Music and Immunity - Covid 2020, Stars, Neowise Comet

Many parents/adults know the feeling of relaxation while listening or making music. Hence the reason for singing the lullaby to the baby! The leap is short to overall health benefits of music. Brain researchers wax about mylenation formation - the glue of our nervous system. Brain circuitry development another much extolled byproduct of early music training. Today, while we shelter in place, we just feel the joy, and by extension, the health benefits. We teachers love the articles linking lifelong music study to overall positive immune system health - a new under-appreciated reason to persevere in daily music.

During a pandemic, we gather in to be safe and we manage our emotional and intellectual lives just as we did before; but now, with an acute appreciation for that which come from within instead of events and group activities which for now we cannot do. Music was always there, within. Whether just singing aloud, to the radio or a Sonos playlist - singing (humming, whistling) is a human innate soothing habit. As the pandemic rolled on, many people have pulled out their instruments from closets, dusted off their old keyboards, horns, guitars. One keyboard repair tech here in the Bay Area said, “It’s great to be helping people play again — specially now”

If you’re reading this, you may need no convincing that music up regulates, puts some swing in your step, or, when cooking, it just makes doing the dishes a party. And, by the way, you can learn how to dance, how to mourn, how to woo or party while you learn piano or any instrument - the array of genres in our repertoire— a cool polyphonic dance (Minuet) by Bach, a Farmers’ harvest march by Schumann and a bittersweet Little Flowers dance by Gurlitt; a surprise short spot of time defiant magic by Tcherepnin and Chopin. Twinkle twinkle little star? Don’t forget to catch the August Comet these next weeks.

Leverage or ban screens with Clever Music Reading Apps for Piano?

Questions arise- is screen time as effective as time with an experienced person talking in tones and nuance which acknowledge your child’s effort? Human (face to face, or zooming ‘live’) attributes vs algorithmic humanlike replies? Suzuki triangle: the parent or the teacher…

In our summer teaching institutes we hear about the “rain forest” prodigies who use you tube and other tech based teaching apps to learn excellent music with truly amazing success. If equitable access to learning is empirically good, why or why not not pursue screen supported apps that listen to your child at the keys?

It bears repeating that I think long and hard about children having age appropriate awareness of the intersection of tech in every aspect of our lives. Once they are completely capable of ‘turning off’ the spigot, (could this be when their homework load dictates it? Schooling on Zoom during the 2020 pandemic now begs this question from a new angle) that’s when a fruitful conversation about self directed access can begin. Not before. I don’t want to frighten a 5 year old. But I don’t want to encourage dopamine fueled screen addiction either.  Since we adults have a hard time regulating time on smartphones, ipads and TVs, all the more reason to adjust exposure for young children.

If your student believes an ipad app has been developed to relieve the chore of a parent spending time at the keys — “Mom I don’t need you to sit and nag me anymore, I’ve got this cool app to keep up with reading assignments…” perhaps you’ve been dreading the pushback at working with your child on reading. Don’t cave in. Don’t worry if some extra time is spent on digital learning, but add it on top of your child’s regular assignments.

2024 UPDATE: Many accomplished musicians will organize and work from digital copies of repertoire. Digital pens allow note taking on a score upon on a tablet to reflect his or her personal work. As our students mature, some will begin keeping their music in digital form. I encourage students to keep curious, even when I’m discouraging lots of other screen time!

The philosophy of Ge Wang who is a Duke/Princeton trained Stanford professor is to keep acoustic music alive using digital very accessible tech. He invented the SMULE ocarina app which can be played with people globally.

About CCRMA Stanford. Center for Comupter Research in Music and Accoustics… a humble wonderful Cellist Madeline Huberth also visited Berkeley with Wang for an MSRI lecture. Imagine that your parental time invested in physically with your child is more valuable for the goal of becoming a confident musician than anything she will find out in the digital universe. 

This is why I’m in music education via Suzuki - the parents’ role gives another quality to the early learning of piano music. Which after all, can be an ensemble instrument!

'Flow', Participatory Music by Stanford Prof. Ge Wang creator of SMULE at MSRI

with bonus: amateur defined

After a crash course including a life-sized image of 20 Stanford kids circled up onstage into a SLORk -Stanford Laptop Orchestra - (there is a PlORk at Princeton), our lecture turned performance - or perhaps 'demo' for those of us newly intiated. You ask, "A laptop computer transformed into many new instruments?" Where is the wood? the vibrating string or hammer? At least explain how the IKEA salad bowl speakers work.....

