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Episode Summary
You will surely be delighted by Amy’s conversation with Seattle-based pianist, teacher, and clinician Peter Mack, current President of Music Teachers National Association (MTNA)!
They chat on a variety of topics, including teaching specialties, Peter’s natural knack for using visual descriptors, what it’s like to be on a conference planning committee, tips on the proposal submission process, and much, much more.
Irish-born pianist Peter Mack is in demand throughout the world as a performer, clinician, convention artist, adjudicator, and teacher. He is the 2023-2025 MTNA National President. He lives in Seattle, USA.
Items Mentioned
2024 Music Teachers National Conference (Atlanta)
What’s Your Teaching Specialty (Samantha Coates)
First Notification List: Retreat and Digital Organization Coaching
Workshop: Organize Your Life With Notion
Transcript
Hey there, teachers. I’m Amy Chaplin, and this is episode 110 of The Piano Pantry Podcast. While this podcast is a solo production, it’s supported by a lovely crew of teachers in my Patreon community.
A special shout-out to one of my supporters, Kate Campbell, who is also an alumnus of the online digital organization course. Thanks so much Kate for chipping in to keep this work going for our community. If you like Kate, enjoy the content here, you can join at either the $4 or $7 per month level. Visit PianoPantry.com/patreon for more details.
If you’re one of my Patreon supporters or digital organization alumni, I’ll be contacting you soon about connecting for dinner at the upcoming 2024 Music Teachers National Conference in Atlanta and you know I’ll pick someplace good – so stay tuned! Again, that’s PianoPantry.com/patreon.
In less than two weeks, hundreds of teachers will be gathering in Atlanta for 5 days of music teacher fun, which brings me to today’s guest.
Irish-born pianist Peter Mack is in demand throughout the world as a performer, clinician, convention artist, adjudicator, and teacher. He lives in Seattle, Washington, and is the current President of Music Teachers National Association.
I am confident you are going to be absolutely delighted by my conversation with Peter as we cover a variety of topics on teaching and life, including teaching specialties, Peter’s natural knack for using visual descriptors, what it’s like to be on a conference planning committee, tips on the proposal submission process, and much, much more.
Enjoy!
Welcome, Peter. I’m so excited to have you on the podcast today. Could you just take a moment and introduce yourself to the listeners?
Peter: Hi, Amy. I am Peter Mackk. I am a 62-year-old teacher from Ireland originally, but I now live in Seattle, Washington, and I teach some students, and I give talks, and I go to states, and I speak at state conventions, and I am also right now the president of MTNA, the Music Teachers National Association here in America.
Amy: Wonderful. Do you mind me asking how long have you have lived in the U. S.?
Peter: I came in 1984, so what is it? Oh, that’s 40 years. I’ve been here for 40. And you’re supposed to replace your cells after I think it’s maybe seven or eight years. So I have been an American in that all my cells have been regenerated for 33 years.
Amy: So I met you at the 2016 Ohio MTA State Conference at Kent State, and I remember it so vividly. It was actually my very early days of ever going out and presenting myself, and my first impression of you was that you had a fabulous knack for visual descriptors. And actually, believe it or not, you’re actually, you probably won’t be surprised by this, but I still have my notes from that conference tucked away in the back end of my Evernote app that I use for all that kind of stuff.
And I was going through it, and my memory served me well, because your sessions were titled, The Art of the Phrase. And this one’s my favorite. Lower the rear end of the elephant slowly into the keys. Teaching basic artistic concepts by using colorful imagery. Sure enough, I had notes from all your sessions, and you had all kinds of interesting descriptors about toothbrushes and hairbrushes and mud and pizza and Gorillas and lawnmowers, and I remember that so well. So I’m curious if that is a key element in your teaching style. Are you known for colorful imagery?
Peter: I think the answer without a doubt is yes. I find that we’ve all, we, when you say toothbrush or hairbrush or stuff, we all know what it’s like to squeeze toothpaste from a tube. We can all imagine the rear end of an elephant being lowered onto piano keys. It’s a way of getting through. If I just say to you, I want you to play this louder. That’s basically useless.
I remember I had one teacher who was a very good teacher, but they said in masterclass, they would basically teach a lesson and the lesson that they would teach. They would sit beside the student and point to things in their music in the score of the music and say, here, you need to do more of this. And as a lesson, it was fabulous, but as a master class, it was. Really not very good.
So I decided that if ever I got up in front of a group of people, I would be as extrovert and I would use as many colorful images as I possibly could and that just snowballed because it was really successful. The talk, what I should explain what the rear end of the elephant is all about. The idea is that what makes a loud sound when you play the piano? And how do the keys go down when you want it to be loud or when you want it to be softer?
