Season 3 Episode 13, Part 2: Krista Jadro -- Music Learning Theory Specialist & Founder of Music Learning Academy

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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.

Welcome back to The Piano Pod. I am Yukimi Song. Thanks for tuning in for the second half of Season 3, Episode 13 with a guest, Krista Yadrow. So, what did you think of Part 1 of this episode? Did you find the music learning theory as thought-provoking or inspiring? In Part 2, I asked Krista and the guest co-host, Suliana Shliashka, about sequencing in the music learning theory and the differences between audiation-based and traditional ways of teaching and learning music, and more. Before continuing the show, I want to welcome everyone listening to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song for the first time. I'm a classical pianist and educator from New York City, passionate about creating a thriving and meaningful community of the classical music industry through this podcast. Please visit yukimisongstudio.com to find out 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. Please rate the show and review it on Apple Podcasts because every rating and review will help people find my show. So dear friends, here is part 2 of The Piano Pod season 3, episode 13. 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.

Now then, another terminology I faced was sequencing. So I know the word sequence, sequencing, but in terms of the sequencing in the music learning theory, that's very new, obviously new to me. So what does it mean by sequencing?

Yeah, so, and I've already used that word a couple times as we've been talking these last 40 minutes. So music learning theory lays out a wonderful sequence for teaching students how to audiate. And I really think the best way to describe the sequence is actually to compare it to the process of language learning. So music learning and language learning. And when learning a language, 5 vocabularies are developed. We have listening, speaking, thinking, conversing— kind of the same vocabulary there— reading, and writing. And the listening vocabulary is the foundation of language learning, right? For A native language, it begins as soon as a child can hear, which is in utero. And it's all about absorption and developing the ability to identify and to discriminate sounds and to build a listening vocabulary of words. And it's important to note that we build a listening vocabulary of words in language, not individual letters, right? Individual letters help us to spell out words, but that's not what's important. That's not our communication. And when a child is born, yeah, the exploration of sounds begins, which we call babbling. And it's the beginning of the speaking vocabulary. As soon as they begin to discriminate the sounds they hear, though, they begin to imitate. And those sound imitations first have no meaning, right? They might say da da da da, but it usually doesn't mean the actual da da da da. Um, but eventually However, children naturally break the code of language, and they begin to put sounds together into words that have meaning. And it might be short words. It is, it's short words at first. Like, they might point to something and say, "Juice, juice, juice," for juice, right? Juice. Um, but eventually they string those together with the help of their thinking vocabulary and their conversing vocabulary that, "Can I have juice, please?" right? So that thinking and conversing vocabulary— the thought again is that process that gives meaning to the words that are heard and spoken and communicated. And now the, the children are attaching meaning to the words, right, and using them for communication. And finally, those last two vocabularies, reading and writing— children need a solid foundation of listening, speaking, thinking, and conversing, forming a very rich vocabulary. The richer the better, right? The more words they have, the better. Um, words that are understood and words that are used in communication. And without those three vocabularies, reading and writing are going to be severely limited, and comprehension is not going to be easy when reading and writing if we don't have really rich vocabularies before that. And when you think about it, although students, I feel like, are learning to read and write earlier now than ever, but they still aren't formally introduced to reading until maybe 5, 6, 7-year-old, you know, 7 years old, depending on where they are. So think about all the language that they have had before that. So much practice before they are reading and writing. So just like language learning, music learning has 5 vocabularies, and One is listening, of course. The second is going to be performing instead of speaking. And then we have audiating improvising instead of thinking and conversing. And we have reading and writing. So listening, like language, is the foundation of music learning. And this vocabulary develops as one absorbs the sounds of music, the sounds of the singing voice, the inflections of rhythmic chanting, tonal and rhythm contexts, harmonies. There's lots to absorb with music. And remember, in language, we don't form a vocabulary of individual letters. We form a vocabulary of words. In music, we form a vocabulary of tonal patterns and rhythm patterns. Patterns are the words of music, and those are necessary for audiation development. And similar to the speaking vocabulary of language, the performing vocabulary, which includes singing, chanting, even playing an instrument, begins exploration and with babble. And eventually this babbling will begin to imitate the sounds of that musical environment, and children will break the code. They'll begin to sing and chant and play patterns, the words of music, more accurately and with musical meaning and coordination as well. And then, yeah, and then this brings us to the Audiating Improvising Vocabulary. The most important one. Um, and audiation again is what thought is to language, that process that brings meaning to what we're listening to, performing, creating, reading, and writing. And the ability to improvise, which I was never taught growing up, not in any of my programs, not in general music, not in band, not in piano, is really important because it, one, it demonstrates one's understanding. It allows them to use their vocabulary to create something new. It also, and I love this, Marilyn Lowe had said this, but improvisation cements music learning. That act of taking what we know and using it in our own way is so important. It's vital for our retention of what we're learning. So that audiating improvising vocabulary is really important. And then finally, and I usually put this on a pyramid with listening on the bottom because it's really the foundation, and then reading and writing are at the top. They're, they're the tip of my period— of my pyramid. And once students can understand the music that they're listening to, performing, and improvising, once they have the labels for the music they're understanding, like major tonality, dominant, tonic, duple meter, triple meter— those labels are really important— when they've had a lot of practice with those first 3 vocabularies, then they can learn to read and write with understanding. And I have many students now that are reading and writing music, and they're older, they're 12 years old. They are abstract thinkers now, which really helps with notational, um, audiation. But what they see on the page, they hear in their heads. We sing it. We sing in parts. Sometimes they'll take the treble clap and I'll take the bass clap and we'll sing it in parts. And this is all before going to the piano to play it. And then when they take the music to the piano, they play patterns, not individual notes. And that makes a big difference, not only in their understanding, of course, but once they play the piece, they can transpose it like that. They just can play it and it's not a memorization thing. They haven't memorized the piece. It's because they're looking at the patterns and they're really fluent in many different key alities and they can take that music almost right away. And I can say if it's a C-Do piece, I can say, okay, now play it in G-Do, now play it in E-Do, now play it in F-Do, now play it in F-sharp-Do. And they do. Okay. Wow. And it's amazing. It is.

