S2 E3: Josh Massicot--Keyboardist, Author, Songwriter, and Educator

Welcome back to The Piano Pod. I am Eric Hunter.

I'm Yukimi Song.

And I'm Clara Zhang.

Today our guest is Josh Massico, keyboardist, author, songwriter, and educator. As a keyboardist, Josh has performed both with major symphony orchestras and shared the stage with international touring acts. For the past 13 years, he has served on the faculty of Nazareth College where he teaches piano lessons, pedagogy, and functional piano. His textbook, Functional Piano for Music Therapists and Music Educators: An Exploration of Styles, is a required text for college and graduate students both domestically and internationally. Josh is also a successful singer-songwriter, and his alt-Americana group Stella Hill has 2 EPs which are available to stream and download on all major music platforms. Recently, Josh became the production manager at Concerts at Point of the Bluff Vineyards, where he oversees all aspects of day-of operations for some of the biggest international touring acts and artists in the world. Hi, Josh, welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Welcome.

Yay.

So Josh and I are actually old buddies. We go way back to our undergrad days at Eastman.

Really, really back.

Yeah, yeah, well, it's just, you know, not— okay, yeah, it's been a while, but back to Eastman School of Music and University of Rochester. And, uh, we've had this running conversation just about as long on the state of classical music and music education. Incidentally, Josh is just an unbelievable teacher, and he's always been my model since I started out, as somebody who is more experienced than me and just has a knack for it. So, um, yeah, so we talked a lot about that kind of stuff. And then back in March of this year, 2021, Rolling Stone magazine published this article It's become rather infamous, I think, with the title "Juilliard Must Modernize or It Will Disappear." And this article circulated widely among classical musicians on social media. And Josh published what I thought was a really thoughtful and articulate response on Facebook, which I then shared and my friends picked up. A lot of people thought it was better than the original article, honestly. So We all read that and we thought we should really bring Josh on the show to talk about these things. So we're going to get into that. But first, so our audience gets to know you a little bit, Josh, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your musical background and how you came up, because it's a little bit unusual for a classically trained musician.

Yes, I am a jack of all trades is a positive spin of that. And then I think a lot of times I'm just waiting for someone to discover that I'm a complete and utter fraud. So we all have that. Yeah, I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. I'm the only musician in my family, but my family goes way back there, actually before the founding of the country, which is a pretty cool thing. And so I grew up in a very musical place, and my parents were musical enthusiasts. Like, we were always listening to music. My mom was a dancer. When she was younger. And so like music was a big sort of part of my life. And as long as I can remember, I was always listening to it because my mom was a dancer. We had a piano in the house and, and so I sort of just— I had an older brother and he was taking lessons and I was, you know, like too young to take lessons. And so I was just like listening to songs kind of like a sponge. I was listening to songs on the radio. My parents had a big LP collection. I would just listen to songs and learn how to play them by ear. And my musical interests were really— have always been super, super diverse. Like, I love popular music and rock and blues and jazz, but I also love classical and got really into classical music around, you know, 10 or 11 years old, which is like really young but also really late for most classical musicians. So started taking classical lessons then. And learned pretty early on that I had to like segregate or compartmentalize aspects of my musicianship, like never tell my classical teacher that, for instance, I didn't learn how to read like the entire first year of my lessons. I knew like what lines and spaces were, and so I would just like count up the lines and spaces to figure out the first note and be like, okay, cool. And then just start playing the piece because she would always play the pieces for me before, like introducing them, or I would listen to recordings from the library.

So you're mostly playing by ear?

Yeah, I mean, pretty exclusively. And, but I, you know, eventually learned how to read and I got really into it and like so into it that I was a big idiot and left my, like my junior year of high school, like, you know, had a chip on my shoulder. I was like, I'm gonna apply to colleges. And so somehow they made a mistake and let me into some great schools. And so I went to Eastman as a baby. I was 16 years old when I went there. And found out very quickly that I knew nothing about classical music and spent that first year just being as scrappy as I possibly could, but loved my experience there. Obviously, immersing myself in that world for 4 years was deeply meaningful to me. And then, you know, took a little bit of time off and gigged and eventually went back to Eastman for my master's and kind of fell in love with teaching after doing, you know, 17 different things for a couple of years. And I don't know, like the boring story is that, you know, like met my wife at Eastman and we both got jobs here and kind of made Rochester our home. And it sort of took me teaching at Nazareth College to learn how sort of silly it was that I had been compartmentalizing aspects of my musicianship for like a really long time in my life. We're a smaller, small liberal arts school. We have a pretty big School of Music. We have about 300 students in our School of Music. We're the second biggest school within the college, and our primary enrolling programs are music therapy, music education, and music business. So sort of where I fit in, you know, sort of my place in that college and a niche that I very intentionally carved out for myself and was lucky to be supported doing that was, you know, we have obviously music education students who need to be able to improvise accompaniments or do score reductions. Or I think about my wife all the time, who's like at two different schools and she maybe has her Suzuki cello book at one school and her Suzuki piano or violin book at another school. And so she's constantly transposing accompaniments because, you know, she has to play them in a different key. And then I got handed this functional piano course for music therapists that like really didn't have a curriculum or any required text. And they're like, we have this class that we want to do and we don't know what to do with it. And I was totally shocked that there were like zero resources available to give my students. Like you could either find like, you can play pop piano too, and you'd get these super fricking lame arrangements of like the melody jammed in your right hand pinky and like, completely squared out rhythms that just sound awful. Like, you don't have to be a musician to know how terrible those things sound. Or like someone's dissertation on like 1910 stride piano, you know, styles. And so it's like there's nothing in between that really empowers students with these skills or breaks down these elements into sort of easily digestible and pedagogically sound approaches. So I started making handouts for my students, and those handouts got really long and ridiculous and eventually led to a book. So it's sort of become a passion of mine. But I don't know, I've kind of always been restless as a musician. This is a long story, so cut me off. I've always been restless as a musician, so I'm never happy, like, sort of doing one thing. I get— I have, like, musical ADD and I get bored. So I tend to say yes to projects that are different or interesting. And then if I can't find those projects, I tend to just make them. So that's kind of what I've enjoyed doing throughout my career. And so that means like, we started teaching a version of that class that I built for our graduate students, you know, 4 or 5 years ago and sort of had to retool that curriculum. And we're in the process of doing it for music business students and incorporating like synth and MIDI input and, you know, scoring into that curriculum too. So like, it's, It's a very cool part of my job, but it's sort of, you know, like, I think like a lot of 21st century musicians, like we're piecing together a variety of different niches to sort of make a living and also keep ourselves vibrant and interested.

Yeah. Okay. A lot to respond to there. Josh, first I want to ask you, can you talk a little bit more about the book and what's in it? Because talking about these two extremes, right? The, the Bach arrangements on the one hand and the dissertation on the other. What does functional piano mean to you and how do you teach it?