And usually people will say something like more force or more weight. And so I say, imagine you have a giant elephant and you are lowering its rear end very slowly onto the keys. Will the notes even sound? And they say, no, they won’t. And I say, will the piano break? And they say, yes, it is. So it’s not the volume.
And then it’s the speed. And then I say, I have, and this is a mean analogy. I have a gerbil gun, and a gerbil is this tiny little rodent, and it fires the gerbil onto the piano keys, and they go down really fast. Will it, will they sound really loudly? And yes, they will. Will it be horribly sad for the poor gerbil? Yes, it will also. So we don’t, but that’s the nice thing about thought experiments. You don’t have to worry.
I had a teacher in Cincinnati, my teacher, Bela Shiki, who was a wonderful teacher and one of the many teachers I’ve had; he was on sabbatical for one semester, and the teacher who was, who took on some of his students was called Santo Saheda, and Santo Saheda had been a Rosina Levine student, so he had a really big, good pedigree and he was Full of fabulous analogies.
He really was. And it’s the sort of, one of the sadnesses is you are ready to hear things when you are ready to hear things. And I had come to Cincinnati to study with Bela Shikhi and then Bela Shikhi wasn’t there for the first quarter.
And I studied with Santos. I had,he was a very nice, man. And we got on very well and so on, but I was waiting. I was waiting for Bailey Shiki. And so then Bailey Shiki comes, which is wonderful. He moved to Seattle almost immediately. And so eight of us, eight students, moved with him because he was such a great teacher.
30 years later, I was looking at music that I had studied with Santos Ajeda, and I was thinking, this is wonderful! All the things he had written were so great. And I thought, what? How? I felt so guilty because I hadn’t appreciated him. We got on really well, and I said he was a good teacher, but I never really believed that he was a great teacher because I was waiting for the glory of Bela Shikhi.
Now I realize that Zanto Saheda was a really good teacher as well, but he had died. And so, I thought I should write to him and say how great he was and how much I appreciated that semester. But so if you do, I guess there are two lessons to be learned from that. One of them is always being aware that you might be getting something from somewhere you didn’t expect.And then, if you do get something from any of your teachers, write to them and tell them. Because it’s so lovely to hear from a student saying that you did wonderful things, it’s just, anyway. Back to, yes, I do use colorful colors. And also, as you can see, I hop around from place to place like a frog on a lily pad.
Amy: I love that. For me, I think sometimes the difficulty is, in the moment, coming up with something. Do you have. a whole series of stuff that you’ve used. Of course, I’m sure after 30 years of teaching, you will have lots of visual images that you will use with different students over and over. But do you find it very natural to come up with something on the spot?
Peter: Yes, I do. I was just in. I live in Washington state, and we have a wonderful program called the Visiting Artists Program or the Musical Arts Project. And What happens is basically a teacher will go to another place, and they will be in residency for three days or a week or so, and they will, and the students of theirs will, the student from that place will play for them. The little ones get 10 minutes, and the advanced ones get 30 minutes. And. I found that I’m using, there are analogies like the rear end of the elephant; if they don’t make, if they don’t know how to make the accompaniment softer, they, and they’re thinking less ways if you tell them to push the keys down slowly, they’re able to do that. And they remember it. I hope they do. Because of the elephant.
And then you draw, and there’s a sheet, a comment sheet, that you do. And the comment sheet, I drew a picture of an elephant, not particularly beautifully, but just so they will remember the elephant on the piano keys. And yes. And then if they’re little ones and they play and it’s all very flat nah nah.
They got all their notes, and there’s nothing wrong with that, except that it’s just dull. So then I say, A sports car. What does the sports car sound like? And then I go and say, can you make that noise? And they go, and they happen in front of an audience. And I say, okay, so everyone in the audience can make that?
And I do a hand gesture going in from one side of my body to the other, and the audience does it. And then. Invariably, there will be a parent or someone on their phone who is not paying attention because they brought the kid there and are waiting for it to be over. And so I say, even the daddies in the back have to do it. And then, but I don’t always do that because I look at the parent. I think, Are they going to do it or is it gonna, and if and if I judge it correctly, then the, and then the reason why I do that is because now the child has heard it four times and they’ve done it themselves, and then they go and it works really well or it works.
But yes, I find, especially when I’m in that kind of situation where I want to make huge impact. If I’m teaching my own kids, they’ve heard the sports car crescendo. They know about the elephant. They know. So you can’t use the same things over and over again. So you have to do new things. They force you to be continuously creative, right?