And some of the things like you mentioned, I, you know, because I was trained, so I learned, but you talk about hours and hours and hours and years of training I had, and finally being able to dictate, you know, because I learned dictation, but in a very boring way. You know, you have to sit down an hour and then listen to the melody and then, you know, do this. But that's really fascinating when being able to really teach that to students of all levels. That's really fascinating. And it also reminded me of how I learned English because this is obviously my second language. And then for 20 years I couldn't speak because the way they teach you English language in Japan was kind of wrong, right? Because it starts with the reading and that's not how you associate language with, you know, basically you're reading letter by letter and that's not how. And then half of that class, classmates asleep because it's boring. And then I was so frustrated. I want to speak just like one sentence out of my mouth, but it took me 20 years. And finally I came to the United States, voilà, I was able to do it because I was forced to do. And then, right?

Yeah, I hear so many stories like that, right? You take years and years of a language, you can— you go to that country or whatever and you don't— you're lost, I went to Spain after taking 7 years of Spanish and I like froze. I could not do it. But then you— there was an exchange student, one of my friends in high school went to Germany for a year and he came back speaking German like because he had to do it. He was surrounded by it. He was immersed in the language and he likely went through all those stages. Likely it first just sounded like a run-on sentence and then he was able to differentiate the words and start to say them and communicate with them, and then you learn. I know. Yeah. Yeah.

So thank you for really clarifying this. I totally agree with you. And Suleyana, is there anything else that you want to add? Yeah, I have my own story about learning a language.

So when I was in 4th grade in Bulgaria, we had to learn Russian. And I always tell that story because it relates so much. I was the best reader in the class. So the teacher always picked me, you know, Siljana, read. And I would read and read and read the whole year. I would read and I would not understand a word of what I was reading, but I was reading so well and so fluently. And I knew all the rules of pronunciation, even I could figure out inflection and all that stuff, but it was meaningless to me. And that's what I see my, or I used to see my students do in their performance. That it was even at the advanced level, they just didn't put so much meaning in it and the music didn't give so much meaning to them, which I think is one reason to do music in the first place.

Right. Yeah, that's a good point. And I can so relate to that, Juliana, as a piano teacher too. Yeah. Like almost like they're just memorizing everything and there's no frame of reference to the music because they don't understand, first of all, and there's no cultural reference either. When you first encountered music learning theory, Krista, what did you think was missing from the traditional way of teaching and learning music?

