Season 3 Episode 13, Part 1: Krista Jadro -- Music Learning Theory Specialist & Founder of Music Learning Academy

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Let's improvise and mix a little in. Bada dum bum! Bum bum bum bum bum bum! Ya da da dum bum bum bum bum! Ba-da-dum-bum bum bum—

Do do day do ready play?

Welcome back to another episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This episode is going to be all about how we learn music when we learn, and it's called Music Learning Theory developed by Dr. Edwin E. Gordon. Today you will hear a few terminologies unfamiliar to many of us, for example, Audiation, Sequencing, and of course the name of the theory itself, MLT, Music Learning Theory, is new to many of us. So today I invited a guest speaker, Krista Yadrow, who is a music learning theory specialist and founder of Music Learning Academy. This is a big topic to discuss, and honestly, I needed a little help from someone knowledgeable in this topic as my co-host. So I decided to invite Suliana Shelyashka as a guest co-host and to assist me and cheer me on during the show. Suliana is a pianist, educator, and a music learning theory specialist from California. So welcome, Suliana. Dilyana, and thank you so much for being my co-host today.

Thank you for having me, Yukimi Song.

First of all, how you discovered music learning theory and audiation-based music teaching?

I would say the most brief answer I can give is that I was looking, browsing through some teaching groups on Facebook, and something caught my eye that talked about musical understanding. And it was someone who was a music learning theory teacher at that time. And that's what led me to Krista, to discovering Krista, her group, her courses, and the whole thing.

So you were browsing through Facebook because you had some questions on your mind about teaching piano, right?

Yes, I had been teaching for many years and I always tell the story, even from the very first lesson I taught from, you know, opening up the very first method book that I was using, I saw intuitively, I knew intuitively that some things were off. They seemed positioned in places where I felt were not appropriate for where the student was developmentally. So they were out of sequence, out of place, either rhythmically or it was a musical concept that just didn't fit. And over the years, that sort of proved itself because I kept getting that same problem. And then when I spoke to other teachers, they kept saying, oh yeah, this piece is one that always gives students trouble, or this or that concept in this or that method book. So it really gets you thinking, you know, are those method books following any sort of sequence at all? What is behind the design of those method books? And so I began to really question seriously about the way concepts were presented.

How long you've been studying music learning theory?

I would say seriously for about 3 years.

What was missing in traditional teaching? So after, you know, you've been studying for 3 years about music learning theory, and so what do you think is missing in traditional teaching according to you?

Sure. So according to me, what I always wanted to see more of in my students is I wanted to see them have more music in their minds. Um, and I felt like I had to put music there and I constantly had to be the facilitator of that. And I just wished that the student would have been more of an initiator and that the student would be more a part of the, of their own learning, more in charge of their own learning. Have more autonomy. And I was looking for, you know, what is it that I don't know that can help me get to that place where I feel that my job would have more meaning and it would be more impactful to the student.

So how has it been? What sort of change have you seen in your piano studio since you started teaching piano using Odeation-based teaching?

Well, for once I've had to do more lesson planning, and I think there are a lot of benefits in that for the student because there are very specific goals that we accomplish, meaning musicianship goals. But also it's allowed me to be very spontaneous in lessons. And I think students have really appreciated that aspect that they can— we could just go off of a creative thought that we have during a lesson and we can explore that thought for the rest of the lesson. And the lesson is less about the particular piece we're learning and more about the skills that the student is acquiring through the learning of the piece or through the learning of a skill like improvisation or arrangement, or like Chris is going to mention, we learn to do mashups and we learn to bridge from one piece to another. And they're short, specifically short pieces so that the student has a large repertoire of ideas, of patterns that they can string together and make something unique.

Wow. So this approach is very different from traditional because it makes the students think. They actually have to take actions. It's not the passive way of learning, right?

I see myself more as a facilitator and as a supporter. And of course I'm doing a lot of teaching, but also the student is teaching me. Something. They're teaching me something about the way they think. They're teaching me about what they need in order to be ready for what I want to teach them next. So it's that readiness that I wasn't fully aware of before. And that's so amazing.