I literally came back yesterday from being a visiting artist in a place that I had been to 11 years ago. And what was a little sad is that I remembered I did the same dog and pony show, the same sports car crescendo. Oh the same things that I had taught 11 years ago. And I’m thinking, and the teachers are there, the teachers are looking at it. And I’m thinking, first off, they’ve seen me do this before. They must think I only have one trick up my sleeve or I’m one trick pony or something. On the other hand, I’m thinking, I’ve done all this. I did this last time I came. Even if it was a decade ago, why didn’t they change? And it brings us back to my lessons with Santa Zahida, where they, I guess they just weren’t ready to hear it when I was there the first time.
Amy: I recently listened to your podcast episode where you interviewed Tim Topham, who’s going to be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Music Teachers National Conference in Atlanta. By the way, I thought that was a fun turnaround for you to interview him. And at one, one point you were chatting about both the joy of being the type of teacher who can take a student from age four to advanced competitions and mold them and refine them as well as the flip side of being a teacher that hones in on a level of student that you specialize in.
And actually, your conversation made me think of an article by Australian-based teacher Samantha Coates. She wrote it maybe a couple of years ago. It was called What’s Your Teaching Specialty? In that article, she made me feel permission to say that sometimes it’s okay to be the kind of teacher who says, yes, I can teach an advanced-level student. I can teach beginners. However, this is my joy and strength, and this is where I want to focus my teaching.
So, for her example, she specializes in transfer students, and she loves teaching intermediate level students and transfers, but once they get to a certain level of advancement, she’s ready to pass them on. to somebody who specializes in more advanced level repertoire on a regular basis.
And that was very freeing for me. I’ve only done that a couple of times, but I think there’s not one right or wrong answer to be the type of teacher you; maybe you’re the type of teacher that starts kids from age four and you can take them all the way and, be confident in that and see the beauty in that and be able to mold them.
But it’s also okay to be the kind of teacher that knows when it’s time to pass on a student to maybe another teacher that would be better suited for them where they are in the moment. I just, what’s your special, your teaching specialty? Do you prefer to just focus on the upper levels, or do you enjoy taking them from very beginner through advanced?
Peter: I know Samantha Coates, and she’s wonderful. And yes, I read that. And I agree. First off, I live in a major metropolitan area. I live in Seattle. And one of the things about Seattle that right now, and this is if you if you are listening, and you’re thinking, I want to live somewhere in the United States, but I can’t decide where to come to Seattle, come to, especially if you have enough money that you can get yourself situated.
It’s an expensive city to start in, but there are students here; they’re crawling out of the woodwork. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s a city that is thriving. It’s a city that is growing. I have, I, with my studio, I could teach more of, I, I don’t have to restrict myself I could take anything, any kind of student that I want, because they exist.
If you live in a town of three hundred and forty sp people, you’re not going to be able to say, I only teach the advanced repertoire because the, you’ll have a tiny number, if anyone to choose from. So, assuming that you can choose, I have nothing but the greatest respect for people who start kids.
And I think that is, it’s a special skill. It is the hardest thing to do. It’s just. I find it exhausting. I am not particularly good at it, even though I try. It’s just where I am is I take transfer students. I take students who are, as you talked about, Samantha Coates. If Samantha Coates gave me a student, I would be thrilled because I take students, and I don’t have a very big student.
I would say I have a very small studio because I say to them, the people coming in, that you really only have to do one thing to be in my studio, and that’s you have to practice a minimum of two hours a day, three hours on weekends. And that cuts down on the people that don’t want to do the kind of work that I can or like doing.
Amy: So, in my notes that I took from your sessions at the 2016 conference that I mentioned at the start of our conversation, I found a quote from you that I wrote down, and I just love. You said, Too much of a good thing is wonderful. And I’m like, now that I know you a little bit better, I’m like, oh, that is so Peter.
And I love that. And of course, it depends on what context you’re talking about. If you’re talking about ice cream eventually that’s not going to be a good thing. But that brings me To a personal question, on this podcast I try to focus on living life as an independent teacher. So what’s one thing for you in everyday life that’s a good thing that you can’t get too much of? It could be a hobby, a favorite food, a favorite composer, adventurous outings, anything like that.
Peter: I think your listeners will see the photograph of me in my kitchen and you see a bunch of things. But one of the things is that. Just, there’s too much stuff. My house is full of objects, of things, of brightly colored, shiny things that I pick up and look at and that I love.
And it’s also full of plants. I enjoy plants and get a great kick out of taking them, keeping them alive, and propagating them. And then one of the things I do with the Seattle music teachers association is I have a collector, I collect cactus collection. And. In Seattle, you can’t have cacti outdoors in the winter, but you do put them outside in the summer.
And some of them, when I put them outside in the summer and take them inside in the winter, bits drop off them bits are broken. And so I always set those in pots and they grow. And then I bring them to the Seattle meetings so that they, so that the cacti can go everywhere.