Yeah, that's a good question. So I think the sound before sight, and not only the sound before sight, because there are methods out there that don't introduce reading right away, and there are teachers that see the value of not introducing reading right away, but really the sequence sound before sight, right? That is purposeful and research-based. And really, there's not a rush to read. And while my students definitely— my young students definitely see music notation, I don't shy away from it. It's on, you know, The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with me as we're playing a piece, and I'll point to patterns sometimes and say, look at the musical pattern that we just chanted. It's right here. Do you see another one of the same pattern somewhere? And they'll look and they'll do matching. But really, the goal is for the students to audiate and to understand music, right? And to have a robust and organized vocabulary of rhythm patterns and tonal patterns, as well as experience creating and improvising using their audiation pattern vocabulary. Like I mentioned, learning lots of folk songs and piano repertoire, knowing how to play in many keys and many tonalities That's my sound, right? That's my sound before sight, because those are all necessary readinesses for notational audiation, which is reading and writing.

As I am learning, you know, MLT, a little reading here and there, and I noticed that there's a lot of attention to tonal and rhythmic patterns in audiation. So why is there so much attention focused on the tonal and rhythmic audiation?

So that's what's going to help us develop that musical understanding, the tonal audiation and the rhythm audiation. And of course, we audie other things. There's actually aptitude tests that test for not only tonal and rhythm aptitude, but also phrasing and structure and style and, and things like that as well. But Gordon found that really when we're doing the tonal and rhythm audiation, that's what's giving us the most understanding. So that's what we're going to focus on. And to develop that, we need that vocabulary of patterns, of rhythm patterns and tonal patterns that outline functions, right? And that we can organize into contexts with our major tonality, minor tonality, duple meter, triple meter. Yeah, because context is really important, right? I can give you a pattern, bum bum bum, but that means nothing. You might say, oh, that kind of sounds like this, or that sounds like this, or it could be this, but really it doesn't mean anything. It's just our word, right? A pattern. The context is what's going to give it meaning because we can't examine the parts, the patterns, without context. So just for an example, listen to my song.

Listen for bum bum bum, which is do, mi, so. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum. Bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum bum—bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum bum—bum ba-da da dum bum-bum! So likely you heard do mi so as my tonic in major tonality.

I want you to keep your ears open for do mi so but I'm going to change something...

bum-bum buh-duh duh-dah dah dhum bom-bom. So you're listening for do, mi, so. Bum, ya da da dum bum bum bum bum. Ya da da dum bum bum bum bum. Ya da da dum bum ba da da dum. Ya da dum bum bum bum bum bum.

So now that Do, mi, so was entirely different, right? Because it served as my subtonic in Dorian tonality. So it's really important to have that whole, that context, and part, those patterns, and then back to the whole. So we establish that context with a song, a chant, a piece of repertoire that the students are working on and learning, and then we can explore those parts. The tonal parts and the rhythm parts. And we do those separately because that's how our brain learns and that's how our brain processes pitch and rhythm. We do it separately and then we put them together. And then when our students go back to the whole, they bring more understanding of what they're hearing or performing.

Wow, you literally tricked me. I was hearing just do, me, so the whole time. Yeah, context is very important. Yes. Thank you. You approved it. Does the focus on tonal and rhythm audiation mean that the other elements of music are ignored?

It does not. So I, I feel like, um, if we were just singing tonal and rhythm patterns the entire time, then it would be ignored. But we're taking the skills and that audiation to piano repertoire, to classroom activities, And really, they lay a really important foundation for developing musicality and style and phrasing. We can't understand phrasing without understanding rhythm, right? And understanding of harmonic functions. We can't understand harmonic functions if we don't have those tonal patterns that outline the harmonic functions. So really, the, the, the tonal and the rhythm focus lay an important foundation for learning all the different elements of music and just the fact that we as teachers bring all those—

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Different elements in naturally through the repertoire and through the class activities that we're, we're doing with our students.

Does using music learning theory mean abandoning the traditions, the traditions that we were taught, traditions that I have growing up and even as a teacher I use. So is all the training I received as a student total a waste?