Let me tell you how I met Sliana. Once again, it's Facebook because she's in the West Coast and I'm in the East Coast. And then I think somebody tagged my name on Sulianna's one of the posts about podcasting. So you're about to start podcasting. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. But, and we sort of exchanged the messages back and forth, and then Sulianna mentioned about music learning theory. This is how I teach piano. I was like, whoa, what is that? I, I've heard the terminology before somewhere, but it's not really something that came across very often, honestly. So then Sulianna sent me some links, and I started reading about it, and then got me thinking about how I learned English, right? Because obviously this is not my first language, and then because I always associate music learning is like learning language, native language. But by learning second language gave me the different perspectives about learning language. Because for 20 years I didn't speak, you know, when I was in Japan. The learning English was all based on reading letters, reading words. And nobody taught me how to pronounce. Nobody taught me. Nobody spoke to me in English, and I wasn't able to practice. So then really got me thinking, oh, maybe this music learning theory is all about that. It's all about how we learn to play an instrument, musical instrument. So then I got connected with Juliana and then asked her if we can interview someone from music learning theory specialist, and then she hooked me up with Christa Yashro, whom we're about to interview. So Liana, tell me more about your podcast. You're about to publish an episode, I think, your first episode. So what's that, your podcast, it's going to be?

Well, I, it's still in the works, but I do have an idea that, or my main goal of that will be to bring more awareness to music learning theory, to the research and to the connection between that research and research in psychology, neuroscience. Education, general education, other subjects, just the way that we learn. And perhaps talk about some myths and clarify some things and also interview people that I think are interesting and have something to say and interesting perspectives. So, but basically bringing this to the world of musicians, but also to everybody else who is curious and perhaps has aspirations to have their child enrolled in music lessons, or, you know, early childhood music is very interesting. It's become very interesting to me for the past 1 year or so. And it's really the root of everything and the way we are brought up as newborns and very, very young children and toddlers is very telling of how we're going to do in the future as musicians.

Then also you have a Facebook group, right? So, uh, anyone who is interested in talking or learning more about music learning theory, uh, they can join your Facebook group, correct?

Yeah. And I think my email list is the best place because that's where I'm going to announce workshops, uh, which I plan to host just a show that sort of do demos of how a typical lesson, MLT-based, audition-based lesson in piano goes.

If you are interested in Celia's project and Celia's workshop and other work, please see the show notes, and I added some links and the information about her, and then you can join her email list so that you can receive the latest information, latest news from Celia. So This is going to be a really big episode for me, and it's a completely new subject, and I'm so happy that you're my co-host for this episode, and I really appreciate you for being here. I feel so supported, and I feel also energized by your presence. Before inviting the guest of this episode, Ms. Krista Yadro, I want to welcome everybody who is listening or watching this, The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song, for the first time. I'm a classical pianist educator from New York City, passionate about creating a thriving and meaningful community of the classical music industry through this podcast. Please visit yukimisongstudio.com to find more about my work. In each episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, I interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground in the industry. Before getting started, I want to thank everyone for tuning in. Please rate the show and review it on Apple Podcasts because every rating and review will help people find the show. Okay, Solliana, are we ready to start?

Yes, we are.

Great, so here we go. Dear friends, Please enjoy the show. You are listening to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century. I am delighted and honored to welcome Krista Yadrow, music learning theory specialist and the founder of Music Learning Academy from Massachusetts, correct? Krista?

That's correct. Yep. Right outside of Boston.

Oh, cool.

With my guest co-host, Siljana Śiliáška from California. So welcome Krista and Siljana.

Yay. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for being here. And I'm so excited to learn more about music learning theory from both of you today. And so Krista, before introducing you to my listeners with more details, I want to start with this question.

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What is Music Learning Theory?