Yeah, so I mean, functional piano to me is a term that, you know, certainly I didn't coin, but I've sort of taken ownership with, and that it's sort of the— it's the catch-all word I use for everything that kind of falls outside of the realm of what has become traditional classical training, right? So traditional classical training places emphasis on— very early on— on developing facility and developing reading skills, right? So your ability to manipulate an instrument at a very high level and your ability to consume a lot of written music. So those are really important things, and not that they're at all bad skills. I mean, I tell my students every week practically that, like, I take it for granted that I can manipulate my instrument well. Like I've done the work and I can do that. I take it for granted that I can read, like that's— and that's something as a kid that I like, oh wait, all these people are so much better at this. It's a skill like anything else, but I think we've kind of created this mystique around these other skills, like how do I learn a song from a recording, or how do I transpose, or how do I learn like what are the 3 main elements of blues piano stylings on, you know, on the piano, are like, how can I make my pop songs sound like the recordings? So a lot of these started as like, I mean, I'll be honest, like a lot of it's reverse engineering, right? So this is stuff that I've been doing my whole life and just kind of do organically. And then I would have students, I was really lucky. My undergraduate students are enrolled, my music therapy students are enrolled in clinical placements on campus. So they're taking my class, but then they're also going, you know, on campus to work with a group of 5-year-old kids with autism, or they're working with an adult student with aphasia, or they're working with a senior student recovering from a stroke, right? So they're having to manipulate piano and guitar and their voice and use music to accomplish therapeutic goals. So they're going to their sessions being like, Hey, Massako. Sorry, everyone calls me Massako, not Professor Massako. I don't know how that happened, but it happened. So like, hey, Massako, I was doing this thing in a session and like, how do you ground the blues? 'Cause my student needs a really steady beat, but like, you know, how do I also imbue it with style? So they would just ask me a lot of questions and I'm like, I don't know, let's figure it out. So that's really what functional pianism is to me because the things that my students have to be able to do and prioritize in very authentic and meaningful ways are a very different skill set than what classical musicians, you know, prioritize. My students have to be able to be really comfortable transposing, right? Like, they'll have a student who comes in, just starts singing— our client coming in just starts singing a song in a key, and they have to figure out what key that's in and play an accompaniment to it, you know, or whatever, like horrendous Ultimate Guitar tab they get where like every second chord is wrong, they have to know how to fix that on the spot. They don't have time to prep for it. They have to keep a catalog of, you know, dozens and eventually hundreds and thousands of songs in their heads. And how do you maintain that and work on that skill? So those are all, you know, really sort of different prioritization of skill sets. They don't have to be able to to understand everything about classical technique or how to manipulate their instrument. You know, I'm much more interested in function over form with those students because I don't have them for very long. So yes, I would love them to play the instrument in the way that's healthiest and, and most comfortable and most efficient for them, but I can't prioritize that over their ability to be able to look at a lead sheet for Fly Me to the Moon and not completely freak out at what flat 13 means, you know, like, right, there has to be, um, that foundation for them to go on. So it's just sort of a different level of, um, of prioritization of skills. I know it's a long answer, but it's one of those things that I think is, uh, a little confusing at first.

Sure, sure. Well, I think I could probably sum it up as functional piano is essentially practical piano skills for what these musicians need to do. And there seems to be a disconnect that you're describing between the work that they do and what is traditionally taught in a classical curriculum. Now, somebody might say, okay, well, these people are training specifically to be music therapists. Is there the same disconnect for somebody that's going a more traditional route? And that's where we start to get into philosophical issues, right? Which is kind of the reason we're here today. So let's, let's get to the article because this is a very contentious article. I think there's a certain consensus among opinions that I read anyway, that it has its flaws. But basically the, the author made several stipulations, number one being that orchestras are dying because they're not profitable and they rely on donors to survive. Uh, number 2, if you graduate from Juilliard with a degree, you're not guaranteed a job. In fact, a New York Times report from 2004 tracked down the class of Juilliard from 10 years earlier and found that only 25% of them had full-time orchestral jobs. Also, that classical schools should teach technology and business skills, and also that they should introduce different genres of music to their students, audiences, and donors alike, not just classical. So Josh, tell us what you think about all this.

I have way too many opinions, uh, and that's what you're here for. Yeah, it's too early to have a couple beers in me, but I'll have even more, uh, later this evening, I'm sure, when I'm thinking about this.

We want to hear everything.

Yeah, you know, um, there's a lot to unpack, not just in that article, but, uh, that surround the assumptions made within that article. And maybe that's the thing that sort of, uh, to use a word, triggered me, uh, to rant on Facebook about it. Um, you know, I, I think, uh, genre plane is such a, a dumb word, and you know, anytime classical musicians start to talk about like incorporating more styles or genres, I just, I have to like hide the visible disdain that's in my face, um, because, and I think it comes from a good place, but it always comes from a place of looking down upon music that does not fit a very narrow definition, um, of what, uh, uh, great music is., you know, and we can of course have this conversation. I'm, you know, I have 50% panel female, panel right now, and, you know, we're all saying that the music of dead white Europeans is somehow better than what everyone else has ever made in the history of music and discounting the thousands of years of making music that happened outside of that system, right? So I think anytime, you know, even as a musician that has extraordinary reverence for like all types of music, I'm always careful about how I phrase that discussion. And I think classical musicians really should do a better job of doing that, that they just don't. And there's a lot of baggage there that's sort of just like, oh, you know, well, sure, I should listen to a pop song or like I'm in a string quartet, I should arrange arrange, you know, like some Aphex Twin song. I'm like, well, the Aphex Twin's been around for 30 years, right? Like, you're not going to reach a new audience with an Aphex Twin song. So, you know, there's sort of this arrogance and ignorance that is equal parts in that conversation that I find, you know, problematic at best.

I agree. Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the superiority you mentioned, that's something that I face this every day. I'm a classical musician, but I teach children, and they are— they have this understanding of classical music being, you know, polished and education. That's the, the if you want to be educated, you have to go through this path of classical music, not knowing anything else. Although probably they have never heard a single symphony in their lifetime, but that's their mindset. So, so did the classical music market themselves very well in this country? Is that, is that why people have this kind of mindset? And I also have a problem with the fact that I'm a teacher. Okay, I'm a classical pianist too, but I make a living by teaching piano, and I love it. But teaching piano sometimes is considered to be something secondary, and, you know, hush-hush. When I first came to New York 10 years ago, or— oh, sorry, 13 years ago. Oh my gosh. Oh, 15.

Yeah.

And then, um, It was like this, "Oh, so you teach? Oh, you know, as a pianist, oh, you teach?" That kind of mentality. So, you know, the artist started having to have this two different almost persona. One is the pianist, one is the piano teacher. So where does this superiority and inferiority come from? I'm just, you know.