And there was a teacher called Willard Schultz who lived in Seattle. And he lived to be, I think, 96. And he had a very aesthetic life, except one room in his house was given over to a particular kind of cactus from China called a tanha that would bloom these huge blooms one night only, and then they would fade and they have this horrible smell, but this glorious bloom and and so it’s the, I think as teachers, we like to nurture things and they, and hope that they bloom and give out maybe not give out a horrible smell, but so I love stuff.
When I grew up in a house where books were everything. And there were rooms in the house where if you open the door, if a pile of books had fallen over, you couldn’t get, it would be difficult to open the door because the door would be against the pile of books that had fallen over.
And I resolved that when I had my own house, that you would not have that, that I would have a Japanese aesthetic and it would be a low bench with one vase at the end of it with one flower that was delicately spotless and just to be. It was going to be like what your house looks like. It’s the minimalist beautiful restrained. And in my house, there are rooms where sometimes it’s hard to get in because of a pile of books that you can’t fight.
Amy: I wish I could say I was a plant person as well. That’s one of those things that’s I’m a plant wannabe, but I try and I feel like I always fail. Every time I try to grow a living plant and I don’t know what it is, but I keep trying and that’s the important thing. Succulents, too! I do have a succulent that I’ve had for several years that is still going,
Peter: yes, and we were talking earlier before we started, when we were chatting, we were talking about doing things like growing avocados and growing citrus from seed. And it’s fun to things, I mean you, you can, when you go down the vegetable aisle, you can, there are things that are fun to grow, like Put an onion in the ground.
They have these big flowers that come up and then they have tiny little onion flowers up, up at the top. So you know, you don’t have to eat all your onions. They are bulbs that will make flowers, and then you can take them and you can bread them and deep fry them.
Amy: My husband does all the gardening and then I do the cooking of the food that he grows.
Peter: Yes, it works pretty well. . So grow onions and you lightly dust them with flour where you, yeah. The flowers, you lightly dust them with flowers and then you can do, anyway, that’s, I’m being, we’re being
Amy: Part of the reason I wanted to have you on this episode is the 2024 MTNA conference in Atlanta, Georgia is coming up. And I had your predecessor, Karen Thicston on exactly 100 episodes. She was on episode number 10, and that was in March of 2022 when MTNA was still playing it safe and having the online conferences. Now, I don’t know if you remember this or not. It’s funny, the sometimes things in life that stick with us.
But three of my teacher friends, Joy Morin, Jana Williamson, and Christina Whitlock all gathered in my home during that conference so that we wouldn’t be alone, totally. And I don’t remember how it happened or the session, but I think you were hosting a coffee hour with maybe Martha Hilley or something like that.
And I think it was like right after my 20 minute tidying tips session. And you and Martha, you verbalized something either about my session or about me and the girls being together, and we just all went crazy. Peter Mack mentioned us! Peter Mack! It was just one of those silly little moments. But, anyways, that is one of those things for me, that is a reason why I’m a part of a group like MTNA.
It’s about being a part of a group of people. Everybody’s reasons are different. Some people want tangibles. They want what am I going to get out of it for my membership? Am I going to get, discounts on conferences or like what resources am I going to get in trade? But for me, I just need the community of teachers and, piano teacher world isn’t that small, but.
If you engage enough, you start to get to know people, and you start to see the same people. And I believe with my whole heart that those relationships and connections can make or break sometimes teachers hanging on to this career. Because it can be such a lonely career. So what say you? Do you agree? What is your favorite part of being a member of MTNA?
Peter: I absolutely agree. I, so there are so many different areas and places we could go. I remember the first time I heard you speak, I think also was at that, that Ohio conference back and it was, did you say, 2016. Is that? Yes. Yes. That’s right. That’s when it was because I remember the election was just about to happen.
And you were you are so wonderful. I remember the, and your session was packed. And I even remember what the room was like. It was a low room that was, it wasn’t long. It was wide. It was weird. Yeah. And I remember that too. And, I remember, you were just so your session was Whoa, I could do that. That’s why I, yes, that’s, Oh, I should. And of course, now I’m thinking I took so many notes and there were so many great ideas that I must put into practice one of these days,
Amy: I remember feeling that joy after my session, you came up to me and complimented me. And I was like, Oh my goodness, Peter Mack likes my session.
Peter: I didn’t want to say that because I didn’t want to put you on the spot and say, did you remember that? I went up out of course, why should she remember? But But in a sense though, that’s one of the things that I think that I’m going to get when I go to a conference is I’ll go to these wonderful sessions. I’ll take these great notes and I’ll go around the exhibit hall and I’ll buy all this fabulous music that I can’t wait to teach and I hear music being played in sessions and I go to the concerts and I see the master classes and I do all that.
