Motivational Book
I’ve been reading the very first motivational/self-improvement book published in the U.S. and it’s rather dubious title is: Think and Grow Rich written by Napoleon Hill. The book has been a staple for many American entrepreneurs since the 1930’s. As a book that teaches the organization of accomplishment there are many fantastic principles that can be applied to artistic work with your child.
Power of the Master Mind
The one that I wanted to talk about today is what Hill calls the Power of the Master Mind. Which in common 21st day language would be called a “Think Tank” or “Brain Storm Group” “Vision Cast” or something similar.
A Spirit of Harmony for a definite purpose
Gandhi was perhaps one of the last century’s greatest examples of someone who used this concept in a positive way and according to Hill, his method was in “inducing 200 million people to coordinate, with mind and body, in a spirit of harmony for a definite purpose.”
Our greatest Challenge
Looking at this from an educators point of view I see that here is our greatest challenge as teachers and parents working with musical children. How can we creatively adopt this method of Gandhi in our everyday actions with children?
Become beautiful and lovable people as adults
One of the ways that I have seen this method begin to work is to become beautiful and lovable people as adults. Then really begin to apply the idea to “be the change that you want to see in the world. “ Once this is apparent in our actions, words and intention children begin to want to be around us, and it is far easier to ask them to practice a certain technique or learn a difficult concept.
Bruce Anderson's Re-phrasing Suzuki's philosophy
Children love to learn, you can not stop them from learning!
It just depends what they will learn. And they will learn whatever is put into their environment. (this is a paraphrase of a teacher with a great heart, Mr. Bruce Anderson.)
Children will want to spend time with us
So let us work to develop our own love of music, our own creativity, our own love of learning and by being beautiful and loving people, children will want to spend time with us, and will want to learn from us. I believe that they will learn from us whatever we model for them, at first accepting it as the way things are, and later realizing that they have a choice as well to become who they want to be.
Tips:
Practice being curious about your world with your child.
Help yourself find joy and fun in the day and talk about or show it to your child.
Treat yourself to something indulgent and out of that indulgence approach the “work” of practice with your child as a joyful and potentially playful activity!
Share your deep thoughts or those of others with your child and elevate the practice time into one of self improvement beyond a physical skill to a holistic practice.
Children grow up
Enjoy this time with your child, it will be over and finished very soon. (and perhaps this is some hope for parents who are overwhelmed… :-) children grow up and usually do not want to spend their teenage and older years working alongside of a parent figure as they develop their individuality.
With Love, Joy and Hope,
Ben
P.S. Tune in tomorrow for a talk about Revealing the Invisible - a concept that most parents are aware of, and that I was taught by a parent in Tacoma
Friday, January 9, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Mystery of Artistic Motivation
(Note: Snag Island Studio was closed yesterday due to Flooding, Make up lessons TBA)
Separation
While there is a mystique surrounding the artist and how he or she becomes inspired to create, we as educators and schools and parents often believe that we understand how to teach the mechanical side of the arts. And so there can be a separation between the Motivation, and Inspiration and the Technique and Mechanical aspects of art.
The need for motivation
After several years of working with parents of music students I’ve come to realize that as important as the technique is, and I do believe that proper technique is essential for a musician to develop. The more pressing need is to find ways to motivate the musical child. Dr. Suzuki teaches that it is through the environment that a child will learn, and so it is through the environment that we must work to motivate the child.
We can not expect a child to be self motivated to practice. So how do we help to create a motivating environment?
Tips
Attend Classical Piano Concerts.
This is perhaps one of the most powerful ways to motivate your child long term. The strength of having a real performer right in front of the child casting a musical spell over the audience is magic for the child's motivation! They now have a clear picture and sound in their heads of what they can do if they continue to practice. I was inspired to begin piano lessons after attending a high level student recital!
Sign up for a summer piano camp.
This is a huge motivator for students as they are with other young musicians, practicing on the same pieces, going to the same classes, learning from exciting new teachers, in an environment that is designed 24-7 to educate and motivate them! Summer camps become a ritual for the families that start them.
Plan to go to the State Suzuki Festival in September.
This is a state wide festival that is set up like a day camp, the only difference is that the teachers are mostly local to the state, and there is a Graduation concert for students who have passed a level in the Repertoire. This is only a one day event.
Come to every Recital and Home Rehearsal.
Bring family and supportive friends and teachers to the recitals. Make a big deal out of their accomplishments and enjoy the fun afterwards!
Participate in a multi-piano concert.