I mean, yeah, this is, These are such great points. You know, I think there's some real speak and there's a lot to unpack there, but there's some like sort of things that we have to get out of the way when we talk about classical music as a thing that functions in a modern musical economy, right? So classical, like the entirety of the classical musical industry accounts for about 2% of total revenue of the music industry. So anytime we're having a conversation about why or why not a symphony is succeeding or failing, or why or why not a Juilliard grad can get a job, I mean, we have to acknowledge that it's 2% of— I mean, we're a consumer economy, right? It's 2% of the industry, and we have to be real about that. And recognize that, A, that's, uh, something we have to work against, right? Um, and that within this very narrow 2% slice of the industry, there is intense competition for a limited number of audience members and a limited number of funds. And, and that's just the reality of the industry. Like, we keep waiting for, like, some magic thing to happen where suddenly classical music becomes 10% of the industry And that's something we have let happen as a culture. We've let it happen as consumers, but we've also been very, very complicit and I think accelerated as classical musicians. You know, it breaks my heart that, you know, a lot of musicians that I went to school with, I mean, this is like, we can talk about the non-musical benefits of being a well-earned musician, And like a big one of them is people skills, right? Like classical musicians go off in a practice room and they work for hours and hours and hours by themselves to produce a product. And then they present that product in a place where they're not allowed to be human beings. They're not allowed to have opinions or have conversations or talk or much less improvise or experiment or try new things, right? And then they present that in an extraordinary fourth-wall stuffy environment, and people politely clap and never in between movements, and then they leave. And we wonder why, like, that's dying. Because I can go to a rock concert and I can feel a kick in my chest, right? I make this elemental connection with the people around me. We're all experiencing part of the same thing. There's a light show, right? There's like a setlist. Performers are directly connecting. I just— like, the first concert I saw when the regulations lifted was Brandi Carlile, right? So I went to our local— big— and if you guys haven't seen Brandi Carlile or listened to Brandi Carlile, you should listen to Brandi Carlile. Brandi Carlile is an incredible singer and songwriter. She has a voice that, you know, as soon as she opens her mouth, it just makes you stop doing anything you're doing and listen. And she makes music with the Hanseroth twins, so two identical twins who sing impeccable three-part harmony with her and play guitar and bass. And just, you know, being in an audience with about 6,000 people there and watching three musicians have 6,000 people in the palm of their hand— sorry, I have to edit myself— the entire time seeing people have amazing personable reactions, right? Seeing people cry, seeing people cheer, seeing people laugh. That's what it means to be an audience member when you're in music, right? And to experience a concert. And we've gotten so incredibly far away from that experience. I'll leave you with one quick story. My wife and I are big hikers, and before all this, every year we'd go to Europe and do a big cross track. And a few years ago, we were in Italy, we were passing through Verona and realized, oh, if we stop a night in Verona, we can go see an opera, right? So we think about opera here and we go to the Met and it's an incredibly stuffy affair and only the rich people go and we dress up and we hold our pinky He's like that, and we leave right after the first intermission because we're bored and we want to go back to our apartment. So opera— Opera there starts in the Verona Amphitheater, which is an ancient amphitheater where they used to do circus fights, and you're sitting on stone granite steps. They start the opera at around 9 o'clock, just as the sun is setting. Tickets are about $20, and you know, like baseball games, you have people selling like hot dogs. So those people are there, but they're selling glasses of wine and gelato and sandwiches, and you're hanging out and people are talking. Anytime there's an aria, people are yelling and screaming and clapping. It's this huge spectacle where there are like live horses walking on stage. At one point we saw Aida. At one point there's a choir of 16 seen harpists on stage. I mean, so it's this huge epic sports spectacle. Everyone knows the music, everyone has a connection to it, but also people are having conversations with their family in the middle of it, right? Like during the wretches when it's a little quiet, but then like, okay, uh, 20 extras are gonna go backstage, uh, behind the theater and light torches so that as the sun sets the torches are the lights for the stage. And everyone goes, "Wow, oh wow, how beautiful," right? Like, they are chiefly aware of making a spectacle and entertaining a large group of people. And they're being honest about that and open about that. And that was, I mean, we were up until 1 AM and then we went with a bunch of Italians down to like the local bar and got drunk, right? And like, where is that experience in the States? It doesn't exist. And we don't have that connection. And I know it's part of its culture, right? Like, we haven't maintained that culture. We're a new culture. We haven't carved that out for us. Um, but that seems to me to be a very convenient excuse. I don't think classical musicians have frankly bothered to work hard enough to create those kinds of experiences or really have seen value in doing so. You know, like, most classical musicians I went to school with want to go, uh, you know, to an annex of Carnegie Hall and play a master for people who don't clap between movements and put it on their resume. And like, we wonder why— it's honestly like, the question I would pose, not the classical, like, why is classical music dying? It's like, why is— how have we been able to keep it alive for this long?

Right.

So the classical music not being integrated into our daily lives in this, in this, in, in America, right? We're all Americans here, so we can talk about But so then, but when I used to live in Florida, my friends took me to a bluegrass concert or blues, and then the situation was completely different, as in people are really enjoying themselves, immersing themselves into music and clapping and enjoying their drinks outside. And really, so the music was so alive and the musicians were directly communicating to the audience, and there was this amazing connections to one another. So, and then honestly, and Eric and Clara and I tried to do that last spring by doing the livestream concert, and I think classical musicians should do that sort of audience-engaging concerts more.

Yeah, and you know, and it's like, it's one of the— I absolutely agree. And it's one of those things, like, like anything else, you have to practice at doing it, and you have to suck at it, right? Like, the first time you're on stage and you're performing your own music and you have to like practice audience banter in between songs, like, you suck at it. You say stupid things, you say, um, there are weird changes. The first time you play with a guitarist, you're like, oh, Oh, they have to tune. And I now I have to fill time, right? Like, ah, you, then you notice like you do this thing and you go to enough concerts, you go, oh, okay. It's like, have any of you seen like the same artist multiple times? Like the same, like a commercial music artist perform multiple times. You'll notice they tell the same stories, their banter that seems very off the cuff very planned, you know. And once you realize that, you're like, oh, okay, so that's what I need to do. I need to plan how to do that. I listened to a great podcast called The Working Songwriters Podcast that Joe Pug hosts, and he brings a lot of people on, and sometimes people who have had very long and distinguished careers. He asked a series of questions, and some of them are the same questions, but I really like it. It's a very, like, long-form deep dive about what it means to be an industry musician. And, um, you know, one of the things that always comes up is like every single one of those great musicians that are now part of acts that fill auditoriums have played bar gigs where there was literally no one in the bar. There were zero people there, and they played an entire 2-hour set to no one, right? It's like they've had those experiences and they've learned from them and grown from them. They've gone back and like, okay, here's what we need to do differently. Like, here's how we need to change it. Here's how we need to pound pavement, you know. Um, and I don't, I don't see that happening. And I think you're absolutely right. Like, great, we're gonna do a live stream and 3 of our friends are gonna show up. Okay, next time let's do better. What can we do differently? Can we do a sponsored post? Like, you know, when I do a gig, like, again, like, my I try to gently convince even my own classical colleagues who like know the crazy person that I am, you know, my institution, like, we'll do a piano faculty concert and like we won't do a sponsored post and maybe we'll do a couple things on the website and like maybe we'll do a press release in the newspaper that no one reads, um, and maybe 40 people will show up at the audience, you know, and they're mostly our friends. Like when I do, uh, I'm doing a Jackson Browne tribute, um, next month. If you don't know Jackson Browne's music, you should know Jackson Browne's music. It's deeply incredible music. Uh, he's still making music. He's on tour right now. He just put out a record last year. He's 72 years old. He still sounds beautiful. Um, and, uh, he's a fabulous, uh, piano player and some of the great session musicians of the last 40 years have been a part of his band. So it's like always been a dream of mine, right? So I put together this crazy 8-person band and we're all super invested in the material, we've learned everything, and we're doing our sort of first show. And, you know, the venue is like intentionally small, it's only about 150 people. And so like this is going to be our first run so that we can take it to Buffalo and Syracuse and different markets. Um, but like, we, uh, have already begun a presale, right? So every band member has 20 tickets that we're all responsible for, for moving to our friends, right? And then once that presale is done, like, we have 100 people that we know are going to show up to our concert. They've already committed financially. And then we're going to do radio spots, and then we're going to do Facebook, like, targeted ads, right? And we're going to do a series of videos that we're going to release, right? It's like little teasers from rehearsals. And like, this is a whole thing that we do because all of us have done this thing before and we know what gets butts in seats, right? And we're all willing to do it. And so, you know, I'll play a classical concert and 40 people will be there and they'll like politely clap, and then I'll leave, and I'll be happy because I made music with good people, right? But I'll also feel, uh, sad that I couldn't make this moment happen. I couldn't, I couldn't bring people together to have a collective experience, right? And then I'll go to a venue where everyone's having, uh, a drink and a nice meal, and, uh, there'll be 150 people there, and it'll, it'll be packed, and it, you know, will smell like a concert, and people will cheer, and I'll play songs that have been the soundtrack to people's lives for 40 years.