Well, I'm going to answer this now, but I also would love to hear from Siljana after I talk a little bit because I was lucky enough to be introduced to music learning theory when I was 18. I mean, at the very beginning of my teaching career. I was introduced to it. So, so while I, I had a kind of a thought of what music teaching would look like, I was still very flexible, you know. I hadn't actually done it yet, but it doesn't mean abandoning what you know, but it, it's definitely a shift of thinking and maybe even of your philosophy. So, you know, what do you want your students to learn? What do you want them to know? How do you want them to interact with music. And for those students that you have that don't continue piano instruction after middle school or high school because kids are busy, like, what do you want them to carry with them through, I guess, the rest of their life, right? And I want my students to be lifelong musicians. I don't want them to have to rely on notation to play Happy Birthday at a party. Or I don't want them to freeze if they see a piano and somebody asks them to play something, because for years I froze. I don't know what to play. I need music of some sort. I need some notation. But when music is a part of them, when they are the musicians and the piano is an extension of themselves, that is carried with them for a long time after they stop lessons. And when they see that piano and are asked to play, then they can create something on the spot and I just, I know every student that walks through my door can learn music and the majority will not go on to study at a university or a college, but music is a right, right? They have the right to learn music. They have the aptitude and, you know, I'm there for that. I'm ready. I'm ready to have them walk, uh, walk through my door. And, you know, there is currently a way of, of teaching. Of music, of teaching piano, of teaching band, right? That's notation-based and that's accepted. And that's likely the way we were all taught music, but it's not the way music was always taught and was always learned. And I think it's important to remember that. Before the invention of the printing press, what did people do? They audiated, right? They audiated. When music started being printed, that's when a change happened. That's when composed music could reach lots and lots of people, and music started to be taught more from the page than from listening and from, you know, by ear. And I firmly believe that I cannot change people's minds. I don't think I can change— even if they're listening to this, I don't think I'm changing anybody's mind. But I can plant a seed, and that's my goal. I can plant a seed that might not sprout tomorrow, it might not sprout next year, but maybe it'll be just enough that when you know, whoever is listening experiences a challenge or a situation in the future, they'll reach out to me or they'll reach out to the Facebook group or pick up a book or listen to a podcast to, you know, to learn more about this way of teaching.

That sprouting of the seed in me was quite slow, to be honest, because I had a lot of questions as a classically trained pianist, and I had a lot of questions about how this would look in long term, what would be the long-term results, and would I be still able to do everything that I am inspired to do, which is teach classical music in a classical tradition. But as Krista just mentioned, and that's very true, you know, in the time of Bach and Mozart and Beethoven, people were improvising. They were learning music this way. And this is the true traditional way to learn. So we're not really saying that this has never happened before because, because it has, and it's proven to be a much more musicality-building way of teaching and learning. And nowadays though, it's much easier, I think, with the modern approaches not modern, but, you know, reading-based approaches, it's much easier to test and evaluate students. And it's just a— they're there for different reasons, I think, especially in schools. So for me, it was a slow process. And I'm always very open about that because if I could convert, so to say, not really convert, but if I could be convinced that this is truly an amazing way to teach and to learn, then anyone really out there could benefit from just even reading one book or listening to one of the wonderful podcasts, audiation-based podcasts out there. They can be inspired to teach in a way that's more meaningful, that has greater impact for the student in the long term, like Krista said. And I think we all come to a point in our careers that we ask, What is the point of this, which I'm doing? What is it bringing to the world? What is it bringing to the student? And those are very big questions. And some of us ask them a little later than we wish we would have asked them. You know, it took me over 10 years, 15 years to really start to dig deep into the answers to those questions.

But thank you. And then both of you are also answering to this really a common question that I am asked all the time as a piano teacher: I want to be able to read notes so that I can play any song I want. So that's actually sequencing and audiation, right? It's not about really reading notes one by one and being able to do. So what sort of music teachers can benefit from music learning theory? Is it for everybody? A teacher like myself, piano teachers, or—

Yeah, I'd say all of them. So I liken this, and actually Marilyn Lowe had said this in one of the first workshops that I went to with her. She said she would never see a surgeon who didn't understand how the body works. And as music teachers, we owe it to our students to explore how they learn when learning music. So whether you're an early childhood teacher, a choral teacher, a band, piano, maybe even you're teaching ear training or piano methods at a university, it is really important for us to know how our students best learn. So Liana, anything to follow?

No, I agree 100%, 1000%. Great. Anyone can benefit. Yeah, even musicians to learn. And I think Krista, has mentioned that many times on her podcast, but we as teachers, but also as musicians, we become better musicians through learning, through audiation and how, and understanding the sequence of learning.