Students form a piano team and work with their team to prepare and perform their repertoire! These concerts can build great friendships and give the piano students a chance to work with their peers in a non-competitive environment! These take place every two years in Sacramento, every Three years in Seattle and every 18 months in Matsumoto Japan!
Wow, out of time this morning already! See you tomorrow
With love, joy and hope,
Ben
Tomorrow we’ll take a look at You and Me Time
Separation
While there is a mystique surrounding the artist and how he or she becomes inspired to create, we as educators and schools and parents often believe that we understand how to teach the mechanical side of the arts. And so there can be a separation between the Motivation, and Inspiration and the Technique and Mechanical aspects of art.
The need for motivation
After several years of working with parents of music students I’ve come to realize that as important as the technique is, and I do believe that proper technique is essential for a musician to develop. The more pressing need is to find ways to motivate the musical child. Dr. Suzuki teaches that it is through the environment that a child will learn, and so it is through the environment that we must work to motivate the child.
We can not expect a child to be self motivated to practice. So how do we help to create a motivating environment?
Tips
Attend Classical Piano Concerts.
This is perhaps one of the most powerful ways to motivate your child long term. The strength of having a real performer right in front of the child casting a musical spell over the audience is magic for the child's motivation! They now have a clear picture and sound in their heads of what they can do if they continue to practice. I was inspired to begin piano lessons after attending a high level student recital!
Sign up for a summer piano camp.
This is a huge motivator for students as they are with other young musicians, practicing on the same pieces, going to the same classes, learning from exciting new teachers, in an environment that is designed 24-7 to educate and motivate them! Summer camps become a ritual for the families that start them.
Plan to go to the State Suzuki Festival in September.
This is a state wide festival that is set up like a day camp, the only difference is that the teachers are mostly local to the state, and there is a Graduation concert for students who have passed a level in the Repertoire. This is only a one day event.
Come to every Recital and Home Rehearsal.
Bring family and supportive friends and teachers to the recitals. Make a big deal out of their accomplishments and enjoy the fun afterwards!
Participate in a multi-piano concert.
Students form a piano team and work with their team to prepare and perform their repertoire! These concerts can build great friendships and give the piano students a chance to work with their peers in a non-competitive environment! These take place every two years in Sacramento, every Three years in Seattle and every 18 months in Matsumoto Japan!
Wow, out of time this morning already! See you tomorrow
With love, joy and hope,
Ben
Tomorrow we’ll take a look at You and Me Time
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Bubbles of Awareness
How do you work with such young children?
It has been a fun observation of mine that the younger a child is the smaller their bubble of awareness is! “How do you work with such young children?” many people ask me when I tell them that I work with as young as two year olds in classical piano. The simple answer that I’ve been giving to my friends and interested parents is that I simply play Intentional Musical Games with the children and through these they begin to learn the basics of playing the piano.
Creative imagination
What I’ve discovered through my research into playing games with students is that the younger a child is the smaller their physical sensory world is and at the same time the larger their creative imagination world is! So, I’ve taken to engaging with very young children through metaphor, story telling and also tangible sensory games, that involve moving their arms and fingers often large movements to introduce a technique.
Move in closer
Younger children have amazing hearing capabilities and I have found that to communicate with them most effectively I need to move closer to them and speak in a low tone of voice, too much volume and they shy away, too far away physically and they begin to forget that I’m in the room, and start to play in their imaginations!
How wonderful
How wonderful early childhood is! I want as an adult to be able to enter the creative imagination more often and engage the world through my senses as a 3 year old does!!! But, children already have this capacity for creativity, it is up to us to not suppress it, or try to train it out of them through scolding or expecting adult behavior from them.
Engage your child
So, engage your child in practice through games and a spirit of imagination and then you will be speaking and acting in their world! Sit close to them while practicing and if you must correct a technique or form do it with them, helping them to physically do the action.
Explanation
One more thing, I’ve been asking my students if they want to know the reasons behind certain techniques or practices and even the older students, 8 out of 10 would rather not talk about the intellectual reasons for a physical motion, of course some children will be interested, but I’ve found that the majority of students trust their parents and their teachers and simply want to play the music without a lot of explanation.
Correct method
This is natural and of course is the correct method to use with children, help them to do something, help them to engage their imaginations with art, and do not worry about the intellectual understanding that we as adults seem to be so caught up in…
With Joy, Peace and Hope,
Ben
p.s. Tomorrow we will be exploring The Mystery of Artistic Motivation
It has been a fun observation of mine that the younger a child is the smaller their bubble of awareness is! “How do you work with such young children?” many people ask me when I tell them that I work with as young as two year olds in classical piano. The simple answer that I’ve been giving to my friends and interested parents is that I simply play Intentional Musical Games with the children and through these they begin to learn the basics of playing the piano.