Well, maybe we can just, uh, we have to start to introduce drinks into classical concert. I don't know, you know. Yay! And then we are taking notes here, Josh. Sorry to interrupt. I actually, oh my gosh, this is such a wonderful conversation, you know, when you were talking about the experience you had in Europe. I just actually came back from a month-long Europe trip yesterday, and I flew in from Italy. But, you know, with all the COVID restrictions, everything is a little different. I was only able to go to one little outdoor concert, you know, smaller, quite similar, but with a different touch, you know. So I, as I'm— you're talking and I'm thinking, you know, this is something I think it's not only that when we are— when you are talking with your friend responsible for these 20 tickets or something, sure, but that's also a skill that as musicians sometimes we just, we don't have, you know, like we go through institutions, we go through like our music schools. And I remember probably like I came here from China when I was 17 and I went to Kansas and, you know, our concert hall is the same size as Carnegie Hall. And every single recital, I mean, it's booked every day, but every recital there's like maybe 50 people, you know, 100 people shows up. And I had to convince my mom to come here from China to cook for everybody. So finally I had like 300 people show up in my— and it was like the most people, but I think it was really for her food. So I mean, with all that, and I'm curious to know, since we do all teach children, I, you know, over the years I have had some interesting ideas with how to approach teaching children. I wouldn't want to say brainwash them, but I also want them to understand classical music is not just for old people, not just for grandparents. It's just something they can enjoy with their friends. So what is your philosophy on this? That's what I'm most curious. What do you think the difference— like, if you were going to explain to a child what's the difference between, like, fine arts, classical fine art versus entertainment, right? Because sometimes, like, the teenagers, they'd rather go to a BTS concert than go to Carnegie Hall, right? And what's your take on that?

I don't make a distinction. So I'm very upfront with with not only the college students I teach, but the children I teach, that I only teach music that I love. And I only teach music that sort of passes this test of being able to communicate something to me. And I know that seems really silly, but like, yeah, in a method book, I won't teach half the pieces in them because I don't think they have musical merit. You know, I don't want to play them. I don't want to sing them. And I don't ever play the duets that are written in the book. Because I can improvise ones that are better and more meaningful and more applicable to the student that I'm sitting in a room with, right? So I don't make a distinction. You know, no distinction was ever made to me. I think the most important thing I can do is provide my students with a model of musicianship and provide them with access, right? Like, I inherently believe, as I did as a kid, that like, oh, you know, come on, like, you're going to hear a Chopin nocturne and like not, not like reach someplace in someone's heart like their 17-year-old breakup with their first girlfriend. Like, it hits you in this place that's deeply fundamentally emotional and accessible, you know, and that music, for all the complexity we give to it, is incredibly simple music. It's a beautiful melody with great chord changes. It's a pop song. I mean, that's what Chopin is. You know, it's a melody that's great that you hear over and over again. And we make this, I think, this really early on, this completely arbitrary, unnecessary, and elitist distinction between classical music and all other types of music. So, you know, the first thing I I get to do with my students. You know, obviously with COVID I haven't met new students in a while, and young students, but like, I get to know what they like and what they listen to and what they love. And I get to sort of like gently steer that, which is an incredible responsibility as a teacher. You know, I can open a door to music. And I've been doing this long enough that I think some of my, some of the things that I'm most proud about with students I've worked with. I just got coffee with a student who's finishing up at Tisch as a filmmaker, and I taught her piano from the time she was 7 years old, right? And she's like, of course, become this just beautiful, amazing human being. But like, she's sitting here just sort of casually telling me like what she's been listening to and what she's going to concerts to. And we're talking about, you know, we're talking just like free flow talking about classical music and talking about R&B and talking about Kendrick Lamar and talking like all the concerts she's been to since she's been at the city. And I'm like, this is all stuff I love. Like, she's like, yeah, you're the reason, like, I love music. Like, I listen to music all the time because of you, because of the things that we did in lessons, you know?

And like, important.

Yeah, who cares if she never plays piano again? If she is— if music is a narrative to her life, um, then I've done something good.

Yeah.

You know, um, so yeah, I mean, I know that's a very like, uh, uh, obnoxious answer to your very simple question, but, um, but I, I think it, you know, even like in those— when I teach pedagogy, it's, it's a, it's a point I make that like this is your opportunity to broaden and not restrict what music is or is not. And you need to take that opportunity very seriously.

Right.

That's a really good answer. I mean, I always ponder on this, and I kind of create my studio with a philosophy. I call my studio Rational Music because I used to read a lot of philosophies, and I feel like, you know, and all the teachers. I mean, I started in conservatory when I was 11, but then I chose not to go to a conservatory when I came to college. And I think the experience was fascinating, you know. I mean, I did not grow up with a musical family, and my family kind of gave me an idea that I should not become a professional. And then they would sign me up for classes, you know, maybe because of that pressure, because most people in China at that time was just, if you do it, you do it professionally, otherwise you shouldn't waste time, right? So, and I feel proud of my students currently, but sometimes though, some of the students are becoming doctors, sometimes, you know, they're studying whatever field they're studying, but I guess one question I have for you is that how do you also maintain this, you know, because I see them they have such respect for classical music, right? And they study all different subjects. They're very passionate. But then school gets busy, right? It's New York City. It's very competitive. They go to the best schools, and the piano does become a little secondary. And they— I can see their acne, and they're like, do I— like, one student chose not to go in person. He could have because he felt like if he went, he wouldn't have time to practice. And then he But then, you know, I don't know. So what do you do with that?