So Music Learning Theory was developed by Dr. Edwin E. Gordon. He was a researcher, an author, a teacher, an overall wonderful person. I'm so honored that I got to meet him and learn from him before he passed in 2015. And Music Learning Theory is an explanation of how we learn when we learn music. And through a carefully sequenced approach, students learn how to audiate. That is, they learn how to listen to, perform, create, improvise, read, and write with music understanding. And there are a number of reasons why music learning theory— or you hear people say MLT for short— number of reasons why it's important. But since I know we're going to be diving deeper into this, I'm just going to name two of those right now. So first, according to Dr. Gordon's research, everyone has the potential to learn music. Everyone. And too many times I hear people tell me, oh, I just, I wasn't talented. I couldn't sing in my choir. I didn't have the talent to play in band, or I quit piano lessons at 8 years old 'cause I just couldn't read music. Like, I'm not musically talented. And we're all born with an aptitude for learning music. And this is what he found in his research.

Wow.

And as teachers, I know it's, it's, it's big. And as teachers, we can be armed with the knowledge of how music is learned so that we can support and teach every student that walks into our studios. And second, why music learning theory is important: because through sequential and this research-based approach, MLT provides the information that we need to guide our students' success, right? We want them to be successful in learning music and learning piano. And when my students experience a challenge in lessons, without exaggeration, I can likely say 99% of the time I know why and what I can do to help them. So common problems like keeping a steady beat— that student likely needs more flow to be able to feel the space between the beats. Uh, do they encounter a challenging rhythm? Right, in one of our folk tunes or piano repertoire, then I know that I'm going to pull them away from the piano and we're going to practice rhythm patterns of that same function. We're going to chant that pattern, we're going to play it on one key, we're going to improvise with it. And I know that likely when they go back to that repertoire, back to that rhythm pattern, they're going to get it, they're going to understand it, they're going to bring that understanding with them. So because of the sequence that music learning theory provides, I know what readinesses my students need to be successful and how to sequence my instructions so that they learn in a natural, fun, and frustration-free way.

Why music learning theory? Why is it to you is important?

Yeah, I think that knowing how our students learn is essential, right? If we're teaching them music, we want them to learn music, knowing how that happens And knowing that this has been researched, right? And there's decades of extensive research to show that, you know, this is the sequence that we can follow for students to be able to audiate. And that understanding is the goal of, at least my goal, of music education. I want my students to be able to understand what they're doing and then to use what they're doing to be able to express themselves.

So you got me thinking. I think we are all here musicians and music was natural to us, really the almost like a second nature. So we don't think of so much of a process of learning music, right? Because it was so natural. And then we were very young when we started learning the music. So we forgot what was it like to be learning step by step. So I think it's nice to have that theory backed up with your teaching, right?

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, I think music learning theory allows us as teachers to understand the process of teaching, not just for our students to learn in the sequential order, but also for us to know exactly what's going on and exactly how to help everyone.

Yeah, and it's very inclusive, right? Not just only for the good— yeah, a talented— so-and-so-called talented students to learn, but also everybody can learn. That's great.

But even the talented ones can learn so much more with this approach.

To my listeners, I want to officially introduce Ms. Krista Yajiro. Let me read a little brief bio. Krista has a bachelor and master's degrees in music education from University of Delaware, where she focused her studies and research on music learning theory. Over the years of teaching, she has applied the theory in many settings, including early childhood, instrumental, general music, and piano. She has presented her research and expertise on audiation-based instruction internationally and continues to do so. Krista has completed professional development levels from the Gordon Institute for Music Learning, including Early Childhood, Elementary General, and Piano, and is currently on the piano faculty. Krista's passion for music learning theory inspired her to open Music Learning Academy in 2019, where she provides online courses, webinars, and workshops for teachers interested in the audiation-based piano instruction. Krista is also a podcaster. She has a weekly podcast, Keys to Music Learning, with her co-host Hannah The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Krista Luedtke. So I asked this question to Juliana before interviewing you, Krista, today, but so now I want to hear your story, Krista. What got you into music learning theory? But for you, let's start with where your musical journey started as a child, and how did you end up learning about music learning theory, you know, years later and pursuing your teaching career in that direction?