I do all that stuff and I enjoy all that stuff. But I’ve already described my house as having piles of things all over the place. I have piles of music from sessions that I went to years ago that I think, Oh yes, I must go through that sometime and pick out the thing. I have piles of notes I took at sessions that I’m like, Oh, I should go through those.
And there were some really good ideas there. But the thing that I get from going to the convention is just, as you say, the feeling of not being alone, that we are all there and we are all doing it together. And I love that. That’s the thing that I get from my local chapter in Seattle as well.
Some people just joined because of competitions, or they, and they never go to a meeting and they never send their students to, no they, all they do is they send their students to competitions and they, sometimes they don’t even show up to the competitions. And for them being an MTNA is simply the price of admission so that your students can do competitions.
When I taught college, our meetings used to be in Seattle, used to be on Tuesday mornings. I never could go. And so for 30 something years, I was a member and I couldn’t go. I went to national conferences way before I went to meetings in Seattle, just because I couldn’t, but now I can. What I love about going to Seattle is it’s a chapter with two social directors.
And what that means is we have, there are two people and they’re just the most extrovert, lovely people. And if they’re not extroverts, they pretend well. And their job, or the thing, the task that they have set themselves is to find stuff for us to do. And sometimes it’s obvious stuff.
If there’s a recital or someone’s playing, playing with the symphony, or most recently we went to hear X, the life and times that opera. And so doing things that you think, yes, a music teacher’s group, that’s something that, that obviously they’re going to do, but they also they went on a Halloween pub crawl and they they have brunch in a restaurant that’s on the water.
We went to a place where you paint, it’s like, painting by numbers for adults with alcohol. And that’s, and we do, that kind of stuff as well. And I love it because I get to spend time not talking about, my little student, she’s just done but, talking about what it’s like to have a studio and what it’s like to be a business person in 2024 rather than being in my little room teaching my student and then putting down the piano lid and walking away and my life being separate from it. I love the amalgamation of my life. Outside music with my life inside music.
Amy: That’s so fun hearing about your group. I, and I love I’ve never heard of a group doing something besides just gathering and having sessions together or something like that. Like my group has done lunch together, but to actually go out and have fun, like just to go to an opera or to do something like that. That is so special.
So the cool thing about conferences to me is that no one experiences everything exactly the same. There are so many things to do, right? Your MTNA conference will look totally different than my MTNA conference here in a couple of weeks. So what are some highlights for you that’s on the agenda?
Peter: It’s funny you say your MTNA conference because it’s not my MTNA conference. It’s actually Vanessa Cornett Murtada. Vanessa Cornish because every year MTNA the one of the, one of the perks of being a president is that you get to choose somebody who does things. And so you get to choose the person who is the conference planning person chair. And then you work together with them and with the MTNA staff to pick people who represent different different interests in the organization. And together, then you put the conference together. And how, what happens is that this year, I think we had 583 proposals. And of those 583, we were able To squeeze in about a hundred and those hundred proposals. They’re wonderful.
it’s this, but next year it will be Noreen Wengen, who is from California and who is independent teacher par excellence. And she wrote the book called the two year wait list. And she is, and she’s very, she’s a wonderful teacher, but she’s also very much business oriented. And so her conference is going to look completely different.
And sometimes people say to me, you I applied and I didn’t get in, what should I do for next time? And one of the answers is, if you do the same proposal, if it was a good proposal, next year will be the color of the conference will be totally different from the conference before.
But what am I really looking forward to? One of the things I was able to do, of course, is to choose the people who give teaching demonstrations, master classes. We have our conference artist, Sean Chen, and he’s at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and also he won a Van Vant Library, and he was a huge prize winner there, and he’s a stunning pianist. But he’s also a lovely masterclass giver. And I did something at the university of Missouri, Kansas city. And he was there and it was, oh, we got to have him do something.
And then the other people, who else is that? I judged the, Texas state competition, maybe MTNA competition, maybe four or five years ago. And there was one studio where these students are amazing up one after another. And it was the McDonald’s studio. And it’s Alex McDonald and his mother. Marcy McDonald. And when you see something incredibly well done, you want to find out how it’s done. And so I asked them to give a joint masterclass. And she said no. And he said yes. And it’s that’s not what I want. I wanted you both. And what’s lovely is that finally she has said yes. I think she, he talked her into it or I don’t know what it was that made her change her mind. But what I’m hoping with that session, and they’re giving the intermediate class. What I’m hoping with that session that will happen is that she will say, “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And he will say, “Oh, mom, you always said that”. And, he will say, “blah, blah, blah”. And she will say, “Now, Alex, you know that. Just not …”
We had the Angela Cheng and Alvin Chow, a married couple, do that maybe two years ago or something. And, they were so great because they love each other and they’re stunning musicians, but they didn’t always agree. And it’s I just, And I had the Weems, Nancy and John Weems do that again, a husband and wife. And this is the first time I’ve ever seen a mother and son give a master class. I’m really looking forward to that.
