.
They were learning music this way.
And this is the true traditional way to learn.
So we're not really saying that this has never happened before because it has.
And it's proven to be a much more musicality building way of teaching and learning.
And nowadays, though, it's much easier, I think, with the modern approaches,
not modern, but, you know, reading based approaches,
it's much easier to test and evaluate students.
And it's just that they're there for different reasons, I think, especially in schools.
So for me, it was a slow process.
And I'm always very open about that because if I could convert, so to say,
not really convert, but if I could be convinced
that this is truly an amazing way to teach and to learn,
then anyone really out there could benefit from just even reading one book
or listening to one of the wonderful podcasts,
audition-based podcasts out there.
They can be inspired to teach in a way that's more meaningful,
that has greater impact for the student in the long term, like Krista said.
And I think we all come to a point in our careers that we ask,
what is the point of this which I'm doing?
What is it bringing to the world?
What is it bringing to the student?
And those are very big questions.
And some of us ask them a little later than we wish we would have asked them.
You know, it took me over 10 years, 15 years to really start to dig deep
into the answers to those questions.
But thank you.
And then both of you are also answering to this really common question
that I am asked all the time as a piano teacher.
I want to be able to read notes so that I can play any song I want.
So that's actually sequencing and audiation, right?
It's not about really reading notes one by one and being able to do.
So what sort of music teachers can benefit from music learning theory?
Is it for everybody?
A teacher might like myself, piano teachers?
Or?
Yeah, I'd say all of them.
So I liken this and actually Marilyn Lowe had said this in one of the first
workshops that I went to with her.
She said she would never see a surgeon who didn't understand how the body works.
And as music teachers, we owe it to our students to explore how they learn
when learning music.
So whether you're an early childhood teacher, a choral teacher, a band,
piano, maybe even you're teaching your training or piano methods at a university.
It's it is really important for us to know how our students best learn.
So, Yana, any thing to follow?
No, I agree.
100% 1000%.
Great.
Even musicians to learn.
And I think Krista has mentioned that many times on her podcast, but we as
teachers, but also as musicians, we become better musicians through learning
through audiation and how and understanding the sequence of learning.
If I were to start today about learning or teaching even audiation, if I want to,
you know, and then, oh, I want to now, do I have to shift immediately to teaching
audiation or can I go gradually transition into audiation?
Because, you know, like next thing, OK, I'm just going to do 100% different thing.
And I am going to call myself an audition teacher, but I don't think I can do that.
So what do you think?
So really, either way, I think you will see more changes quicker if you jump right in,
right?
If you go right into it.
But human nature, that's hard to do.
That's that's not easy to do.
And in fact, Jan Olsen, which is a colleague of ours, she asked Dr. Gordon, she said,
how do I get started with this?
This is this is overwhelming.
And he suggested starting with one thing, one thing at a time.
And I've talked to teachers who started with rhythm.
Rhythm seems to be a really great place to start incorporating rhythm patterns with
the beat function syllable system.
So like do, day, do, do, day, do would be duple meter, do, dot, do, dot, do, dot, do,
do, do, dot, do, dot, do, dot, do, do, dot, do.
Do would be triple meter incorporating movement as well.
And once they saw how quickly their students started to progress with rhythm and felt
comfortable doing it, then they started adding more.
And I've also talked to teachers who tossed their method books and said, nope, this is
what I'm going to do from now on.
And you can either stay with me or leave.
And that's what I'm doing.
I believe in this so much, ready to do it.
And that, like I said, it takes a little bit more courage, I'd say, to completely start over.
But the teachers that have done it said, you know, I couldn't have done it any other way.
So it's really up to the teacher. It's up to you. Whatever you choose, though,
I really suggest finding a community, joining the Facebook groups, joining Gimmel, which is the
Gordon Institute for Music Learning. They have workshops and professional development courses
and even faculty chats that you can just go to and ask your questions. My courses with Music
Learning Academy have created a really wonderful community as well because we have live classes
and live workshops and things like that. But I think that's one of the most important things,
is to find those people that you can talk to and ask your questions so that you feel supported in
the changes. Is audience-based learning and teaching becoming more mainstream? I think
more teachers, and we'll see if Siliana agrees, are realizing maybe what traditional teaching
methods are lacking in terms of reaching every student. People are looking for ways to ease
those common struggles, such as keeping a steady beat, playing musically, singing in tune. Reading
music is a big one, especially for the younger students, playing rhythms correctly and kind of
so on. There's an ever-growing community of teachers that are saying, hey, look at this works.
I was hesitant at first, but I dove in and this is working for my students. My students don't have
those issues and this is why. Social media has probably helped a lot, as well as more accessible
training and information as well to how to apply music learning theory to piano instruction.
Now, are there any successful music students or stories of successful music students to
maybe musicians born from MLT training? This is an interesting question and I guess it depends on
your definition of successful musicians. My students are younger. My oldest is 13 or 14,
but I've had them since they were four. With my relocation, I've only been teaching for about 10
years in this area. I don't have anybody that's older and out of my hands yet, but Marilyn had a
number of students. She's one that wrote music moves for piano and she's kind of the pioneer
of music learning theory in piano instruction. She started teaching. She's one of those ones that
threw away her method books as soon as she met Dr. Gordon and said, this is what I'm going to do.