So I started piano with a traditional reading-based approach. I'm from a small town in New York, and my first teacher was a high school student. I remember, you know, I started with middle C. I have such vivid memories of sitting at her piano and playing the C scale for some reason, even though I was so young. I remember at 9 years old begging my parents to quit, even though I was pretty good at what I was doing. I still, I hit a point where I was like, oh, I just don't want to do this anymore. And so we switched teachers., to another teacher in town who passed away just a few short years ago. And she taught for so long, and I think she only charged $10 a lesson from when I was taking lessons from her for years after. She was such a sweet lady, and I really started to enjoy it at that point. So from about 10 years old on, I also picked up the flute at that point, and I was a natural. I could pretty much pick it up, just play. So piano-wise though, you know, I accompanied my school choir choruses. I played in a church. So I think I always had the music inside of me, right? I, I didn't necessarily have the labels or understand the music I was playing like I do now, but I always had that passion for music and for making music. I also knew from a very young age that I wanted to teach. I wanted to be a music teacher and I wanted to work with children. So I ended up going to University of Delaware to major in music education. With a concentration on the flute. I continued piano lessons my freshman year. I was intending to minor on piano. However, when I met Dr. Burton, who— she, uh, studied with Cindy Taggart, who studied with Dr. Gordon, so we call her like a grandchild of Gordon— um, she introduced me to music learning theory, and I was like, that's it, this is what I'm going to do, this is the direction I want to head in. You know, before music learning theory, I envisioned music education as what I had been through, right? So general music, all the kids are sitting in a circle and the ones who could do it, who could sing in tune, they were called on the most. And the other ones just kind of resigned to the fact that music's not my thing, right? I'm going to sit through class, but my thing is something else. I'm not going to be good at this. And then band, I imagined, you know, the 4th grade, the 10-year-olds with a conductor waving their baton and out of tune playing and lots of toe tapping and the audience sitting there kind of cringing with a smile on their face, knowing that, okay, well, that's how band starts, but then it gets better. But sadly, how it gets better, I think, in a lot of programs is the kids that again kind of resign to the fact that, oh, this is not for me, I can't do this, drop out. And the kids who are either highly motivated or have the aptitude, a high aptitude for learning, they're the ones that stay in. Similar with piano. My idea of a piano lesson was what happened with me. You sit at the piano, you open up a book, it starts with— we can all picture those pages, right? It starts with middle C and you need notation to play. With all of this, my thought was, okay, you need notation to play. And those people that can improvise and hear music, they're born with that. I wasn't born with that, so I'm not going to be able to do it. And that's okay because I enjoy reading music from notation. And the turning point in all this, not only meeting Dr. Burton, was I was sitting in band methods actually. And my professor, Dr. Struthvis, put in a video of Deena Alexander's students. They were maybe 4th or 5th grade jazz band students. And it was on like an old VHS. And the conductor stood there and she goes, "One, two, one, two, ready, and." And then she walked away. And this group of—

Wow.

Yeah, she walked away. My jaw dropped. I was like, this is not possible with 10-year-olds.

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Old band students, right? And then they stayed together, they played in tune. And then kids stood up individually and improvised. Like, it was just—

oh my goodness—

them, they stood up with their instrument and they improvised during this piece. And I was, I was amazed. And, and after seeing that video, I just said, if I can't do anything else, right? Like, this is possible, but how, how can I do anything else? So Through my under— that was maybe freshman or sophomore year, so that was pretty early in my college career. And after that, through my undergrad, and then I stayed on for my graduate studies with Dr. Byrne, I just dove into learning all that I could about MLT through my classes that she taught, um, through extra workshops, through professional development courses. And then she also oversaw me doing a senior thesis and master's thesis all about patterns and improvisation. So I just really dove into learning all that I could and teaching early childhood classes and just giving myself that experience. And then after I graduated, I taught in a variety of settings, all applying music learning theory to instruction. So I taught at a school for autistic students ages 3 through 21, and that experience especially, I went in and I said, everybody can learn music, we all can learn music, and it was a fantastic experience.