And then we have a junior master class and that’s being given by Kevin Olsen. And Kevin Olsen, and he brings his students. To, to MTNA conferences and he writes pieces that fall so easily under the hand that the students think that they are better than they are, but they are because they’re able to play fabulous and they, and so how could, so he’s, so we’re really excited about, he is, he’s coming and then there’s a new master class that I always wanted.
The thing that I’m most inadequate. There are lots of things I’m most inadequate about, but the thing in teaching that I feel the most inadequate about is technique. And if there is a lecture on a talk on technique at the conference, it’s packed always because I think I am not the only one that feels that they wished that they were more secure in technique.
Having said that, the Russians, they feel they’ve got it down, and the Taubman people, they feel they’ve got it down. But us mortals we just, I wish that I knew more about technique. And if there was a session that said, this is technical advice, this is what you should do Then I think that would be hugely popular.
And I’m hoping it will be because we have Dr. Teresa Bogart, the professor at the University of Wyoming. She is perhaps the best technical diagnostician that I’ve ever met. That I have ever seen in my life. And what happens is they, someone will play for her and just play like 20 seconds. And she will look at them and she will say, do you realize that every time you go playing two octaves above middle C, you kink your shoulder up like that.
And if you didn’t kink your shoulder up, you would be so much more, or you’re moving your wrist too much, or you’re sitting too low, or why are you doing, every time you play E flat, or just I’ve no idea that what she does that is so magical because it’s what she does that’s so magical, but she’s going to do that, and we have I think three or four people lined up to play for her I don’t but what I don’t want is that the whole class is Just those three or four people playing for he.r
What I want is that the first one plays and she says blah blah blah blah blah blah blah done with you next one blah blah blah blah done with you and then goes and then When the fourth person has played she looks at the audience. There is a big long line of people who want to play for her and she goes well now you should do blah and then the next one you should do blah and it’s almost a conveyor belt and it’s Wonderful. She changes lives, so she’s, so I’m talking too much.
Amy: There’s so many amazing things. How do you leave any of it out?
Peter: Did I mention there are a hundred over a hundred presentations?
Amy: I know. You know what you said at the beginning about how every conference is different and, whoever’s planning it, there’s different goals and what they’re looking for. And you’re a hundred percent right. And actually I’m doing a session at MTNA – which is on how to craft winning proposals and engaging presentations. But it’s true.
One of the things that I reiterate in that session is that you can’t know just because a proposal wasn’t accepted once for a conference doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. It may not be what they were looking for that one, so you have to submit it. Like submit, submit to lots of different things. Even that proposal that I’m doing for MTNA, that session, it’s been rejected by other state, conferences and stuff. So it’s you never know.
Peter: I don’t know if Zoom was able to capture the fact that I burst out laughing when you said it, because you reminded me of the fun that we had when we talked about your session in the planning committee.
Amy: Oh, really? Oh, no. Oh, I want to hear this.
Peter: Yes. It was we could reject it and we could, it would be so fun to have but it’s, there are so many things. One of them is you’re a really good presenter. We’ve all been to see you present. You are organized. You have tip top information. You deliver it in a way that is visually as well as orally interesting. It’s you really present extremely well.
Amy: Thank you so much.
Peter: That topic is a topic that is, that I don’t know anyone has done. And of course, everybody who is there, who has been rejected wants to know why. And sometime, and now that I have, seen the sausage made. One of the things that I was very lucky because the first time I did a national proposal at MTNA, I was accepted. Yay, I was accepted. The second Me too, my very first one. Aren’t we wonderful? And the second time I was accepted and it was like, oh, I know how to do this. This is great. I’m so yay. And the third time I was rejected. And It was, I think it was even my art of the phrase one, which is one of the best ones I give. And I was like, no, this is even better than last year’s. How could you reject me? And then one of my friends that was on the planning committee and I, after we’ve had a few drinks or something I vaguely gingerly maneuvered the conversation to how could I make my next year better? And she said, Oh, it was a great proposal. It’s just, you’d given twice in a row. We can’t have you every year. Are you crazy? And I didn’t know that. Yeah.
Amy: Sometimes it’s something as simple as that, but you don’t know. And that’s why it’s hard because you can’t get that feedback, understandably, when there’s 500 proposals, I can’t share with you why.
