When this book first came out, I immediately put it into my Amazon shopping cart. A year later I finally purchased it, and a year after that I finally got around to reading it. (That’s par for the course for me. LOL) Of course, as soon as I read it I kicked myself for not reading it sooner.
In this post, I’ll share with you one big reason why I love this book, seven of the most impactful points I took away, and a few habits I’ve built both in my piano studio and personal life.
One Big Reason I Love This Book
One big thing I love about this book actually has a lot to do with its layout.
Every chapter has a summary at the end that highlighted 6 major points to take away. This was an incredibly helpful visual recap. I tried to force myself to highlight just one or two of those points in order to focus my takeaways even more.
At the end of the book, he even provides bonus chapters for how you can apply these principles to business and to parenting.
Since I’ve always considered myself somewhat of an “original”, my curiosity was piqued and I immediately threw it into my Amazon cart.
In this post, I’ll share brief thoughts on why I love this book, why this non-piano-teaching book can still inspire us in our profession, and a few key quotes.
Why I Enjoyed It and You May Too
The biggest reason why I love this book is that the author, Adam Grant, manages to take what could be boring case studies and research and presents it in an engaging story-driven manner. You’ll read about anyone from Michelangelo to George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., and (of course) Steve Jobs.
He often debunks common misconceptions about what it means to be a purveyor of change. In eight chapters, he covers:
The risky business of going against the grain
The art and science of recognizing original ideas
Speaking truth to power
Strategic procrastination and the first-mover disadvantage
Creating and maintaining coalitions
How siblings, parents, and mentors nurture originality
The myths of strong cultures, cults, and devil’s advocates
Managing anxiety, apathy, ambivalence, and anger
Often, books provide us with all of this great information, and then we’re left trying to figure out for ourselves what to do with that information or how to apply it to our situation.
Adam Grant has you covered. At the end of this book, he has an entire section titled “Actions for Impact.” He goes the extra mile and gives you practical applications. Broken into three areas, they are:
Actions for individuals to generate, recognize, voice, and champion new ideas
Actions for leaders to stimulate novel ideas and build cultures that welcome dissent.
Recommendations for parents and teachers to help children become comfortable taking a creative or moral stand against the status quo
If you consider yourself an original “thinker” and love growing, learning, and thinking outside the box, or you’re looking to grow a music studio and need inspiration for what it means to be a non-conformist, then this book is for you.
Taking Application as Studio Teachers
It really is true that no matter what our profession is, we can learn so much from other areas of life that apply to what we do on a daily basis. This is one of those books.
One of the biggest points I took away as a teacher came out of chapter six, where he addresses how siblings, parents, and teachers can literally mentororiginality – it doesn’t just have to be innate.
By explaining moral principles, parents encourage their children to comply voluntarily with rules that align with important values and to question rules that don’t. Good explanations enable children to develop a code of ethics that often coincides with societal expectations; when they don’t square up, children rely on the internal compass of values rather than the external compass of rules. (Page 165)
He also discussed the importance of highlighting how what we do affects others. Here are a few examples (pages 170, 169, 166 respectively):
Not this: “Don’t drink and drive.” But this: “Don’t be a drunk driver.”
Not this: “Please don’t cheat.” But this: “Please don’t be a cheater.”
Not this: “Hand hygiene prevents you from catching diseases.” But this: “Hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases.”
(The last one is, of course, an ironic example at this point in our history. LOL.)
Children were found to do better when having their character praised rather than simply having their behavior praised.
So, as a teacher, perhaps one quick example we could reword would be something like this:
Not this: “That was very creative.” But this: “You are very creative.”
P.S. I would love for us to all share some examples in the comments of how we can turn our praise from behavior to character!
9 Key Quote(s)
I was really hoping to share just 2 or 3, but I just couldn’t cut them down!