She asked if there was a piano method. He said no, and she's, why don't you write one? She said,
okay. She started that in the 90s. She has brought many students through an
audiation-based piano approach. I know that one in particular has this doctorate in piano performance.
She talked about some of her other students being composers. I remember a video she posted once of
a past student. He was an adult and he was improvising and arranging music for his kids
that were in the background. Honestly, I consider all of those pretty successful musicians. We
recently had a guest on our podcast who, despite studying piano performance, had trouble calling
himself a musician because of his lack of audiation and his lack of understanding at that point.
While outside, he was achieving success. He was going for a piano performance degree and probably
had a very high level of achievement. His piano teacher was probably over the moon that he was
doing piano instruction. It's interesting that he didn't feel like a musician because of that
lack of audiation, that lack of understanding, and the inability to improvise and to create music.
He looked at the people improvising and creating and just kind of jamming together, performing,
and well, those are musicians. I'm just reading the page. It's interesting to think
about the words in that way. I interview many classical musicians and there are a few
who admit during the show that we're just cover artists as a classical musician because we are
not creating. They're right. Then I began to question myself as a piano teacher,
what can I do? I used to be able to improvise even better. Now, as my classical piano training
got more intense, then forget about improvisation. Just learn the notes. That's also, don't get me
wrong, beautiful learning, Chopin etude and Liszt. But then we forget about how we actually are
creative people. The music learning theory is very, very inspiring. Now, music learning theory
is a theory, so it's not a method, right? That's correct. Yes. It's a theory of how we learn when
we learn music, but many methods have been creating applying music learning theory to
early childhood, band, chorus, piano, of course. Yes, but that's the theory.
Now, I want to ask both of you. At the end of episode five of your podcast show, Krista,
I think your co-host Hannah mentioned that students who learn piano through
audiation tend to stick to lessons for a long time. Because I know around age nine and 10,
they started liking other things and also so many other reasons. Playing the piano itself,
it's very difficult. At a certain point, you really need to practice a lot because technically
demanding and so forth. So what do you think about? So do you agree with your co-host, Hannah?
I absolutely agree with my co-host, Hannah. Yes. My students are all past that nine-year-old age.
I have lost very, very few. I just lost one, but he's going to be in jazz band in school. And he
said that he would come back to me if he needed any help. But that was one in the last maybe like
three years. It's not frustrating coming to class, especially I teach groups as well. So I teach with
two students, which I think is also motivating for the students to come and be with somebody else.
And many of them have been together for years, the pairs, or I overlap them or it's in some way,
I do a group. Yeah. And then they progress even if they don't practice. For those students that are
just not practicers and may not have made it very far in a traditional lesson where they did have
to practice a lot, they are welcome in my studio and they progress in my studio and they learn and
they're doing challenging pieces in my studio because they have the understanding to do it.
Now, if they practice, would they progress faster? Likely, right? Because we'd probably have to do a
little bit less review, but they're still learning and there's still loads of music making going on.
I look at those lessons as, this is not me just teaching you for an hour. This is us making music
together for an hour. And I'm in charge of sequencing and of guiding you and your learning,
but we're all music makers together and it's pretty wonderful. Any advice for pianists or
piano teachers who are just starting out their teaching career? Take time to learn, right? If
you enjoy listening, you can listen to our podcast, Keys to Musicality, or I just said the wrong
podcast. Take time to learn and if you like podcasts, you can listen to our podcast, which
is not called that. It is called Keys to Music Learning because I was thinking of Everyday
Musicality, which we haven't mentioned, but is a wonderful podcast, not about piano instruction,
but solely about music learning theory. So that should definitely be on your list. If you're a
reader, The Ways Children Learn Music by Eric Bluestein is a wonderful book to get. If or when
you're ready to kind of see it live in action, if you want to see it, you can invest in a course.
I have lots of demos on my courses. There are hours and hours of me teaching students there.
And if you want to learn live with an instructor, my courses have live components to it, but you
can also take a workshop virtually through Music Learning Academy or Gimel, as I mentioned, offers
lots of workshops as well. And also don't wait. Don't wait too long to apply something that is
going to help your students to audio because you don't have to have it all figured out. It takes
years and years and years and years. And I, I've been doing this for 20 years. I don't have it all
figured out. My students are constantly teaching me as they're advancing, they're, they're teaching
me more and more. And as they're advancing my younger students, I bring that down with me and
I'm able to do more with them. So you're never going to have it all figured out. That's just,
and it's exciting because you have so much to learn, right? It just keeps it really exciting.
It keeps teaching really exciting, but you're going to learn best by doing right. So don't
wait too long. Just try some things in your studio. Just try one activity to help your students gain
a little bit more understanding of what they're hearing and what they're playing.