Wow.

And during that time, I also had a piano and a flute studio. I was just getting started with teaching Music Moves for Piano around that time too. I also led early childhood classes, and then that was in New Jersey. And in 2013, we moved up to Boston, the Boston area, and I found Brookline Music School, which is a lovely community music school where I served as director of early childhood education for a number of years. I developed a thriving early childhood program and introduced Music Moves for Piano classes. They called them kind of the group class program because we taught them in groups. Um, and I, I still teach there. It's just a wonderful place to teach. I guess this is 10 years that I've been there. But yeah, so that's where I am now. And through my work with the different teachers at Brookline Music School and just, you know, my communication with other teachers through the Facebook groups, um, I noticed that there was a desire to learn more about this approach. It's so different than the traditional methods that people were nervous. They, they didn't know what it looked like or what it could be. So with Marilyn's blessing, that's when I launched Music Learning Academy in 2019. I said, this is really needed. The teachers all over the world are at least interested in learning more about this, and they need that access. They need access to somebody who's going to help them and support them. And sometimes you need your hand held, you really do, through something. Oh, Of course.

Look at me. I needed Selena's help today in order for me to feel good about interviewing you, because this is totally new territory for me. And how do you guys know each other, Christa and Selena?

Facebook.

Of course.

Facebook was the place that I was, that I first heard about music learning theory. I was looking for something deeper in terms of understanding the learning process. And the teaching process. And I don't know who it was. I think I joined your Facebook group, Krista, the Audiation Based— what is it called again? Audiation Based—

oh, it's got such a long name. It's Introduction to Audiation Based Music Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano.

Yeah. And then I wanted to teach from those books. And of course, Krista was the expert. So I started taking her courses and I have a huge respect for her. She's, she's an amazing educator.

Thank you, Juliana.

Wow. Yeah, I met Juliana through Facebook too. So these days you just meet, but you know, what's great about these social media is that you look for people, certain quality or expertise, and you can find some. That's great. This episode is presented in collaboration with our good friends at Forte, a free alternative to Zoom Purpose-built for music teachers. We're happy to announce that Forte will always be free for music teachers, no strings attached. That's right, Forte offers features optimized for classical music lessons, including audio quality far superior to existing platforms and allowing you to hear every nuance of your student's instrument. Their colleagues at the Royal College of Music, Aspen Music Festival, Curtis Institute and Berklee College of Music have even used Forte in their own programs. Forte's mission is to radically expand access to high-quality music education worldwide. Forte always puts teachers and their students first. This means you can use Forte with your own students for free forever. And Forte will soon introduce paid features allowing you to connect with new students around the world. Sign up for free today at fortelessons.com. That's F-O-R-T-E-L-E-S-S-O-N-S.com, or click the link in the description. Let's continue with this episode. Let's talk about audiation. So there are several terminologies that I encounter as I was browsing through websites and, you know, learning a little bit about music learning theory as much as I could with this amount of time I had. And First thing is odiation. Every time I type odiation, they autocorrect to either audition or addiction, the worst one. So I was like, no. So what is odiation? And then can you give us the definition? Because it's really— no matter how many times I try to remember, it's like goes away because I'm still learning now. And then also, I think one of the episodes in the podcast, you mentioned that there are 8 types of audiation and 6 stages. So, okay, so let's start with the definition, please.