“The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists.” (Page 7)
“Advocating for a new system often requires demolishing the old way of doing things.” (Page 13)
“They [originals] feel the same fear, the same doubt, as the rest of us. What sets them apart is that they take action anyway. They know in their hearts that failing would yield less regret than failing to try.” (Page 28)
“When we bemoan the lack of originality in the world, we blame it on the absence of creativity. If only people could generate more novel ideas, we’d all be better off. But in reality, the biggest barrier to originality is not idea generation—it’s idea selection.” (Page 31)
“It’s widely assumed that there’s a trade-off between quantity and quality—if you want to do better work, you have to do less of it—but this turns out to be false. In fact, when it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality.” (Page 37)
“Many people fail to achieve originality because they generate a few ideas and then obsess about refining them to perfection.” (Page 37)
“Exposure increases the ease of processing. An unfamiliar idea requires more effort to understand. The more we see, hear, and touch it, the more comfortable we become with it, and the less threatening it is.” (Page 78)
“Being original doesn’t require being first. It just means being different and better.” (Page 105)
“In the quest for happiness, many of us choose to enjoy the world as it is. Originals embrace the uphill battle, striving to make the world what it could be.” (Page 242)
I hope you will find this book an interesting and inspiring read as I did! You can find it on Amazon or any other place that sells books! 🙂
In this review, I’ll briefly share why I love this book, a few key quotes, and some fun and interesting facts.
In this autobiography, Dr. Gordon (1927-2015) shares his journey as a musician, music educator, and researcher. Through these experiences and influences, he began to question how music is conventionally taught, ultimately leading him to become the “founding father” of Music Learning Theory (MLT).
If you’re looking to learn more about Music Learning Theory, then this book should be one of the first books you grab. Hearing Dr. Gordon talk about his own experiences and thought-process that brought him to research more deeply how we learn music is a lovely soft primer into what can often feel like the “daunting” world of MLT.
That being said, I strongly believe that you don’t have to be interested in MLT or even necessarily enjoy autobiographies for this book to be a really good choice.
Anyone who is simply a curious music educator will find his journey inspiring, thought-provoking, and even relatable.
I found it to be quite a delightful read and loved that it was an easily consumable 130 pages.
Key Quote
Teaching is from the outside, whereas learning is from the inside. (Page 102)
Other Notable Quotes
You must always be hearing where the piece will end, the tonic, as you are performing, no matter what note you are playing. That is the way you play in tune. The most important part of music takes place between beats not on beats. (Page 38)
Even today, more than forty years later, I believe a myriad of music teachers may still be uncomfortable with music learning theory. To accept its concepts requires time and change, and most teachers, and humans in general, do not embrace change easily. Specifically, to shift emphasis in music education from promoting the teaching process to understanding the learning process requires courage and risk. Good methodology must be based on principles of learning. I believe the foremost egregious problem in current music education practice is most teachers teach the way they themselves were taught and how they were taught to teach, not in accord with how students learn. Unfortunately, many thing teaching and learning are synonymous. (Page 57)
Does not the understanding of music have enough substance in its own right to be taught for its own sake? (Page 111)
A Few Fun and Interesting Facts
Dr. Gordon’s name “Edwin Elias” was actually mixed-up on his birth certificate. It was supposed to be Elias Edwin. Unfortunately (he says), Edwin stuck and thus, in his professional career, he always asked for his middle initial to be included in his name.
In order to direct him onto the “straight” path and away from questionable activities, Edwin’s father bought him a string bass.
During WWII he became a member of the 302nd Army Band. Since they didn’t have a place for string players, he learned to play tuba.
He attended Eastman School of music and, of the applied teachers there, he said, they “seemed not to know two instruments must be reckoned with, the actual instrument and the audiation instrument.” (Page 21). It was at this time he became conscious of the necessity for audiation (without yet having a term for it).
He left Eastman for a stint at which time he joined the Gene Krupa band, an experience that began to build the foundation of his musical philosophy/journey.
Eventually returning to Eastman, he earned a bachelor’s in string bass performance and a master’s in bass performance and music literature.
He obtained a second master’s degree in professional education for Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
After one year of public school teaching, he took a fellowship at the University of Iowa in Iowa City where he would spend the next 16 years of his life.
He was offered administrative duties at the university level but he turned them down as he didn’t want to be tied down by administrative duties and prevented from doing research.
He used the term “audiation” for the first time during a lecture in 1974.
He was inducted into the MENC Hall of Fame in 1996
You can also visit the GIML Website (Gordon Institute for Music Learning) to read more about Dr. Gordon.