Yeah, the endless question, right?

Yeah, exactly.

I don't think the world needs another professional musician. I think we already have a lot of those, right? I'm interested in making a— and this sounds so stupid and idealistic, but like, I think being a musical person and being a musician, we've compartmentalized it in a way that's really unhealthy in our society, the way we've compartmentalized so many other things, right? Like, no one knows how to cook a meal without a recipe. No one knows how to fix a broken pipe. We just call someone to do that, right? So I don't have to learn how to make music. Like, making music is something we have done fundamentally before we had the ability to speak.

Right?

And in our first moments on this earth, it's something that connects us to other human beings. And oftentimes in our last moments on earth, it's something that connects us. It's deeply elemental to who we are as people. Um, and, and again, I know that seems so like highfalutin, but, but it's not, right? So, uh, in the context of that understanding, I don't really give a shit if they're serious classical pianist, you know what I mean? Like, if they are, and I have students who are as middle school students and high school students, like, great, I know how to do that, and I'm really into developing that skill. But if they want to play good music and they have, you know, 2 hours a week to devote to practicing, I mean, I have weeks where that's what I have to devote to practicing, and I'm like a crazy practicer. Like, I love— like, if you leave me alone, I will just do that all the time, you know? But I can't always because life, right?

Exactly.

And so, again, I'm interested in cultivating my students' ability to not just to consume, but to communicate as musicians. And I take that word really seriously. I think it's a word that we throw around, right? Like, I'm a musician. I'm like, wait, what does it mean to be a musician, right? And that kind of gets back to the conversation that we were having. Also about, you know, academically, what does it mean to have musical training, to get a degree as a musician, to get credentialed as a musician? And yeah, I would argue that I don't have the answers, but I look at models, right? So there are classical musicians and jazz musicians and pop musicians and blues musicians that I, you know, have emulated when I was a kid and that I aspire to sound like. I mean, that's what you do, right? You, you listen to Glenn Gould and you go, how the hell is he doing that?

Right?

Like, how is he making a sound that is so completely him and doesn't sound like anyone else? Right? What are his tricks? What's happening in his brain? You know, it's not genius. He's making decisions, you know? I hate that word genius or talent. Those are words that just like, Oh God, you know, like, like every time we have a meeting, people are at a concert and you're like, oh, our music faculty is so talented. I'm like, no, we're not. We work hard at this. You know, we don't talk about your talented, you know, biology professors. It's, it's a completely ridiculous word. So yeah, I remember listening to, you know, I had Preludes and Fugues, Glenn Gould, one of the records or two of the records that my family had. I remember listening to that. And, you know, I learned, I don't know, probably half a dozen of those preludes as a kid by just listening to Glenn Gould, you know? And like, what an amazing model of musicianship to listen to. So the long-winded point I was going to make is when I look at those people or I look at composers, you know, like I just adore Chopin, you know, I completely adore Poulenc and Ravel. And these are all musicians that prioritized the same set of skills that B.B. King prioritizes, the same set of skills that Bill Evans prioritizes, right? They prioritizing creating a truly unique and individualized sound, right? As an instrumentalist, as a singer, as a composer, they work hard to do that and they learn how to do that by emulating the sounds of others. So those are things that all of those people did. And I feel like we've gotten really far away from that. You know, we've— one of my jazz colleagues calls it bigger, louder, faster, right? Like at some point classical musicians decided that bigger, louder, faster is the way they want it to go, right? I can play this piece bigger, louder, and faster than you. But, you know, like, Do you actually have something really unique and new to say about it? You know, why are you playing a cadenza that's 200 years old? You know, like there are all of these things that are happening and we're like, no one's sort of fundamentally asking the question of like, well, why have we gotten so far away from that? You know, I mean, that's why I always call myself a classical music hack, not because like I can't hang technically, with my peers, but that like, well, yeah, but when I improvise a cadenza, it sounds like, so like I have to work at it, right? Like I've done that before. I've written out a cadenza and like, you know, but I have to sit there and like do my homework and work at it and emulate it and develop it. And like, I have people I went to school with who do that for a living, right? Like they go, on a forte piano and with the symphony, and they play a Mozart concerto and they stand up in all the tutus and they conduct it, and then they sit down and improvise the cadenza, and they do that like every night in a different city. I'm like, that's a musician, man. Like, that's someone I want to sound like. That's someone I want to be around. And that drive, um, I think, to gravitate towards that excellence no matter what your genre, no matter what your passion, and also to see like Like, how do you not listen to Bill Evans at Town Hall and be like, just moved to complete tears about what he's doing at his instrument? To hear the simplest idea. I mean, if you've ever tried to sit down with your left hand and play Bill Evans voicings, like, you'll just, you'll sob. It's ridiculous. He has a complete tonal language that's all his own, that is completely a lineage from Debussy and Ravel to Bill Evans. Right? And why aren't classical musicians learning Bill Evans transcriptions? Makes you objectively a better pianist, you know? So there are these things where I think that's kind of where the fire needs to go. And I have faith that if that's what we're chasing, right? Like if we're chasing, here are people who are just— sorry, here are people who are great at what they do. They are undeniable communicators and they have a mastery and an ownership and they have something to say. And what can we learn from them? And if everything radiates from that as a musician, then I think that takes you to places where you have endless possibility, right? But if you shut all that out, and say, if only I can get my fingers to move faster, or if only I can, uh, you know, play this, uh, you know, at a certain BPM, or if only I can execute this passage flawlessly every time instead of 96% of the time, or, you know, if only I can, uh, you know, play, uh, you know, this concerti that I've been learning for 8 months, right? Like, it's That, I think, that is, you know, that's kind of like the warrior athlete thing. It's piano gymnastics. It's not being a musician. And it's impressive. Like, it undeniably produces a product that does impress a certain kind of person and does create an experience. But I think that experience is devoid of often of human connection, of sort of the basic elements of what it means to communicate, not only as a musician, but just as like a person living in the world. Sorry, I'm getting like really deep.

No, but you know, honestly, we all are aware of that in a certain level as musicians, as classical musicians, even as listeners. But somehow we are in denial too. We totally ignore the part and then still have this traditional approach to music education, music lessons. And so, yeah, it's very interesting to hear. So you're also a very devoted teacher, and I'm sure your students feel fortunate to have you as a teacher. Not always.

Okay.

But so what do you advise? Do you have any advice to young generations of musicians and music students?

Yeah, well, I mean, you were like right on saying the thing that I was gonna say, which is like when conversations are great, right? They're like improvised banter. But yeah, and that's like, what an opportunity. I think one of the things that like terrifies classical musicians or musicians that have, that have had the rigorous training, they're like, well, where do I start? You know, like, if I want to learn by ear, if I want to learn how to improvise, or I want to learn music, like, what do I do? And like, teaching is such a great toolbox, right? Like, it's such a great way to try that out, right? Like, okay, so I'm not going to play the Faber duet in Book 1 for the 79th time.