Creative imagination
What I’ve discovered through my research into playing games with students is that the younger a child is the smaller their physical sensory world is and at the same time the larger their creative imagination world is! So, I’ve taken to engaging with very young children through metaphor, story telling and also tangible sensory games, that involve moving their arms and fingers often large movements to introduce a technique.
Move in closer
Younger children have amazing hearing capabilities and I have found that to communicate with them most effectively I need to move closer to them and speak in a low tone of voice, too much volume and they shy away, too far away physically and they begin to forget that I’m in the room, and start to play in their imaginations!
How wonderful
How wonderful early childhood is! I want as an adult to be able to enter the creative imagination more often and engage the world through my senses as a 3 year old does!!! But, children already have this capacity for creativity, it is up to us to not suppress it, or try to train it out of them through scolding or expecting adult behavior from them.
Engage your child
So, engage your child in practice through games and a spirit of imagination and then you will be speaking and acting in their world! Sit close to them while practicing and if you must correct a technique or form do it with them, helping them to physically do the action.
Explanation
One more thing, I’ve been asking my students if they want to know the reasons behind certain techniques or practices and even the older students, 8 out of 10 would rather not talk about the intellectual reasons for a physical motion, of course some children will be interested, but I’ve found that the majority of students trust their parents and their teachers and simply want to play the music without a lot of explanation.
Correct method
This is natural and of course is the correct method to use with children, help them to do something, help them to engage their imaginations with art, and do not worry about the intellectual understanding that we as adults seem to be so caught up in…
With Joy, Peace and Hope,
Ben
p.s. Tomorrow we will be exploring The Mystery of Artistic Motivation
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Pizza Parties
Childhood memories
As a child I attended an old Presbyterian Church in Tacoma. I can remember that it was next to a K-Mart (now Big K) and that a lot of my friends growing up where there. We would play games after the Sunday school classes and sing songs in the services that were often comforting to me. The evening services and hymns have stayed with me even now after 20 years. There was something that spoke of peace and rest and a certain type of "peace that passes understanding" that I still long for today.
Sunday-school teacher
Like all of the other church kids I attended Sunday school and one of my teachers was Craig, a football player at UPS and an engineer student he was most memorable to me for sporting a long and curly mullet, driving a large pick-up truck, having a cute girlfriend, and engaging with us kids in a way that motivated us.
The Challenge
As a class Craig challenged us to memorize the ten commandments, (I think I can still remember them…) and the carrot that he held out for us was a pizza party at his parents house way out on the peninsula with huge trees to climb, woods to play in games and lots of root beer! We all worked hard to memorize the Decalogue and after a few failed attempts as a group we finally had everyone on the list for the Pizza Party and the rest is history!
Impressed us
We talked about the pizza party before it happened for months and even now it is indelibly marked in my memories as one of my favorites!
Realization
This is a realization that I have had recently: children love Pizza Parties! (or any other type of festive celebration!) After every recital we always have a celebratory party with food and fun, this is a reoccurring marker of celebrating the students efforts.
Some tips for creating celebratory occasions
On a daily basis celebrate the progress verbally with honest and thoughtful praise. Remind your child of their next recital or other performance goal. Link this to the party afterwards and talk about how fun the recitals are!
Festive Markers
As a parent you can set festive markers for your child that help them to stay motivated to progress. Ideas include: planning a Pizza Party with friends after they finish a book, or other major accomplishment.
Caution
If you set a party as a “dream” for your musical child to reach for, you must follow through as planned when they reach their goal for it to be a memorable and positive experience. We don’t want children learning to associate disappointment with musical effort.
Ice cream = fun
My parents would treat our family to ice cream when a musical milestone was reached, that was fun too!
Have fun using your creativity to celebrate your child’s musical progress!
Tomorrow I will be talking about Bubbles of Awareness with children...
With Joy,
Ben
As a child I attended an old Presbyterian Church in Tacoma. I can remember that it was next to a K-Mart (now Big K) and that a lot of my friends growing up where there. We would play games after the Sunday school classes and sing songs in the services that were often comforting to me. The evening services and hymns have stayed with me even now after 20 years. There was something that spoke of peace and rest and a certain type of "peace that passes understanding" that I still long for today.
Sunday-school teacher
Like all of the other church kids I attended Sunday school and one of my teachers was Craig, a football player at UPS and an engineer student he was most memorable to me for sporting a long and curly mullet, driving a large pick-up truck, having a cute girlfriend, and engaging with us kids in a way that motivated us.