As many teachers are considering what it may look like to run their studio (temporarily) online, one topic that may be necessary and quite urgent is making the move to online payments.
If you’re still taking checks from parents and worried about making the switch, rest assured, while it may take a little leg work setting everyone up, your future self won’t regret it.
Taking online payments will save you time manually depositing checks, but the payment portal I want to share with you today will save you money compared to 90% of the other online payment services.
(P.S. That number was arbitrary. Basically, the fees are cheaper than anything else I’ve found out there.)
Coinhop has been my payment portal of choice for several years now. I hope the reasons why I love it will help you as you’re considering online payment options for your studio.
Please note that Piano Pantry is enrolled in the Referral Program with Coinhop, which simply means that if you sign-up, I will get a small commission without it costing you any extra.
Being known as an organized person means I frequently get asked what some of my favorite tools and resources I use on a day-to-day basis. If you’ve been around Piano Pantry long enough, you already know my #1 is by far Evernote.
When we talk about “tools,” though, we use daily a wide gamut whether it’s for organizing music, social media, our schedule, resources, etc. Today, I want to highlight four digital tools that help me stay organized that in 2020, I would now find it very hard to live without.
Evernote. The easiest way to describe Evernote is that it’s a digital filing cabinet where you can save multiple types of content formats in one location: documents, URL links, clips from YouTube, selections from internet pages, PDF files, and more. Highly useful for both our teaching and personal lives!
Feedly. Using an RSS Reader is, in my opinion, the only way to properly manage content in today’s world. An RSS Reader is like a personalized digital newspaper. You tell it the website you want to follow and it will stream all the newsfeeds into one location so you can keep up on new content in one place.
Grammarly. My English teacher and writing sidekick. With Grammarly Premium, you not only get the basic critical grammar and spell-check errors, but you also get instant feedback on over 400 advanced grammar rules. Microsoft Word spell-check can’t even touch the capability of this program.
LastPass. I couldn’t manage all my accounts and passwords properly without Last Pass in this day and age. Your life will be made easier (and more secure).
Did you know there was a whole page devoted to books for piano teachers on Piano Pantry?
It includes more than 30 books that can help you in your career as an independent music teacher.
I’ve divided them into seven categories to make your browsing easier:
Music Education and Teaching Inspiration
Music Business / Entrepreneurship for Independent Music Teachers
Elementary-Intermediate Piano Pedagogy & Repertoire Guides/References
Intermediate-Advanced Piano Technique & Repertoire Guides/References
Music Learning Theory (Introductions)
Music Learning Theory (In-Depth)
Faith and the Arts
In this post, besides letting you know about the Books for Piano Teachers page, I thought I would share more details on the three books that are not only my favorite but are ones that I strongly feel every piano teacher should read.
Basically, if you were only to read three books on music teaching in your lifetime, let it be these three.
I’ve included three things for the three books I’m highlighting in this post:
1. The book descriptions are directly from Amazon. (Yes, I am an Amazon affiliate, which means I will earn a small percentage if you purchase through the link, but it won’t cost you anymore.)
2. A statement on why I love the book.
3. A listing of 6-7 of my favorite quotes/excerpts that I feel best define the content of the book.
Description: In this collection of insightful essays, the author describes fundamental principles of human learning in the context of teaching music. The individual essays are written in an engaging, conversational style and outline the elements of intelligent, creative teaching. Duke effectively explains how teachers can meet the needs of individual students from a wide range of abilities by understanding more deeply how people learn. Teachers and interested parents alike will benefit from this informative and highly readable book.
Why I love it: The first sentence to the preface of this book says it all. “This collection of essays is not about how to each. It’s about how to think about teaching and learning.”