Right?

What if I play something else? Like, what's the worst that's gonna happen? There's a 7-year-old kid, they're worried about like, is their hand in the right place? Like, am I counting my half notes as long as I should? Right? Like, they do not care what you're playing. So like, that's an opportunity that you can just experiment, right? Like, or okay, yeah, I mean, it's like, I know there are certain types of, more traditional teachers who like get upset when their students pick up other instruments or get upset when their students play in jazz band, right? Like, oh cool, okay, maybe you don't really know about improvising, but okay, here's this 5th grader who just started their first year in jazz band and their teacher gave them a chart that has tenths in it. Like, what do we do? You know, like how do we make that work? Or there are 4 bars where there are just slashes on it and the student doesn't know what to do. I don't know, like let's maybe look at the rhythms that are happening in the trumpet part copy them on a chord shape that they already know, you know? So those are like, just, those are great simple ways to do that. And they're very low stress. But I, you know, I think the other, the other sort of answer to that too is, you know, I, again, like I always am striving to be a better musician. It's not something that like I want to happen. It's something I will to happen, you know? So yeah, I work on, on new classical music and literature and expanding my horizons. Presence there. But like, I work on improvising, you know. Most of my playing at home sucks. It sounds bad, right? Like, I'm intentionally taking the solo to a place that I know is going to end in a freaking train wreck. But like, I have to go there, right? I have to see what happens. And sometimes cool things happen on your way to the morgue, right? Like, you kind of find something that's interesting, and then you can kind of go back and develop that.. And it's, that's a process that's completely analogous to, to being a classical musician, right? Like you're working on a passage and we've all had that thing where like you play the passage 27 times and it still sounds like trash and you don't know why and you get frustrated at it. And what do you do? Like, okay, you start in a different place and you're like, oh, I can play it from here just fine. Oh, okay. Well, why is that happening? I'm like, oh, like if I rotate my hand just a little bit, then like suddenly I can reach that a different angle. And then it makes my returning angle like way more effective. Oh wait, oh cool, now I can magically play that, right? And so the teacher in you goes, oh okay, that's something I need to think about next time I have a student struggling with the passage like that, you know. Um, so teaching is this great thing, um, where there— I think when it's working best, there's this constant like exchange of ideas and experimentation. I think it's why I like it so much, right? Because like that's, that's the place I feel really comfortable as as a musician. Like, I really like the process. I really like sucking until I don't suck as much, right? Like, that's what's really— it's like, like, the concert that actually happens is like, all right, cool, cool, that'll happen, you know what I mean? Like, that's, that's a thing. But like, I love the experience of connecting with people, but the actual like performing of the product I've worked so hard towards is like, that's That's, I don't know, 10% of it. You know what I mean? That's not the stuff that I love. So I think that's why teaching is so interesting and why, you know, it can be also, I think, so challenging if you're used to being fairly like prescriptive and sort of being told what to do and how to manipulate things. And then you get a human being in front of you and you try to have the same prescription except like it's not working. Like, what do we do? You know? So I think there's an incredible opportunity for musicians to sort of use teaching as a toolbox. Like, it's like, you know, there's this thing I think I remember when I started teaching, like, oh my God, if I say or do the wrong thing, I'm going to ruin this child in front of me. And like, kids are resilient.

They're great.

They're going to figure it out. You know, like, you can't ruin a kid. Like, it's like a ridiculous thing that we think of. So just try and be humble and like, okay, let me try. And then the other part of that is I think classical musicians kind of need to get over that hump that we have that like being good at something doesn't entitle you to be good at everything. And so yeah, go improvise on a 2-chord song and sound bad because everyone who you hear that sounds good at it spent hours sounding bad on a 2-chord song. You know, like, you're not special because you went to school. You don't get to like pass that step automatically. And I think so if you take some humility with it, like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna play an awful, terrible solo and I'm gonna do that, but I'm gonna do it like every day for 20 minutes. Like, if everyone did that in 6 weeks, they would blow themselves away. At what they had to say at an instrument. And it like sometimes really like frankly pisses me off that classical musicians don't do that. 'Cause I'm like, well, the second you start like channeling your brain that way, like then you get to go like, oh hey, hey look, you already have all this amazing facility. Now you can say anything you wanna say. Like as a kid who like heard these things and had to teach themselves like I had to teach myself technique to be able to play the things I wanted to play. And now many classical musicians are in the place where like, well, here's all the technique, like you can play anything you want to play. All you have to do is be interested in developing something to say and then like, there you go. Right. So that's like, that's a, again, it's like having that humility of just, okay, I'm not good at this, right? Like, I'm not good at transposing. Let me work at it. You know, I did this silly thing where like I took a— I took 81A and I was like, this is like 5 or 6 years ago. I was like, I'm going to learn how to play the first movement in every single key, you know, like I should be able to do that, you know? And like you learn a lot doing that, you know, you learn that like I am really not as good at G-sharp as I thought I was, right? I'm just not as good at it, you know? And then you also learn some amazing things about the timbre of your instrument, like, which you know— you know why Chopin's writing this Nocturne in C minor and not in C-sharp minor, you know? But like, you kind of take it for granted, and you start playing things and you're like, oh, that B section sounds freaking awful in this key, right? It's like tinny and it doesn't connect. And like, oh, okay, so like key really matters. And then your brain goes, oh, so like when they modulate, they're really thinking not just about like, you know, I hate that about theory. They're like, well, everyone got bored about moving to the V chord. Now we're going to move to the III chord, right? Like, no, they're thinking about it as creatives. Like, I want to make this feeling, you know, I want this harmony to cut and hit in a way that just like interrupts you or catches you off guard. And this is the key it has to happen in. Not like— and then they work backwards. Okay, how the heck do I get to this key? Okay, cool. I'm going to take this theme and like turn it upside down and then we'll do a sequence and then, okay, boom, we're there, you know? But it's not like, well, I went to the V chord in the last 4 movements and now I'd like— that's not— no, because again, like, you know, I have a colleague that I won't name whose joke was like, you know, "Theory is not music, it's music that exists only in theory," right? It's like— but I mean, I love theory. I love having a language that I can label something that I know, right? But I think there's real danger in labeling things that we don't know, that we don't experience first, that we don't have emotional connections to. And I find in my own collegiate teaching, like, my students will get really overwhelmed with the amount of labeling that is imposed upon them, right? Like all of the labels that they have to know and all of the ideas that they have to know. And then they get in front of an instrument and they're like, well, I don't— there are too many labels here. And I mean, that's like, that's what's great about this thing. Like we forget this thing instantly. You can make a beautiful sound on you can also make a polyphonic sound on, right? It's an incredible, incredible thing to say, okay, wait, hold on. So like, if I just take a D to D scale, like I can play a chord, like, wait, and then I can just move that shape anywhere on the keyboard. Sounds cool. Wait, I can play a different bass note and play the same chords anywhere? Wait, I can do that endlessly and it sounds really neat?