The Challenge
As a class Craig challenged us to memorize the ten commandments, (I think I can still remember them…) and the carrot that he held out for us was a pizza party at his parents house way out on the peninsula with huge trees to climb, woods to play in games and lots of root beer! We all worked hard to memorize the Decalogue and after a few failed attempts as a group we finally had everyone on the list for the Pizza Party and the rest is history!
Impressed us
We talked about the pizza party before it happened for months and even now it is indelibly marked in my memories as one of my favorites!
Realization
This is a realization that I have had recently: children love Pizza Parties! (or any other type of festive celebration!) After every recital we always have a celebratory party with food and fun, this is a reoccurring marker of celebrating the students efforts.
Some tips for creating celebratory occasions
On a daily basis celebrate the progress verbally with honest and thoughtful praise. Remind your child of their next recital or other performance goal. Link this to the party afterwards and talk about how fun the recitals are!
Festive Markers
As a parent you can set festive markers for your child that help them to stay motivated to progress. Ideas include: planning a Pizza Party with friends after they finish a book, or other major accomplishment.
Caution
If you set a party as a “dream” for your musical child to reach for, you must follow through as planned when they reach their goal for it to be a memorable and positive experience. We don’t want children learning to associate disappointment with musical effort.
Ice cream = fun
My parents would treat our family to ice cream when a musical milestone was reached, that was fun too!
Have fun using your creativity to celebrate your child’s musical progress!
Tomorrow I will be talking about Bubbles of Awareness with children...
With Joy,
Ben
Monday, January 5, 2009
Scheduling Peace
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could simply tell students the what and the why of musical practice and then trust that they would take care of the rest?
Children do not have this capacity
But as I have observed, most children do not have this capacity for self motivation, self control and self direction in achieving musical goals! In fact if you have a child that has all of these characteristics consistently then “take them to the doctor!” they are not normal healthy children is what Dr. Kataoka used to say to parents.
So how do we help children to develop self motivation and other self directed attributes?
I have been researching this for the past eight years and it is through observing successful parent/child teams and also searching through Suzuki’s philosophy that led me to a few observations that I would like to share:
Scheduling Daily Practice at a consistent time and following through in a peaceful manner is perhaps the greatest key to helping children learn a musical instrument.
Some tips:
The Practice Alarm
some parents use a daily alarm to create a “third party” that controls the start time - that way the child and parent do not have a daily battle of wills to determine when the practice will happen.
Morning Practice is best
I recommend that the practice be in the morning before other tasks and school are begun, that way both child and parent are rested and can focus on the daily assignment before the stresses of the day tire and distract them.
Timing lessons and being fair
Timing lessons and being consistent and fair with the timer will allow that child to build a sense of ownership for the time spent and awareness of the difference between practice time and play time.
Once the issue of a start time is established and a daily alarm (either internal or external) is set and the practice is approached from a peaceful and focused manner by the Parent then children can begin to learn how to improve their music talents. This is a first step for young creatives to learn how to become self motivated as well!
Tomorrow we will be talking about Pizza Party Markers - or How to Develop Long Term Motivation in your Child! See you then, Ben
Children do not have this capacity
But as I have observed, most children do not have this capacity for self motivation, self control and self direction in achieving musical goals! In fact if you have a child that has all of these characteristics consistently then “take them to the doctor!” they are not normal healthy children is what Dr. Kataoka used to say to parents.
So how do we help children to develop self motivation and other self directed attributes?
I have been researching this for the past eight years and it is through observing successful parent/child teams and also searching through Suzuki’s philosophy that led me to a few observations that I would like to share:
Scheduling Daily Practice at a consistent time and following through in a peaceful manner is perhaps the greatest key to helping children learn a musical instrument.
Some tips:
The Practice Alarm
some parents use a daily alarm to create a “third party” that controls the start time - that way the child and parent do not have a daily battle of wills to determine when the practice will happen.
Morning Practice is best
I recommend that the practice be in the morning before other tasks and school are begun, that way both child and parent are rested and can focus on the daily assignment before the stresses of the day tire and distract them.
Timing lessons and being fair
Timing lessons and being consistent and fair with the timer will allow that child to build a sense of ownership for the time spent and awareness of the difference between practice time and play time.
Once the issue of a start time is established and a daily alarm (either internal or external) is set and the practice is approached from a peaceful and focused manner by the Parent then children can begin to learn how to improve their music talents. This is a first step for young creatives to learn how to become self motivated as well!
Tomorrow we will be talking about Pizza Party Markers - or How to Develop Long Term Motivation in your Child! See you then, Ben
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