Well, let me first tell you what it's not, because I feel like audiation really has become a buzzword in recent years, and I've seen it defined as hearing music in our heads, like an inner hearing, aural imagery, or aural perception. But really, there's there's so much more to it. That's kind of the tip of the iceberg when you use those words. Audiation is the cognitive process that brings understanding to music that we listen to, perform, create, read, and write. Just like we use thought to bring understanding to words that we listen to, right? Everybody's listening to this right now and they're understanding what I'm saying. And I know what to say because my thought process, right, and my vocabulary and words, I can speak what's on my mind and communicate. And then also to read and write with understanding, right? So, Audiation is different than just hearing music in our heads because I can memorize a tune, sing it silently in my head, but not understand it, not understand its tonal and rhythm elements, its harmonic structure. Right, audiation is different than aural imagery, which to me implies seeing something, like visualizing music notation. I did that a lot when I had to memorize back before I was audiating. I would visualize that music notation in my head as I was playing. Audiation is different than aural perception, which is hearing music the moment it is produced regardless of understanding. And of course, aural perception is going to be one of the stages of audiation, right? Because we have to orally perceive before we understand the music. But I always compare to language. So if I were to say, "Doberdan, kakosi?" You hear me, you orally perceive what I am saying. If I wrote it down, you could read it, right? If I wrote it out for you. But chances are, unless you speak Croatian, which I don't, but my husband's family does, so they gave me that phrase. Unless you speak Croatian, you're not going to understand what I said, right? You can imitate it, you could say it silently in your head, especially if I repeated it a few times, right? Doberdan, kakosi. But that doesn't help you understand that I'm saying good day, how are you. So with music, if I sing bum. I knew if I waited long enough, somebody would sing that resting tone. And you may not know that tune. Siljana probably knows that tune. It's from Music Moves for Piano. It's a folk tune called Old Woman. But because you are familiar with major tonality and with duple meter, you are able to identify, oh, something's missing. You were able to anticipate that I was going towards the resting tone.

Right?

So what else are we auditing when we hear that tune? Well, we're auditing that resting tone, which is do, because we're in major tonality. You hear tonal patterns in there.

You hear bum bum bum, so mi do, which is a tonic. You hear bum bum re fa which is a dominant.

You're also auditing duple meter. So you're feeling doo-day, doo-day, doo-day, doo-day. You also hear rhythm patterns, which is doo, doo-day, doo, doo-day. And then we have doo-day, doo-day, doo-day, doo. So all of this is You're hearing, you're audiating that as you're listening to the song. There's more that we can audiate. If I sing it again, can you audiate the roots of the harmonies? Can you audiate that bass line?

Bum!

Now another step that we could do— We can keep going; you go so deep with any song—is improvise with that bass line right? Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum, bum-bum-bum-bum-BUM-BUM-BOOMM!!! And I'll have 7-year-olds do this—they can do it easily they can do it—it's just if especially started at four years old—with informal instruction—and keyboard games... They're ready for all of these things already because our brains grow quickly when children learn to speak but By not music yet really until 7 about seven or eight there aren't many words on piano keys like "piano" etcetera or which makes sense since pianos don't sound 8, good unless those notes make sounds anyway um now they let me show one can more thing here okay guys listen up everyone do get your instruments out be quiet please uh this yeah well hey everybody what does my friend not say then he says hahaha whoopsie daisy oh no somebody was trying only too hard today didn't know how much fun playing together would cause them in both problems haha ha-haha ba dum-doom-da-boom boom bam major bumbam bom bombombommmmmm!! And will happen even before kids start formal lessons tonality, from an instructor actually alrighty cool enough time has passed by y'all want some questions?! Alright bye-yeeeee!!!! Okay thanks again Tracy Kahlman thank ya but very much indeed she also wrote 'The I've Music Box' book check her had channel down below www.youtube.com/TracyKahllaman students in different tonalities as well. But, um, so you can improvise over the bass line. We can go even further by changing the tonality, right? Yeah, so we can change it to minor tonality, or you can change the meter. I'll— maybe I'll keep it in minor tonality, but I'll change the meter.

So I just changed that to a 5, right?