If I were to start today about learning or teaching even audiation, if I want to, you know, and then, oh, I want to. Now, do I have to shift immediately to teaching audiation or can I go gradually transition into Audiation? Because, you know, like, next thing, okay, I'm just gonna do 100% different thing, and I, I am going to call myself an Audiation teacher, but I don't think I can do that. So what do you think?

So really, either way, I, I think you will see more changes quicker if you jump right in, right? If you go right into it, but human nature, that's hard to do. That's not easy to do. And in fact, Shanna Olson, which is a colleague of ours, she asked Dr. Gordon, she said, "How do I get started with this? This is overwhelming." And he suggested starting with one thing, one thing at a time. And I've talked to teachers who started with rhythm. Rhythm seems to be a really great place to start incorporating rhythm patterns with the beat function syllable system, So like, do-day-do, do-day-do would be duple meter, do-daddy, do-daddy, do-daddy, do-daddy would be triple meter, incorporating movement as well. And once they saw how quickly their students started to progress with rhythm and felt comfortable doing it, then they started adding more. And, you know, I've also talked to teachers who toss their method books and said, nope, this is what I'm going to do from now on, and you can either stay with me or leave. And that's what I'm doing. I believe in this. I'm ready to do it. And that, like I said, it takes a little bit more courage, I'd say, to completely start over. But the teachers that have done it said, you know, I couldn't have done it any other way. So it's really up to the teacher. It's up to you. Whatever you choose though, I really suggest finding a community, joining the Facebook groups, joining GIML, which is the Gordon Institute for Music Learning. They have workshops and professional development courses and even faculty chats that you can just go to and ask your questions. My courses with Music Learning Academy have created a really wonderful community as well because we have live, live classes and live workshops and things like that. But I think that's one of the most important things is to find those people that you can talk to and ask your questions so that you feel supported in the changes.

Is audition-based learning and teaching becoming more mainstream?

I think more teachers, and let's see if Siljana agrees, are realizing maybe what traditional teaching methods are lacking in terms of reaching every student. People are looking for ways to ease those common struggles, such as keeping a steady beat, playing musically, singing in tune. Reading music is a big one, especially for the younger students, playing rhythms correctly and kind of so on. And there's an ever-growing community of teachers that are saying, hey, look at that, this works. You know, I was hesitant at first, but I dove in and this, this is working for my students. My students don't have those issues and this is why. So social media has probably helped a lot as well as, you know, more accessible training and information as well to how to apply music learning theory to piano instruction.

Now, are there any successful music students or stories of successful music music students to maybe musicians born from, you know, MLT training.

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This is an interesting question, and I guess it depends on your definition of successful musician. So my students are younger. My oldest is 13 or 14, so, but I've had them since they were 4. But with my relocation, you know, I've only been teaching for about 10 years in this area. So I don't have anybody that's older and out of my hands yet, but Marilyn had a number of students. She, she's one that wrote Music Moves for Piano, and she's kind of the pioneer of music learning theory in piano instruction. She started teaching— she's one of those ones that threw away her method books as soon as she met Dr. Gordon and said, this is what I'm going to do. She asked if there was a piano method. He said no, and she's— why don't you write one? And she said, okay. And You know, she started that in the '90s, so she has brought many students through, um, an audition-based piano approach. And I know that one in particular has this doctorate in piano performance. She talked about some of her other students being composers. I remember a video she posted once of a past student. He was an adult and he was improvising and arranging music for his kids that were in the background. And honestly, I consider all those pretty successful musicians, right? And we recently had a guest on our podcast who, despite studying piano performance, had trouble calling himself a musician because of his, his lack of audiation and his lack of understanding at that point. So while on the outside he was achieving success, right, he was going for a piano performance degree and probably had a very high level of achievement, His piano teacher was probably over the moon, right, that he was doing piano instruction. It's interesting that he didn't feel like a musician because of that lack of audiation, that lack of understanding, and the inability to improvise and to create music, right? He looked at the people improvising and creating and just jamming together, performing, and, well, those are musicians. I'm just reading the page, right? Interesting to think about the words in that way.

And you know, I interview many classical musicians, and there are a few who admit during the show that we're just cover artists, like, as a classical musicians, because we are not creating.

And they're right, you know.

Then, you know, I began to question myself. So as a piano teacher, what can I do? And I used to be able to improvise even better. Now I'm you know, as I— my classical piano training got more intense, and then forget about improvisation. Just, you know, you learn the notes. And that's also, don't get me wrong, beautiful learning Chopin etudes and Liszt. But then we forget about how we actually are creative people. And so music learning theory is very, very inspiring. Now, music learning theory is a theory, so it's not a method, right? That's correct.

