I took formal piano lessons for about ten years. My teacher was a gifted musician and able to teach any genre at any level. She would close her eyes and feel the music; she expected nothing less than beautiful sounds emanating from the piano. I am grateful for the music foundation she provided for me during those years. Her main philosophy was for her students to look at the music, read it, play it, feel it, and share it with others. This is the same way I have approached my students in their learning journey.
I have a younger brother, who also took piano lessons from a different teacher, with a different perspective on how to approach musical learning. My brother, who is 19 years younger than I am, recently came over for a visit. As we talked about music and teaching it to our own students, I began to realize the depth of his knowledge of the relationship between music theory and playing beautiful music as a whole. While I had learned much theory over the years, I had never been shown the direct relationship between using theory to create music, whether that means I use it to play from a fake book while adding some improvisation or whether I decide to pick a song to learn completely by ear training.
A whole new world has opened up to me in terms of what I can do to expand my own musical knowledge and repertoire; in turn, my students' musical experience will be greatly enhanced.
I have hired my little brother to mentor me in this process; he already gave me homework!