The PR getting me out of the studio was the promise of discussing how people are naturally musical, how now with the internet and prevalence of mobile devices, we easily and passively 'consume' music. Is music only a commodity? What about making it for its own sake? for fun? This is the fiery debate I'd come out on a school night to hear.

Ge waxed about lowering barriers to participating in music, affording access through this little item we are very attached to: our phones. "Mobile music making" he further ties (via animated tablature for his Ocarina and Piano Apps) to games - and - what can be called getting 'in the zone' or 'in flow'.  As a musician, and in sports of course, many of us can relate to being lost or finding 'the flow'. Ge describes that headspace as being in flow with a sense of freedom borne out of a perceived skill set and perceived challenge. During flow there is a complete sense of joy and unconscious merging of action and awareness. He says that people who are used to manipulating their smart phones can learn easily to make music on them. Clearly, some college students are diving deep into instrument identities making up and crafting their parts to be in the SLORk. 

Of course, dedicated Suzuki approach teachers might relate it to learning the Book One songs with all the tunes and rhythms already in your head! The doable challenge of playing the known piece when well matched with skills at the keys produces an unconscious 'flow'.

AMATEUR Definition REGAINS its ROOT MEANING

The last memorable point was dissecting the word, 'Amateur'. It used to very honorably be defined as "one who engages in a study, art or sport for pleasure rather than for financial gain". Derived from latin 'amare': love of the activity.  Today the definition often describes one who is a a non-professional, dilettante or dabbler, with superficial knowledge in an activity or lacking polish. Elevating the love of learning and playing music is what Ge really left the audience with- it kind of rescued my niggling questions about how or whether a laptop or a smartphone is a musical instrument.  

Meanwhile, keep the creative and active fun stoked with your child at the keys. Ask for a little song to reflect the emotions or activities of your day. Name the song. Do one yourself and try to remember it (use a smart phone to record it!) for your next lesson.

Going Viral on Sound Cloud, Spotify, You Tube

Inspiring youth composers, Emmit Fenn 

(Fall 2015) Who knew that encouraging playing music at any time of the morning, noon or night would result in a song going viral? Open Spotify to hear Painting Greys.

This young man, using his own name, Emmit Fenn, is smack in the middle of his college career, and dropping out to do what he loves best. He has been messing around with composition for as long as I can remember and is one of those kids who just hung around the house and the pianos, playing all the time.  Many of the songs he wrote (and sometimes my son, his BF helped with) were mocking, laughter laden imitations of famous people, rap stars and balladeers. His mom and I would laugh and laugh at the originality and the antics. As he grew so did the kinds of compositions. Wherever he found keyboards or a piano, he just sat and played. At home. At his friend's house. At his grandma Nonnie’s.

Now (update 2021 - his management team in LA helped the launch many albums, tours, videos and work in film industry, including advertising) this 20 something uploads his beats and tunes to Sound Cloud and itunes. The hybrid genre song he wrote while in college, Painting Greys, (update 2023 50M downloads) features his keyboard, mixing and vocal talents.  Surprise, THE THING IS GOING VIRAL. What a lark and a joy: make music in a home studio and then 'release it' like blowing on a dandelion flower into the wind.

Music is the universal connector.  Play it for joy. 

Effortless Piano Skills: Immersed!

GROWING INTO AND UP WITH MUSIC, EFFORTLESSLY

Babies arrive with music in their bodies. Cooing, grunts, wailing. Side to side rocking in a rhythm, clapping hands on the floor, kicking feet before they carry the toddler walking....Don't forget how your children could so EASILY imitate your sounds - and how they never tired of doing so!  

Here is the magic: if you love making music with your young child, he or she will want to as well. Merely desiring music in the child's life is not the whole story. You have to think it is natural to do (nearly) all the time! Whenever! It is a circle of pleasurable energy. Play good quality recordings in your household. Pickup your instruments and play them! Sing familiar tunes while you do chores. Make time, just a bit, at the keys all day long.

So, be emotionally prepared to favor musical moments over others. Keep those efforts apart from other negotiations on daily life activities. Always make the time doing music together a positive place of joy in your own heart, then it will feel that way--you've transmitted the value -- to your child.  

We have several new siblings in our piano studio this year who are swaying, clapping, humming and rocking to the melodies played by their big brothers. Having heard the songs from Suzuki Book One while inside their mothers, these babies are at ease and even activated to smiles or soothed to sleep with the familiar sounds, rhythms and dynamics.  

There it is! The immersive environment where young musicians flourish unconsciously absorbing the music without any 'effort'.  Welcome home to music little ones!