Yes. So it's a theory of how we learn when we learn music. But many methods have been creating, applying, created, sorry, applying music learning theory to early childhood, band, chorus, piano, of course. Yes. But that's the theory. Okay. Now I want to ask both of you.

So at the end of episode 5 of your podcast show, Krista, I think what your co-host Hannah mentioned, that students who learn piano through audiation tend to stick to lessons for a long time. And then because I know around age 9 and 10, they started liking other things and also so many other reasons. I mean, playing the piano itself is very difficult. You know, when at a certain point you really need to practice a lot, you know, because technically demanding and so forth. So what do you think about— so do you agree with your co-host Hannah?

I absolutely agree with my co-host Hannah. Yes, my students are all past that 9-year-old age. I have lost very, very few. I just lost one, but he's going to be in jazz band in school, and he said that he would come back to me if he needed any help. But that was one in the last maybe like 3 years. It has been— they've— it's just— it's not frustrating coming to class, especially— I teach groups as well, so I teach with 2 students, which I think is also motivating for the students to come and be with somebody else. And many of them have been together for years, the pairs, um, or I overlap them, or it's in some way I do a group. Yeah. And then they progress even if they don't practice. For those students that are just not practicers and may not have made it very far in a traditional lesson where they did have to practice a lot, they are welcome in my studio and they progress in my studio and they learn and they're doing challenging pieces in my studio because they have the understanding to do it. Now, if they practice, would they progress faster? Likely, right? Because we'd probably have to do a little bit less review, but they're still learning and there is still loads of music making going on. I look at those lessons as this is not me just teaching you for an hour. This is us making music together for an hour. And I'm in charge of sequencing and of guiding you and your learning. But we're all music makers together and it's pretty wonderful.

Any advice for pianists or piano teachers who are just starting out their teaching career?

Take time to learn, right? If you enjoy listening, you can listen to our podcast, Keys to Musicality. Or I just said the wrong podcast. Take time to learn. And if you like podcasts, you can listen to our podcast, which is not called that. It is called Keys to Music Learning because I was thinking of Everyday Musicality, which we haven't mentioned but is a wonderful podcast, not about piano instruction, but solely about music learning theory. So that should definitely be on your list. If you're a reader, The Ways Children Learn Music by Eric Bluestein is a wonderful book. To get if or when you're ready to kind of see it live in action. If you want to see it, uh, you can invest in a course. I have lots of demos on my courses. There are hours and hours of me teaching students there. And if you want to learn live with an instructor, my courses have live components to it. But you can also take a workshop virtually through Music Learning Academy, or Gimmel, as I mentioned, offers lots of workshops as well. And also, don't wait. Don't wait too long to apply something that is going to help your students to audiate, because you don't have to have it all figured out. It takes years and years and years and years. And I, I've been doing this for 20 years. I don't have it all figured out. My students are constantly teaching me. As they're advancing, they're, they're teaching me more and more. And as they're advancing, my younger students, I bring that down with me, and I'm able to do more with them. So you're never going to have it all figured out. That's just— and it's exciting because you, you have so much to learn, right? It just keeps it really exciting. It keeps teaching really exciting. But you're going to learn best by doing, right? So don't wait too long. Just try some things in your studio. Just try one activity to help your students gain a little bit more understanding of what they're hearing and what they're playing. No complete method overhauls are necessary. And then I guess my last one would be what I mentioned before, and is it's to find a community. Take advantage of what's out there. Join the Facebook group. As Siliana mentioned, I run a Facebook group, Introduction to Audiation-Based Piano Instruction and Music Moves for Piano. Reach out to us, connect with other teachers, both new teachers and experienced teachers. You can join the Gordon Institute for Music Learning. Gimbal.org. And it's just connecting with other teachers who are, are doing this is really important. So if you're just starting out with teaching in general, or if you're just starting out with audition-based teaching, um, that would be my advice.

How about you, Selena? Yeah, I, I agree with Krista. Uh, you know, no, no need to wait. I think checking one thing out, um, and if you like it as you like it, to check one other thing out and apply one idea to one lesson and see how it goes. And I think MLT is definitely something that keeps you on your toes in a good way, though, in a really, really good way. And it also helps students to be more surprised in lessons. So that's another really, really great outcome of the whole approach.