An uneven— there, my macrobeat was uneven. So when you're familiar with all, I guess, these like languages, you can take music and you can use that, right? You could— you can use these vocabularies to make changes and to dive deeper with anything that you do. So, audiation has all of these levels. And how would this, I guess, look in piano instruction? So I do a number of short tunes in piano instruction. I do Old Woman because those are kind of building blocks. We can learn skills with those short tunes. That's where I teach students to change the tonality, change the meter, improvise, play the bass line, create accompaniments. There's so much that you could do. Create medleys. So take a couple of those short folk tunes and create a medley, create an introduction, create an ending, create transitions to go from one to the next, transpose, right? There's just so many things that we can do with short tunes. And so when students have a large repertoire of short tunes, possibilities are endless. But we're not just teaching short tunes, right? We want to teach piano repertoire. So what could this look like? So I just taught Burgmüller's Arabesque to a student not long ago, and I think many of us have taught that. But what does that look like when we include audiation?, right? When we want our students to audiate deeply with that piece. I'll take you through the instruction that I did with her. So week 1, I played the piece for her and she moved, and that was it. I played it a couple times for her, she picked her movement. It was kind of like a flowing movement, I'm sure, because that's what we're kind of used to doing, and she moved. No expectations, nothing, just listen and absorb, right? And then week 2, I did that again. I played for her, she moved, But then we focused on rhythm; we labeled the meter— it's duple meter—we isolated and chanted the rhythm patterns like ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, buppa-pappa pa, buh puh puh puppuh bah! So we took the rhythm patterns, chanted them, identified them in the piece, and also played them on one key and improvised with them when—and it doesn't have to take that long—but when you do that and then I play the piece for her again think of all the understanding she's now bringing to that piece. Right. So much more because she had that opportunity to isolate the rhythm and create with the rhythm and then go back to the whole, right? And then week 3, we did something similar, but we focused on tonality. So I played the piece for her. We listened for same and different. We listened for whether it was minor tonality or major tonality. It's minor tonality, but what happens at the end of that A section? Oh, there's a brief part that's major tonality. They can hear that. They, oh, it's, oh, that changes to major there. And they might even say, oh, it changes to major and uses tonic and dominant. Like, that's the kind of language that they will use and talk to talk about pieces. Wow. Yeah, it's nothing short of amazing. I'm always amazed by my students. Yeah, after we do tonal work, so we'll sing, we'll play the tonal patterns, we'll improvise with them, then we bring more tonal understanding to the piece. So by week 4, when we sit down to play the piece, usually the kids are itching to play it, like dying to play it, and they already play so much of it just because we did all this exploration already and have all this understanding of the piece. This particular student that I just taught it to, she learned the whole piece probably in about 2 weeks, I would say. And it doesn't take the whole class period. I mean, I'm just— this is just part of the class period. I'm doing all other things with them as well. Well. She learned it in 2 weeks, but then it wasn't done. And this is what's so exciting, right? So she learns she can play the piece. She does— she's not reading the music, but she has it in front of her so she can see the dynamics, the articulation, you know, how it's all put together. Now it's time to have the fun where we transpose it. Can you play it in D minor? How would we play it in D minor? And we go through the harmonic structures so that she's understanding, okay, this is what I would do. All right, I can play it in D minor now. Play it in major tonality. What does it sound like when you play it in major tonality? And at the end of that A section, maybe change to minor tonality, kind of explore what that might sound like. And I think the most fun we had with the piece was we took the whole harmonic structure and she created her own pieces. So at first she used a lot of the same rhythm patterns because, you know, this was kind of new for her to do a very long piece with. But then each time she did it, I just kind of encouraged her and I was doing it too. We were doing it back and forth. I encouraged her to, to go farther and farther away from the rhythm patterns of the piece and just keep that harmonic structure. And by the end, she had these— all these ideas. And it was so cool because you could hear what it was based on, but it sounded like a different piece. And it was just like, it was a really fun activity for her to do. And it really shows that understanding, right? When you can do that, you are understanding the piece.

That is very impressive. What are the 8 types of audiation and 6 stages? If you can tell me.