No complete method overhauls are necessary. And then I guess my last one would be what I mentioned
before and is it's to find a community, take advantage of what's out there. Join the Facebook
group. As Celiana mentioned, I run a Facebook group, Introduction to Audiation-Based Piano
Instruction and Music Moves for Piano. Reach out to us, connect with other teachers, both new
teachers and experienced teachers. You can go join the Gordon Institute for Music Learning,
Gimmel.org. And it's just connecting with other teachers who are doing this is really important.
So if you're just starting out with teaching in general, or if you're just starting out with
Audiation-Based teaching, that would be my advice. How about you, Celiana?
Yeah, I agree with Krista. No need to wait. I think checking one thing out and if you like it,
as you like it, to check one other thing out and apply one idea to one lesson and see how it goes.
And I think MLT is definitely something that keeps you on your toes in a good way, though,
in a really, really good way. And it also helps students to be more surprised in lessons. So
that's another really, really great outcome of the whole approach.
So you have the Music Learning Academy, Krista, which provides online courses, webinars, and
workshops for teachers interested in Audiation-Based teaching. Now, diving into this new
territory, a world of music learning theory can be really intimidating and most of us don't know
where to begin. So Krista, tell us a little bit more about your academy.
It started with the Keyboard Games Comprehensive Course. So Music Moves for Piano, as I mentioned,
by Marilyn Lowe, is right now is the only method that we have to use to teach music.
And it's the only method of piano instruction that applies Audiation and music learning theory.
So Marilyn said, yes, please help me teach teachers how to do this. So it all started
with that Keyboard Games course, but it's pretty intense. Siljana is in my courses. And there are,
there's just so much to it. And I wanted it to be comprehensive. So I wanted everything in there.
And then I wanted to put it in a class that I could teach for the team, so students can
watch that and imagine it's answered, or there's a video that shows it in that course. So of course,
some teachers are just not going to be ready for that. So after I started offering the Keyboard
Games course, I said, okay, I need some other things for teachers that are just not ready to
invest, which I completely understand. And I have a team of wonderful teachers, Jana Allsen,
occurred. They're all amazing teachers and we kind of formed a music learning academy team
and they gave webinars. So the recordings of their webinars are on there and there's more coming up
pretty much once a month. We have a webinar on some auditation-based topics so that people that
are interested can either watch a previously recorded one or sign up for a live one. There's
also going to be, I mean, I would love for people to get on my mailing list because I was just
thinking this morning of everything that I wanted to offer this next coming September through June.
In the past, I offered a study group on the modes. So learning all of the different modes by ear in
a sequenced way we did in the past. We did the skill learning sequence diving into Dr. Gordon's
skill learning sequence and music learning theory. We've done book clubs and the future I want to do
my newest idea. I don't know if I'm going to do it, but I would love to take like a four-week
session and almost give teachers a piano lesson. What does it look like to learn a repertoire piece
and go through a couple lessons of book one? And then what does it look like in book two and book
three and in book four and book five? So I'm just always trying to think of new ways to give teachers
just experience with auditation, both for themselves and also how to teach their students.
Wonderful. And all the information you can find on your website at www.musiclearningacademy.com.
This has been such a fun and inspirational conversation. Chris and Siliana and I enjoyed
it so much. Before I let you go, we have one more thing to do. It's called TPP, rapid fire
questions. So this is a part of the show where I get to ask fun questions to each guest and then
to my co-host today, Siliana. So I want you both to participate in this game. Question number one,
what is your comfort food? Macaroni and cheese. Pizza? Cats or dogs? Cats. Oh no, dogs. Okay.
I only said cats because I have one now, but really, I think I'm a dog person.
Okay. So what is your word or words to live by? Take one thing at a time.
Siliana. I breathe music and piano. Wonderful. What is the most important quality you look for
in other people? Krista. Oh, kindness. Honesty, compassion. So name one piece in your current
playlist. The Pishmote. I have all of their songs on my playlist. I love your playlist.
You know that, Yukimi. Krista, go for it. You know what's sad? My mind went to a playlist
because all I listen to are what my kids listen to. So it's like Mario Odyssey music, but if I
wasn't listening to their music, I would say anything by the Avett Brothers. No hard feelings.
That's a really good one. Here's the last one. Fill in the blank. Music is blank. Life.
Ah, that was my life. Yay. Wonderful. Yay. Ding, ding, ding. That's it. Thank you so much. So this
concludes this episode of The Pianopla. Thank you, Krista, for joining my show today and sharing
your stories and your insights and expertise. And you can find more information about Krista's work
through her website at musiclearningacademy.com. And please check out her weekly podcast, Key to
Music Learning, to learn more about music learning theory. And thank you, Selena, for being such a
great guest host for this episode. All links about Krista and Selena are listed in the description.
Thank you to my wonderful audience and fans for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode,
please rate and review it on whatever podcasting platform you use. If you're watching us on YouTube,
remember to hit the thumbs up button and subscribe to my channel. You can also find my show on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. The links are in the description. I will see you for the next episode
of The Pianopla. Thank you, Krista. Thank you, Selena. And bye everyone. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.