So you have the Music Learning Academy, Krista, which provides online courses, webinars, and workshops for teachers interested in Audiation-Based Teaching. Now, diving into this new territory or world of music learning theory can be really intimidating, and, and most of us don't know where to begin. So Krista, tell us a little bit more about your academy.

It started with the Keyboard Games comprehensive course. So Music Moves for Piano, as I mentioned, by Marilyn Lowe, is right now it's the only method of piano instruction that applies Audiation and music learning theory. So Marilyn said, yes, please help me teach teachers how to do this. So it all started with that Keyboard Games course, but it's, it's pretty intense. Siliana is in my, my courses, and there are— there's just so much to it, and I wanted it to be comprehensive, so I wanted everything in there. So if they have a question, it's answered. Or there's a video that shows it in that course. So of course some teachers are just not going to be ready for that. So after I started offering the Keyboard Games course, I said, okay, we— I need some other things for teachers that are just not ready to invest, which I completely understand. And I have a team of wonderful teachers: Jana Olson— I'm gonna forget some people— Hannah Mayo, Jenny Fisher, Sarah Boy now, and Sarah McGaffrey Ritchie, and Scarlett Kerr. They're all amazing teachers, and we kind of formed a Music Learning Academy team and, um, they, they gave webinars, so the recordings of their webinars are on there, and there's more coming up. Pretty much once a month we have a webinar on some audition-based topic so that people that are interested can either watch a previously recorded one or sign up for a live one. There's also going to be— I mean, I would love for people to get on my mailing list because I was just thinking this morning of everything that I wanted to offer this next coming September through June. In the past, I, I offered a study group on the modes, so learning all of the different modes by ear in a sequenced way. We did in the past, we did the skill learning sequence, diving into Dr. Gordon's skill learning sequence and music learning theory. We've done book clubs. In the future, I want to do my newest idea. I don't know if I'm going to do it, but I would love to take like a 4-week session and almost give teachers a piano lesson. What does it look like to learn a repertoire piece and go through a couple lessons of Book 1? And then what does it look like in Book 2 and Book 3 and in Book 4 and Book 5? So I'm just always trying to think of new ways to, to give teachers just experience with audiation, both for themselves and also how to teach their students. Wonderful.

And all the information you can find on your website at www.musiclearningacademy.com. This has been such a fun and inspirational conversation, Krista and Siljana, and I enjoyed it so much. Before I let you go, we have one more thing to do. It's called TPP, Rapid Fire Questions. So this is a part of the show where I get to ask fun questions to each guest and then to my co-host today, Siljana. So I want you both to participate in this game. Question number 1: What is your comfort food?

Macaroni and cheese. Pizza. Cats or dogs? Cats. Oh no, dogs. Okay, I only said cats because I have one now, but really, oh, I think I'm a dog person.

Okay, so what is your word or words to live by?

Take one thing at a time.

Selena? I breathe music and piano.

Wonderful. What is the most important quality you look for in other people? Krista?

Kindness, honesty, compassion.

So name one piece in your current playlist.

The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. I have all of their songs on my playlist.

I love this. You know that, Yukimi?

Yes. Krista, go for it.

You know, it's sad. My mind went to playlists because all I listen to are what my kids listen to. So it's like Mario Odyssey. Music. But if I wasn't listening to their music, I would say anything by the Avett Brothers. No Hard Feelings. That's a really good one. Here's the last one.

Fill in the blank. Music is blank. Life.

That was mine. Life. Wonderful. Yay. Ding, ding, ding.

That's it. Thank you so much. So this concludes this episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Krista. Thank you, Krista, for joining my show today and sharing your stories and your insights and expertise. And you can find more information about Krista's work through her website at musiclear— musiclearningacademy.com. And please check out her weekly podcast, Key to Music Learning, to learn more about music learning theory. And thank you, Juliana, for being such a great guest co-host for this episode. All links about Krista and Juliana are listed in the description. Thank you to my wonderful audience and fans for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review it on whatever podcasting platform you use. If you're watching us on YouTube, remember to hit the thumbs up button and subscribe to my channel. You can also find my show on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. The links are in the description. I will see you for the next episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song. Thank you, Krista. Thank you, Suleyana. And bye everyone.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Victory lane? Yeah, it's even better with Chumba by my side. Race to chumbacasino.com. Let's chumba!

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