So I'm going to keep it short just because I don't— I feel like I'm throwing so much information out there, but really you can understand the types and stages. There are 8 types of audiation, and it's important to remember that we're not just audiating when listening to music. So the 8 types are when we audiate, right? So we audiate when we're listening to familiar and unfamiliar music. We audiate when we perform music. We audiate when we are creating or improvising music. Sometimes we're creating and improvising music just kind of from the top of our heads. Sometimes we have to improvise music with already established bass line, like if we're in a jazz band and improvising. So those are different ways that we create and improvise music. And then we're also audiating when we read music and when we write music. So the types, the types of audiation are what, during which situations, I guess, when are we audiating? And that's similar to language, right? We're bringing understanding to what we're hearing, what we're speaking, what we're communicating, reading, and writing. And then the stages of our audiation, say when you are listening to me sing, the song, right? Old Woman. You were going through the stages of audiation, especially since you sang the resting tone at the end. You were hearing it in the moment, okay, that aural perception of hearing it. You were identifying a tonal center and also the macrobeat, which helped you establish that we were in major tonality, we were in duple meter. You are familiar with major tonality and duple meter, so you are able to retain and recall patterns that you already have in your vocabulary. And then also anticipate, right? When we're listening to music, especially when it's in a tonality or meter that we are familiar with, we can anticipate what's going to happen. So if I sang—

I'm sorry. That's it. Oh, that was beautiful.

Yeah. Yes, that was beautiful. So you were audiating minor tonality, you knew we're in duple meter, and you knew I wasn't finished, right?

Bum ba da dum ba da dum bum bum.

And you were brave enough to create an ending for me today on the spot. So yes, I did it. I appreciate it. So you are familiar with harmonic minor tonality, you were, you were able to hear it, recognize the tonality and meter. And ultimately create an ending for that song. Now, there might be other tonalities that you are less familiar with, and I just got to get my brain into the tonality first. All right, listen to this song.

Bum ba dum ba da dum ba da dum bum. Bum ba dum ba da dum ba da dum bum. Bum ba dum ba da dum ba da dum bum. Bum ba dum ba da dum ba da dum bum. Bum bum. That's low Korean tonality. Oh my goodness.

Likely many people are not as familiar with low Korean. It took me a long time to hear low Korean tonality. It was one of the last ones that I could really hear and feel comfortable with. I could sing it if like I had the music, but to actually understand it and hear that resting tone was hard for me. So Many of our listeners now, if they're not familiar with low-grade tonality, likely did not go through all those stages of audiation. They probably heard it in the moment, called momentary retention, but might not have been able to locate that tonal center. And if you couldn't locate that on tonal center, then you wouldn't be able to retain and recall and predict what was coming next. So those are the stages of audiation. The types are all the different situations where we are audiating. And the stages are kind of what our processes are when we listen to music. Interesting. There's so much fun though. They really are. And if, if anybody listening would like to, to kind of go deeper with the modes, I suggest going by functions and not by scales. What are the functions that support— what are the harmonies of each of the modes? And you will hear them faster than if you go by the Wow. Really?

Okay, let me try that. I need to practice. Juliana, how are you doing with these modes?

Great. I love them. For me, it's because I have perfect pitch. I just remember the sounds. So I know that a lot of my students are not going through that same process that I am. And so it's really important for me to know the process that most people go through to hear. And as Krista knows, and as Edwin Gordon found or said, you know, we learn about major and minor more by learning all these other tonalities and modes. So that's one of the ideas why we expose our students to those amazing other kinds of sounds and combinations of sounds.

Wow, that is fascinating. Then I just briefly learned about odiation. It's going to take some time to sort of digest everything you mentioned. But now, then another terminology I faced was sequencing. So I know the word sequence, sequencing, but in terms of the sequencing in the music learning theory, that's very new, obviously new to me. So what does it mean by sequencing? Well, more on this topic. Tune in next week for part 2 of this episode with Krista Yadrow, music learning theory specialist and founder of Music Learning Academy. She will explain sequencing in Audiation-Based Teaching, discuss her take on the traditional way versus the Audiation-Based Teaching and Learning Music, and more.

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