Favorite Quotes:
Teaching is neither necessary nor sufficient for learning. People can learn without being deliberately taught and a teacher can inform, instruct, explain, and demonstrate in the presence of students without the students’ learning what the teacher intends to teach. (Page 10)
Learning to play or sing any scale, any exercise or any piece is never the real goal of music instruction…The real goal… is for students to become superb musicians, doing all of the things that superb musicians do, irrespective of what is being played or sung at the moment… The far-reaching goal remains the same from the first day of instruction to the time when the student reaches the highest levels of artistic musicianship. In this sense, the goals of the lesson plan never change, regardless of the skills or experience level of the students you’re teaching. Only the contexts in which the goals are taught (i.e. the activities, the music) change over time. (Page 29)
Students need to learn to study effectively, to practice effectively, to think effectively. So, when and where will they learn that? In class, with us. Not by our telling them what to do when they’re alone in a practice room or in a carrel in the library, but by our leading them through the very activities that we expect them to do on their own in our absence. (Page 61)
…the decisions of what to teach when are central to artistic teaching. (Page 103)
In order to become independent thinkers and doers, learners must eventually use information and skills in situations in which they have had little or no prior experience. (Page 141)
All of this suggests a redefinition of what it means to learn something. Much of what we learn as part of formal education is presented to us in very limited contexts, and we have few opportunities to practice applying what we know and can do in contexts beyond those in which the knowledge and skills are initially taught. But if the goal of educaton is that students learn to use knowledge and skills effectively in the future, even in unfamiliar circumstances, then transfer must be definited as the goal of instruction. The goal is no longer the acqusition of knowledge and skills but the application of knowledge and skills in situations that have not been taught explicitly. For the developing musician, the goal is no longer to play a given piece beautifully, but to play beautifully (period). (Page 157)
Description (from GIA): The perfect introduction to Edwin E. Gordon’s music learning theory!
With clear and compelling language, Eric Bluestine sheds light on the most vexing issues in music education—all the while drawing from the contributions of perhaps the most influential thinker in the field today, Edwin E. Gordon. In the process, Bluestine unlocks the mystery that frees a child’s mind to think on its own musical terms.
Why I love this book: Please don’t let the fact that it’s an “introduction to Music Learning Theory” deter you in any way! Even if you weren’t necessarily looking to learn more about MLT, music teachers of every instrument and philosophy will get great value from and depth of understanding of how to teach music from this book.
In all my years of music education, this is the first book I read that really addressed how to teach “music.” That is, how to understand the sound that music is and not just the symbols (a.k.a. music “notation”) that we often define as teaching music.
Favorite Quotes:
I hold the elegantly simple belief that learning to understand music is its own reward. (Page xiv)
One of the basic tenets of Music Learning Theory is that children do not audiate intervals; they audiate functional tonal patterns made of intervals…In short, we don’t audiate pitches, or even intervals. We audiate structured pitches, pitches that we organize into functional patterns that relate to a tonal center. (Page 42)
Music education could be separated into four topics. They are 1) the musical and pedagogical principles that give rise to Music Learning Theory “irrefutable truths about music and music education”; 2) Music Learning Theory itself; 3) learning methods; and 4) classroom teaching (techniques, musical examples, and materials). Now, think about these in a pyramid shape with #1 as the larger foundation and #4 as the top of the pyramid. (Page 60)
The nature of Music Learning Theory is that one cannot use it directly. To use it, a music teacher must design a method based on it, and then use techniques, materials, and musical examples to get the method off the ground. (Page 75)
A child is not a miniature adult! (Page 88)
If we are to help our students to become independent musicians and musical thinkders – our most important task – then we must encourage them to generalize what they hear. (Page 149)
Description: Through the eyes of a simple piano teacher, learn the strategies to remove any self-made learning obstacles so that you can achieve all you put your mind to.
After ten years of teaching piano, Matt had become completely disillusioned with his career choice. Teaching was increasingly more frustrating, students were more difficult to motivate, and coping with the stress had become much more challenging. He was on the verge of quitting until he decided to have a cup of coffee at a café suggested by his GPS. That’s where he met Ray, and everything started to change.
An engaging, funny, and thought-provoking parable written as creative non-fiction, Coffee With Ray will introduce readers to revolutionary ways of communicating that will help make students become more accountable and teachers more skilled at facilitating learning.
Why I love the book: I especially love the fact that this book is an easy read. It’s simply a direct peek into the life of one teacher and is a beautiful example of how we can learn to be better at our profession by learning from others, not in our profession. This would be a great summer read. It feels casual but is still directed toward being a better teacher.
