There are three fields of study which will shape my teaching career.

Zen. Fine art. And technology.

Suzuki and Technology

We know that Shinichi Suzuki was an avid user of technology– even working closely with Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka. You could even speculate that technology is the reason the method is sucessful.

Technology was used to bathe students in reference recordings. Technology enabled the first recordings of young Japanese children to make it to America. Technology enabled students to send their graduation recitals to Suzuki and receive written feedback from him. Suzuki’s embrace of technology is what made the method possible.

But I see a limited embrace of technology in our community today.

Sure a few people have podcasts, and a handful make videos, and some teacher training has (finally) been adapted to online training. But we could do so much more.

Today I’m going to spend a little bit of time discussing my commitment to data collection, how I do it in 2022, and how I hope to do it in the future.

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I’ve gotten a lot more practice in the past year running graduation recitals in our studio. We’ve had three since summer!

I’m going to share our process for preparing a recital.

Setting Expectations

Students at Ithaca Talent Education know graduation recitals will happen. They get invited to them. They see them on the calendar. They ask me questions about the recitals.

I include a special note on recitals in our studio handbook that I’ll share below. It is important to me that I highlight the recital as both a celebration and a learning experience.

Occasionally students and parents will think of this as an optional add on. I completely disagree. The recital is one of their few experiences of presenting a solo program and performing more than one piece at a time.

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‘Mental model’ is a mental model.

Invert, always invert.

Paradox. Go left and right at the same time. Never get caught in the middle.

Not a binary, a spectrum.

Consistently good, not occasionally great.

Infinite game. You will win if you keep playing.

Leverage.

Morality imitates wisdom.

I don’t need you to say yes, I just need you to decide. In order to decide you need to be empowered to decide.

Knowledge + 10,000 repetitions = skill.

Advanced means doing simple at scale. Extraordinary people do ordinary things for a long time.

Returns always diminish. Being the best does have disproportionate advantage. One point lesson.

Collect failure, not success.

‘Best’ is a false construct. There isn’t one game. There isn’t one GOAT. Time keeps going.

Sleep.

The child’s only work in learning to play violin is to stay present to the process. To participate in practice and learn as best as they are able.

The parent holds many more responsibilities to facilitate the child’s learning.

• Communicate with the teacher
• Practice daily with the child
• Cultivate a rich musical environment
• Help the child process difficult challenges
• Take careful notes in the lesson so expectations can be reproduced at home

It is easy to see that even if a child could do all of these things, it would be difficult for them to do so. We spend years cultivating a mature student’s ability to practice on their own. And even then, parents are often still managing scheduling and comforting them in times of strife.

The cognitive load of being a student is very different than the cognitive load of being a parent of a student. And that is for good reason.

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I draw great inspiration from watching people work– especially in the knowledge sector.

We know what practicing the violin looks like. But it is hard to come by authors, comedians, and creatives not just discussing their process but documenting it.

We were lucky enough to get two beautiful process videos this year that allow us to peak behind the scenes. One from Hasan Minhaj and one from Ryan Holiday.

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My partner and I were married in Ithaca on July 17, 2022.

There is one deep lesson we learned from our wedding which will impact me the rest of my life.

Guests are looking for ways to feel comfortable, have a good time, and support you. Whatever you lean into fully, without hesitation, and decide is important, guests will follow your lead in and lean into as well.

You unhindered expression of what is important to you is what allows guest to feel comfortable following you.

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I’ve taken on a few transfer students who don’t have familiarity with their note names.

I want to share some ideas about how to quickly and effectively teach note names in a fun way.

Goals

Fluency and speed. There are many cute ways to learn note names, but I’ve picked the fastest ones.

Motivation

Some teachers question the need to know how to identify notes. Or they think that step comes later. I believe strongly that since music systems are built around keys, scales, and relationships between notes, students need to be familiar with those letter names.

If your student only knows finger numbers, associations like key centers and intervals like octaves will not make sense. 

The further you go in the book, the more challenging it is to process and remember a string of numbers like 3-1-3-2-0-1-2-3-3. How do you even know which fingers go on which string? But it is simple to teach that sequence as an elaboration on a G arpeggio and then jumping back down the octave. Knowing note names actually simplifies your musical thinking.

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I can get overwhelmed when I consider the number of ways I could go about being a ‘better’ teacher.

I could…

• take more teacher training
• study body mechanics
• study violin acoustics
• dive further into child psychology
• collaborate with other teachers
• deliberately practice teaching strategies
• build out my personal matrix
• build up an archive of teaching videos online
• overhaul the method to be more inclusive and adaptable to 21st century needs.

At any given moment I can spout of dozens of urgent, long term projects that need to be worked on. In fact, I even made an aspirational blog post of things I wish existed but don’t yet.

I find it really helpful, though, to step back. Instead of being overwhelmed could be done, I ask myself what needs to be done. Today.

Because I’m so wrapped up in violin already, and have been for 25 years, it is really helpful for me to reframe through the lens of someone like a tennis coach.

If I put myself in the frame of a parent seeking out tennis lessons for their novice child, I would just want a few basics.

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At the end of the 2021-22 school year I released what I call my ‘Transparency Report.’

The report included metrics, an income report, continuing education, completed projects, and future projects.

I was inspired to do this for two reasons. One specific and one more general.

RADICAL TRANSPARENCY AT BRIDGEWATER

The first was reading Ray Dalio’s book Principles. He made clear the degree to which radical truth and radical transparency has shaped the culture at Bridgewater and allows their teams to work at such a high level. Even the book Principles, itself, in which he shares the entire framework with which Bridgewater has been built and Dalio lives his life, is a testament to that truth and transparency.

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We acknowledge the value of the long climb. The value of the 15 years of work together. The student, the teacher the parent.

But what of the opposite?

The one time lesson. The one time master-class. The substitute. The trade. The trial.

In the summer of 2022 I had more one-time experiences than I’d ever had before. I led one-time play-ins at the Ithaca Institute. I offered one-time lessons to traveling teachers at Ithaca Talent Education. I traded one-time lessons with another teacher.

It struck me after this experience, in conversation with some delighted students and their families, just how nourishing these one time lessons can be.

Why do they feel so nourishing?

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