Right?

And I can develop ideas and themes. And you don't have to be a pianist to be able to do that. Like, what a gift, you know? I need to know one shape. That's it. And I just need to move that shape around. It's— I'm getting, you know, horribly off topic, which my students always say I do. But that's where all the interesting stuff is anyway, right? So I mean, those are amazing opportunities that you have, like every day you you wake up, you know? So it's like, every day I wake up and I'm practicing Bach because practicing Bach makes me a better person and musician, right? And every day I wake up, like, I'm practicing improvising, right? And every day I wake up, I practice songwriting, right? And like, what comes out is often crap, right? It's like, what, what is this thing, you know? Um, but every now and then something really cool happens, you know? I find like, I try to go to my instrument early in the morning and late at night because I find that's when I'm less judgmental of myself. You know, like there's certain things I'll sit down and play, or certain things I'll sit down and sing that just feel right and feel comfortable. And so I find like, oh, I'm, you know, if I do that at 2, then I have that voice inside my head that's like, why did you do that? That's awful. You know, and as an improviser, you learn really quickly, like, that voice is really helpful when I'm like 90% there. That voice is destructive anytime before that. So you kind of learn to like shut that, that part of your brain up. But I think we're still like, we're in a very uncertain, judgmental place in the world right now. So, you know, a lot of what I practice with my students, we did this thing where like I had my students in my class last semester, like, okay, you know what, 5 minutes of every class. And, you know, like, I work really hard to create cultures where, where students feel like they can experiment and mess up and fail, and that we embrace that, because I do that all the time with them. And I think it's really important that they feel comfortable doing that, because you know this as a teacher, you know, clinicians know this as music therapists, like The second you start teaching, the second you put a human being in front of you, it is no longer about your musicianship or your pianism or your skill. It's about the person in front of you. Who cares if you're playing wrong notes? You need to just shut that part. Who cares if like that voicing wasn't good or you played at the wrong dynamic or your timing was off? Like, no, it's not about you. It's about the person in front of you. So I work really hard to make that culture and develop that culture. But you know what we did, because my students were so hurting for community and culture, and so we just did a thing where like the first 5 minutes of, you know, every Zoom session was like, hey, all right, I want you— I would give them like very simple stipulations, and I want you to develop an idea over the course of this next week, and then we're just gonna all listen to you and completely interrupted. You have 5 minutes. You can play for 30 seconds, you can play for 4 minutes and 50 seconds, it doesn't matter, but like, I want you to present an idea musically based on these little stipulations that I give them, you know. And that was really meaningful to them.

Yeah.

And I'm sure they're having so much fun just doing these exercises, right? It's not just, you know, you're not just the piano teacher says, go back home and practice. This 5 minutes, that 2 hours. It becomes a real opportunity for them to experience musicianship. I know we're running out of time, Josh, and this is such a good conversation, but I do have a burning question I've been wanting to ask. With all this that you've been sharing with us, what are some good artists or groups that you personally you respect or admire that, you know, you would recommend to your students? Because, you know, there are some of them out there, but sometimes, you know, what the students were— I think for me even, you know, because of the culture I grew up with, like, I realized I had to relearn who I should respect or, you know, having critical judgments on why, you know. So What's your take?

Yeah, I'm gonna go really high level on you, and I'm really sorry. So like, one of my educational heroes is John Dewey, you know, and experience in education. And so, you know, a really revolutionary idea of John Dewey's at the turn of the century was that, you know, before John Dewey was writing, you know, we sort of saw students students as like sponges, right? Like memorize a lot of facts and practice memorizing that and then regurgitate that information and that's what learning is, right? And John Dewey was, was really revolutionary in saying that like what's our job as educators to meet students where they already are on their journey as formed people, right? As people with opinions and values and beliefs and loves and interests, and to learn who those people are. And then, like, that juncture is where we start the process, right? So what I always say is, um, there's great music being made everywhere, all the time, every day, in every genre, right? Um, and you're all great musicians, right? So Listen to your students and listen to what they listen to and start there, you know. I love that there's like— my musical world is ever expanding because of my students, you know, because they're bringing in things constantly for me to listen to. But I also am able to like, hey, here's the stuff, like, oh, you like this, you know, like you should listen to this. I mean, like, it blows my mind blows my mind that I can teach an 18-year-old who's never heard Sarah Vaughan sing, you know, like that blows my mind. But what a gift that I'm the person at that moment is like, oh, have you listened to April in Paris? Listen to how Sarah Vaughan phrases that melody, you know. And I'll have students that just literally in front of class just break down crying the first time they've heard someone sing like that because they've never heard someone make a sound out of their mouth hole that sounds like that. Right? Um, and I remember that feeling, you know. Um, and so yeah, I mean, I, I think that, uh, that's where I would start. I would start from, from a place where, um, your students— I mean, like, like, like the joke I always make with my students is like, you know what, I would, I would, I would probably commit all kinds of illegal acts to have access to the technology that my students have, right? Like, when I was a kid and I heard a song, like, I had to go back and like move the needle and listen to it again, or I had to go to the library. Like, you can go on YouTube and listen to like the same artist perform their song 8 different ways and then listen to 30 covers of it, right? Like, There's a plugin on Chrome that will connect to Spotify or to YouTube that will transpose any recording so that you can play along to it in a different key. And it'll also, like, you can set up a loop, like, okay, here's the 15 seconds I want to hear, uh, and I want to hear it up a whole step, and I want to hear it endlessly. Like, you know, like I would be a ridiculously better musician if I had access to that kind of technology. So I always tell my students, I'm like, just, just go down the YouTube rabbit hole. Like, just, just do that, you know? Because like, that will change your life. I mean, it really, really will. So I know that's not like giving specific artists, but I just like, like, right next to you is, uh, Six Stax or Six long wooden boxes of LPs, and, um, they're loosely sorted by genre, but like, I listen to everything, you know. Um, so my, my musical taste, like, chances are my students always like make fun of me, um, because they'll like mention some song and I'll just start playing it, and they're like, oh, Massako, you know those songs? I'm like, well, no, it's just like something happens in your brain when you've learned and sang thousands of songs, where like you hear another song, you hear a new song and you're like, your brain just kind of subconsciously goes, oh, it's like that other song I know. And then like you just start making those kind of assumptions, which makes music really cool because then like you'll get halfway through the chorus and you're like, oh, oh cool, they go to like, they go to a flat 7 here, that's weird. You know, like you just kind of, you start to hear those little things or you start to hear like, um, My wife's like a beautiful singer and she grew up listening to Joan Baez and Emmylou Harris, right? So if like you listen to how Emmylou Harris sings a harmony part and like you can kind of follow along and then like 7 notes into it you're like, she's singing a major second with the melody? Like who would choose that note? And it's like transcendent, it sounds amazing and it makes her harmony part sound different than anyone else's harmony part, you know? So you just hear these little things and your ear kind of goes, oh cool. You know, like I grew up listening to Randy Newman, you know, like go listen to a Randy Newman strings chart on like one of his records from like the '70s or '80s. Like I defy you to hear— like there's a reason he writes Disney music now, right? Like no one can score a string chart better than Randy Newman. Like no class— like I haven't heard a modern classical composer like score something something with that level of intent and artistry. Like it's exceptional. If you really sit down there and listen to it, you're like, oh, this is a perfect chart. You couldn't do this better. Or like Nelson Riddle, right? Listen to those Sinatra arrangements and like, listen to Nelson Riddle scoring. Like, oh, this is perfect. Like, no, I can't do any better than this. Like, you know, so that's, I know, again, like a really long, long answer to your question. Question, but that's kind of where I start. I have music personally that I, that I love and that, you know, has been the soundtrack of my life. Like, I'm doing this Jackson Browne show and, you know, I, I remember hearing "Late for the Sky" when I was 7 years old and like the first time, you know, that piano that comes in And then there's a harmony part. It's a Hammond organ, and it goes on, right? Like, you have this whole thing that is like— there's a song that just transports you. Ken Bruscia, who is my publisher for my book, has this great elegant thing, and I'm going to butcher it completely, where, you know, he says that songs are the soundtracks to our lives, you know, and as we age, that soundtrack changes and it takes on different meaning. And the whole point of what he was saying, and I take this as a performer but also as a teacher really seriously, that, you know, like, at any point a song that you're performing or that you're working on could be the song or the piece that is the most meaningful piece of music for another human being. And like, what an awesome, intimate, deeply meaningful responsibility to be in this position as a musician where like I can be part of the moment that transports someone one 40 years ago, right? It's like the, the first concert they ever went to as a 19-year-old, or the first kiss they had in the back of their parents' car. Like, music can do that to us in a way that, like, poetry and literature can't quite, you know. Um, and that's why I'm a musician, you know. Like, that's why I made really stupid life decisions to do this thing.