Favorite Quotes:
Teachers tend to think about teaching a subject. When you redefine yourself as a facilitator, you become responsible for facilitating your student through the learning of how to teach himself. (Page 61)
Instead of telling my students what they should do, I offered suggestions and asked them to take responsibility for choosing goals that felt best for them. (Page 102)
I asked her what she had accomplished this week that she felt proud of (I found that to be a better and more effective way of starting the lesson than asking them if they had practiced.) (Page 102)
[The last four excerpts are focused on using “but” vs. “and”.]
I like the way you made contact with that pitch, Mike, and now you’re ready to turn your back foot. (Page 74)
The point is that if you validate someone’s performance, as Dominic did, and then you use the word ‘but’ to create a change in the performance, the student never remembers what came before the ‘but.’ “If, however, you use the word ‘and’ as the invitation for change after the validation, the student feels he has earned the right to go onto the next part of his training and he will both remember the validation AND create the change. (Page 75)
You feel as though there is always something to fix. While that may be true, the word ‘but’ creates a feeling of ‘less than.’ It creates a closed condition for learning as well as an ‘undesirable’ feeling. The word ‘and,’ however, creates a feeling of greatness, of progress. It creates an opening for learning and that is a much more desirable feeling. (Page 76)
Everything you have ever accomplished was at one time outside of your comfort zone. Yet, by labeling it as hard you put a question mark on your ability to learn or accomplish it. By labeling it as new you never question your ability but, instead, actually acknowledge that you are capable. (Page 78)
Are you looking for ideas on fun “off-bench” activities to use in this Christmas season? Look no further! Today, I’m going to share some of my favorite games and resources that I return to year after year, along with tips for each one.
First, let me briefly share how I store my holiday games. We have to stay organized, right?
(P.S. The A4 size is nice because if you laminate a letter size sheet, the lamination makes it larger.)
It’s not a cheap way to store games as they’re almost $1 apiece, so I’m currently only storing my holiday-themed games in these. The rest of my games are stored in hanging files in a file drawer. (I’ll write a post on that another day!)
The digital files are stored in my cloud file manager.
From there, I name files for what they are. This allows me to see how many games, for example, I have, how many worksheets, etc.
This is a great way to have fun with rhythm in a unique and collaborative way. The set includes three songs in three levels: Deck the Halls, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and Joy to the World.
Are you looking for a better way to organize and store photos and videos?
Would you love an easy way to share those special clips directly with students and their families – especially those that aren’t a part of social media (yes, they exist).
Google Photos might be YOUR perfect solution!
My husband and I are PC users. He’s in the business world so that’s just how it goes in our house. For years I tried but never loved iCloud Photos. The interface just didn’t feel good to me and I was frustrated and unhappy.
For years I was hoping for a way to store photos and videos that would easily allow me to tag photos of multiple students on one photo.
Don’t laugh, but in the old old days, I even tried renaming every photo on my desktop file manager to include the name of each student that was in the photo.
This was a TERRIBLE idea but I was desperate.
I felt like I had the rest of my digital life organized and in order but photos were getting the best of me.
Then I met fellow Louisville-based piano teacher Daniel Light at a session I was giving to the teachers of Louisville MTA and he changed my world forever by introducing me to Google Photos!
Today, I want to share with you five reasons why Google Photos may answer your needs (as they did mine) for a better media storage solution.
Halloween may be one of my least favorite holidays, but since it’s tied up smack-dab in the middle of my favorite season, it doesn’t go completely missed in my studio.
Here is a quick round-up of some of the best Halloween-themed activities and resources I’ve come across over the years.
Do you ever come across a piece of music that grabs you so deeply that you never tire of playing it?
Over the past year, I’ve experienced this with one particular piece that I would like to share with you today.
Initially, I purchased it for myself as a fresh addition to my church repertoire stash. Even if I don’t have immediate intentions of using a digital download for students, I almost always purchase a studio copy just to be safe.
I’m so glad I did with this one especially because I loved it so much I’ve been handing it out like candy to every student that was willing/interested!
Did you know there was a 
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Description: Through the eyes of a simple piano teacher, learn the strategies to remove any self-made learning obstacles so that you can achieve all you put your mind to.
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