Peter: Yes. That’s one of the reasons. That’s one of the things is that we don’t, we try. And the Ingrid Clairfield is a wonderful person. really good presenter and a really good friend of mine. And sometimes I’ve been on things where I reject her simply because she would gave it last year and she’s but how can, why? My session is so wonderful. You heard me give it in the New Jersey conference when you were there. And I was like, yes, I did hear you give it at the New Jersey conference. And you are wonderful. And it was a wonderful session. We can’t have you every year, even though it would be wonderful if we could. we did simply because everyone we want to have as varied a conference and we want to have people like when you and I were our first time. If we have only established people, then it’s a lovely, but it’s stagnant.
Amy: Yeah. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Everybody has to have a chance and you have to have balance and variety and and like you said, this topic is something that nobody really talks to you about, which is why I wanted to present on it. Okay. And part of me was a little bit like I’ve never actually been on a conference committee. So I hope people… but I’ve also presented a lot and submitted a lot. Like nobody else is telling people, so I’m going to give it a shot.
Peter: Let me tell you actually how. How, and maybe because maybe you, I, so first let me say, how organized are you? Have you already got your conference all PowerPointed out and then you are nodding your head and yes, it’s done So Ingrid and I co presented – Ingrid Clairefield – a few years ago and we, our friendship took a hit there because we love each other and we respect each other and we do not work in the same way together. I do things the last minute, the day before, few days before. We have lots of time and she is like you. She, and as I look behind you at your house, I thought when I asked that question, I thought, I know what she’s going to answer. And if you look behind me at my house, you also know the answer.
Amy: Yes, we’re both predictable. LOL. Did you present with Ingrid at the conference in Disney?
Peter: In Anaheim or in in,
Amy: No, not California, Florida,
Peter: something park or no, it wasn’t winter park. It was yes. Springs. Yeah. It was a Disney world. Yes. Disney.
Amy: Yeah. I’m pretty sure I saw your guys’s session there. It was phenomenal.
Peter: And of course you have two, in that we had, there were two supreme extroverts elbowing each other out of the spotlight because of course we were, because that’s what we were. But but what was where was I going? I was going somewhere. I have a friend called Pam and she says, land the plane, Peter. Land the plane. Yes. And what he, what I was going to say is how people were actually chosen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And so I think there were maybe five people on the conference planning committee and each one of us represents a different thing. So the independent teacher sort of person who comes from a business point of view, the chair of, or some, someone who brings a DEI perspective, someone who is under the of 754. Someone who is the sort of ev the just you want to have as varied and d so that, that was, and it was really, it was a great number group of people, but then you get 583 proposals to read and they’re one page proposals and you, and. If there isn’t a system, you’re going to go, wait, that were number 125, which one was that again?
And so what we did was we read them and we could give them a one, a two or a three, and one meant I don’t think we should promote this one. Two meant this is pretty good, but could be just fine. And three is, I love this one. And then we tabulated our scores, and it was very interesting to see how nice people were. And I was the Grinch, because I was like, we can’t have everyone. I gave a lot of ones. I gave a few twos and a small number of threes, because otherwise, what’s the point? If you’d give, if you’re nice to everybody and give everybody threes that’s nice, but you might as well not have been there.
Amy: So you were the Simon Cowell of…
Peter: I was!
Amy: Of the conference committee.
Peter: I’m thinking that maybe this is not what I should be saying at all, and no, I think this is good and I think it’s interesting to know how they rate things. You said you have to have a system where it’s going to be chaos.
There’s another strategy that, that someone says how can I make it accepted next time? And one of the things you can do is you can send two or three proposals in. And don’t send the same proposal in twice, three times it interesting piano or piano music from 20th century Bolivian women composers, piano music from 20th century Argentinian women composers.
Piano from 20th century, Jamaican women composers, because that’s the same program over and over. And so send more, do one of them pre piano with 20th century Argentinian women composers. And then another one being ten ways that I organize my studio so that my taxes are done with at the every quarter.
And also, if it was something like interpretative choices in the Gulbenkian Flute Sonata. That was that there were so few people at the conference who were going to play the Gulbenkian flute sonata that even if it’s a wonderful proposal, this is not, it’s probably not going to get chosen.
So those are things to consider the process, the fact that you can spread your net widely and you don’t have to put all your eggs in one basket. And then remember that if it’s too narrow in focus. It’s probably not going. You want it to reach at least a minimum number of people.
Amy: Yeah. I think that’s great advice. And thank you. You’re helping me with my own session. I can say, I talked to one of the, the conference people and I don’t think you’re not giving away the bank. Don’t worry. I think this was great. And I think people are going to really appreciate hearing that.