So that's almost like a perfect answer, really.

Yeah, you're in good company. We all do the same thing.

That's right.

I try to take that seriously, is the, you know, is the sort of like little thing that I think about all the time.

Well, in the end, we're responsible of building their curiosity, right, as teachers, and that, you know, they can be as good as a machine, really, but if there's no curiosity, it's it's just never going to flourish. Right.

So rapid fire. You ready for rapid fire questions?

All right.

Key is short, one-word answers whenever possible. I know that's your forte. So, so first question, number 1, what is your comfort food?

Red beans and rice. Nice.

Number 2, cats or dogs?

Cats.

What is your word or words to live by?

Be humble and always be curious.

Excellent. And what is the most important quality you look for in other people?

Humility and curiosity. No, I mean, um, I'm an empath, you know, like, I think I, I really, um, want to relate to people. And, and so, uh, when people are, are kind, as corny as that sounds, are empathetic, like, those are the people that I, I gravitate towards as musicians, as human beings. Like, that's kind of— those are the people I want to surround my life with.

Yeah, totally. All right, and, uh, what is the worst quality in people you want to avoid?

Um, arrogance.

Great.

All right, all right, my turn. Name 3 people who inspire you, living or dead, uh, musically or otherwise.

Anyone.

Okay, um, Jeez, that's such a hard question to answer. I know I have to keep it short. My grandfather, who passed away when I was 13, was a really big influence in my life as a human being and as a fellow creative. And musically, jeez, I don't know. It changes all the time. So I'm going to totally cop out and not mention musicians and mention my wife. She's number 2.

Though she is a musician.

She is a musician.

It all counts.

She's the reason I'm not adrift at sea most of the time. And I don't know, a third person. The very, very first recording I can ever remember hearing was the opening of Paul McCartney singing "Never Give Me Your Money." And so Paul McCartney's voice has always been in my head as long as I can remember. I don't know, he's another person that comes to mind right now.

All right, great. All right, next question. Which historical figure or composer do you want to learn or take lessons from if she or he were alive?

Oh man, I mean, there's so many. I would love to sit down with so many of them, but But yeah, just to be a fly on the wall of like, as a keyboard player, like be a fly on the wall listening to like what Chopin played in his parlor at night when he wasn't writing anything down. I would just give anything to just be sitting in that chair next to him.

Great. Which historical figure or composer do you wish to hang out with at the bar if she or he were alive?

Oh, definitely Poulenc.

Great answer.

Very interesting guy.

Yes, I totally agree. And my turn, and we're going back to the question earlier. Name one piece in your current playlist.

One piece, uh, classical or doesn't matter, anything. Um, geez, I'm just trying to think of like what, because like the weird thing about running this concert venue is that I'm listening to like all the music of these people, like on my way to the venue. So my playlists are really weird right now. But geez, I was just listening to collected solo recordings of Thelonious Monk. And I've always loved Monk's playing. You know, it's like, again, we talked about you know, uh, uh, sorry, Glenn Gould having an ability to like make a sound that's unique on an instrument. And like, it took all these years to get to Monk being like, well, I want to play the note between E and E-flat on the piano, but I can't, so I'm just gonna play both of them, and that's a new note, right? So like, great.

All right, yeah, got it. All right, that's great. And then now name a book title you're currently reading.

I'm reading Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel, "Klara and the Sun," and his writing is beautiful. It's a really beautiful book.

Drop it down. And you get only one song or piece to listen to for the rest of your life. What is it?

I cannot answer that question.

I would lose my mind.

Finally, an honest answer.

Thank you.

Everybody hates that one.

That's right. Oh my goodness, no answer is the answer.

Yeah, no, I think, I think I would probably prefer silence to hearing the same song for the rest of my life. I think I just, I couldn't do it. It's like that story about the, the Russian cosmonaut who, uh, there was like a ticking, like a repetitive ticking, and he had to hear the music and it already loses his mind. You know, like, so, um, yeah, yeah, I don't think I could do that.

Well, I give you easy one to end our questions, Nourice. Music is blank.

Music is blank.

What is your word? Fill in the blank.

Music is human.

Wow, you win!

You won! No No gift, but you won.

All right, Josh, well, I'm afraid that's gonna have to conclude this episode of The Piano Pod with—

I'm sorry I completely derailed your, uh, your, your very well lined up and pitched conversation about, uh, uh, inherent challenges in conservatory training and sidetracked it completely.

That's okay, we'll just have you back to do that one again. But I think we hit on a lot of the issues. Um, anyway, as always with you, it's been a, um, humbling and inspiring experience.

This has been so much fun.

Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Um, and, uh, thank you as always to our audience for tuning in. For anyone who is interested, um, you can find Josh's textbook on functional piano at barcelona-publishers.com, and his band Stella Hill is on Bandcamp and all other online streaming platforms.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review on whatever podcasting platform you use. If you are watching us on YouTube, remember to hit the thumbs up button and be sure to subscribe to our channel. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The links are in the description below.

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See you next time on The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song.

Bye everyone, and thank you, Josh.

Thank you so much.