So as we come into our final question, Peter, you again, you know me well enough to know I share a lot about productivity and organization. Is there anything particular that helps you in your daily workflow? Whether that be a habit or a resource or a tool that you want to share with us.
Peter: I can share a belief that I do not always follow. Last, yesterday I got 209 emails. And and that is welcome, it won’t, when I stop being president of MTNA, that won’t continue. But that is where we are right now. I used to answer emails beautifully and I would, and then if something came that, oh, I, I should, I, that’s someone I like very much. I’m going to take a bit of time with that one. Then I would put it away and never get back to it. And that was the thing is that sort of, I think it’s better to do a quick reply or a quick solution that is done, especially if you have many things to do, it’s better to do a quick solution that is done rather than a beautiful, elegant solution that is never done. I was not great at replying to you and I replied and I said, yes, I’d love to. And then you sent me a thing saying, okay, great, let’s do it. And then I didn’t reply to that. And you were like, are you sure you want to do it? And then I’m like, Oh yes, I do. I do.
And with practicing, it’s the same thing that I find that it’s way better when I do 10 minutes of practice, rather than, just a 10 minute little bit. Then another 10 little bit something, rather, and I try and do that every day, rather than doing a beautiful two and a half hour practice session. Never.
Amy: Yeah, I agree. And like you said, even with email, like sometimes if you want to think on something a little bit more, you can at least send an initial response that says, hey, I acknowledge your email, I’m going to think about this and get back to you at least, like at least you have a quick solution and you know that you’ve actioned it.
Peter: And the corollary to that is if I didn’t get back to you, Please don’t take it personally. It’s that you were number 208 and I want, and I like you so much that I wanted to give it thought. And then the next day’s 209 emails came.
Amy: Yeah, that’s crazy. And that’s why I’ll put a plug here. That’s why I do my. Digital coaching for teachers. I have a retreat that actually, the dates just opened up. I do a retreat in my home for teachers on digital organization. And they come together and I talk them through mindset and cleanup and upkeep of digital workspaces, like your email, your file management. media, like all kinds of stuff like that, that we deal with as teachers that’s not, has nothing to do with teaching, but still runs our lives. So yeah, there’s my little plug for that.
Peter: I remember you talked about that in Ohio way back when about cleaning up your email. And I just went to look at my email and I have 77, 301 Unread messages.
Amy: Oh my goodness. Peter, you need my course.
Peter: Is it online?
Amy: I do two versions. Yeah, I do an in person retreat and then I do an online version as well. Peter, it has been such a lovely time chatting with you. I look forward to seeing you in person at the conference here in a couple of weeks. And I just appreciate you taking the time to share with us today.
Peter: Thank you so very much for inviting me to do it. I am honored to be here. And I’m looking forward to your session in a very short while. And I’m so glad that it was the unanimous choice. It’s funny because I thought that would be a cute thing to say. You were not the unanimous choice of the group. And I know that not because I remember your proposal, but because nobody, there was not one proposal that was the unanimous choice of the five members of the selection committee.
And on the one hand, it’s it was nobody good enough. On the other hand, I think what’s great about that is that it really shows that we tried to do a diversity of opinions or a diversity of people coming from a different walks of life or different kinds of teachers in as part of the planning committee. And so you were not the unanimous choice of all the committee members, but you were mine.
Amy: Oh thank you so much. I feel very special. We’ll see you here soon, Peter. Have a great day.
Peter: I look forward to it. Thank you very much.
Thanks for listening in today, everyone. I have three quick announcements for you before we go.
First of all, as Peter and I discussed, I’ll be premiering a new 20-minute session at the upcoming conference called The Wow Factor: Crafting Winning Proposals and Engaging Presentations. That will be held on Monday, March 18 – 2:55. I hope to see you there.
Second, as I briefly mentioned in our conversation, dates have been announced for the 2024 Piano Pantry retreat in my home in Indiana. There will only be one retreat date this year, which will be held on June 12-15. Since I can only accept a very small number, the spots are already almost full after announcing to those on my first notification list and email subscriber list in just the past week. Registration isn’t closed, so you can still submit your interest – it’s just getting very close to being closed already.
If you would like to join the first notification list for the retreat or subscribe to my email list so you can be notified of this special exclusive event sooner in the future, please see the link in the show notes or visit PianoPantry.com/retreat
Lastly, the 2-day workshop Organize Your Life with Notion is happening THIS weekend, March 8 and 9. If you missed the early bird deadline for $40 off, we’ve just released a last-chance discount for three days only for $30 off through Wednesday, March 6. Visit PianoPantry.com/notion
As always, anything mentioned today can be found in the show notes at PianoPantry.com/podcast/episode110
