Most of us teach, perform and listen to Classical music. Many of us also

teach pop songs or jazz. But do you ever break outside of these walls?

And if you want to teach different types of music, how do you find it?

That's the question we'll unpack in today's show.

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this is the vibrant music teaching podcast.

I'm Nick . And today we're talking about finding music that you don't normally.

welcome back.

Beautiful teachers.

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Today's podcast is inspired by an article which was written by Joanna.

This is called five books to take your piano students around the world.

I'm going to go a little bit broader and talk about seeking out music that you

don't normally hear or don't normally teach, or don't normally play in general.

This is so important for our students, because it helps to make

our studio more representative.

For example, if you have students from different cultures, you want

to represent their music in your studio, to the best of your ability.

Now not everything fits the piano.

So please don't hear that.

I'm saying that all music should be taught equally.

There is more music in the piano cannon from a certain perspective.

That's for sure.

But it doesn't mean we can't explore other music and apply to the piano and learn

about it in a more general music sense.

When we represent our students' culture in our studio, it shows them that we

see them, that we care about where they come from and that what we're teaching

them is relevant to their lives.

It's not just about what we say goes it's, um, a more collaborative process.

It's all of us together, all of music, all of the world.

When we teach more different styles of music.

It also helps our students and us to understand the world

better and take off our blinkers.

We all have them.

Okay.

No matter how diverse you try to be in your musical tastes or how much you

tried to be inclusive of all different musical backgrounds, all that stuff.

I'm trying to do that.

I'm sure you are too, but we all have blind spots.

It's.

The way it is.

We grew up in a certain area.

We listened to certain music.

We took piano lessons or violin lessons growing up.

So we have a different perspective.

And while that's great, we do need to understand the world and understand

all the different perspectives out there to the best of our ability to

see where our students are coming from and to also know where our music comes.

It's all well and good to play some salsa inspired piece by a current

American composer, for example.

But if you don't know the background of salsa, that means less to you.

You don't know anything about the dance, if you've never seen it, if you don't

know anything about the origins of that music, that's a very different thing to.

So I'm not against music that is by composers who are not from the original

tradition, composing it in that style.

I think that's great.

But it's up to us as a performer, as the teacher, as a student, to

look into that and see where did it come from to be curious about it.

And that will broaden our musical knowledge and our musical base so that

we can understand the world better.

Ultimately, I truly believe.

World music or music from ed side of our normal classical European

teaching space can also make the music more irrelevant to our students.

They are not hearing Mozart.

Well, maybe they are hearing a bit of Mozart.

Let me be fair.

They're not hearing Stravinsky Rachmaninoff every day.

So what music are they hearing and where did that come from?

If you're a student listened entirely to video game music?

Well, what's that inspired by if they love music from anime

films, what's that coming from?

What's the tradition behind that?

What inspires that music?

If we start to understand these things and relate them back to our students

so they can understand them too, then music becomes relevant to them.

Part of their lives.

They see themselves as musicians and they see themselves represented in

the music they're learning because if we never see, for example, as a

random example, a female president.

We are less likely to imagine ourselves as women, as a president.

Now, it doesn't mean it's impossible.

It doesn't mean we can't think big and go beyond that, but we're much more likely

to see it as something we could do.

If we see someone else like us, do it.

No matter what category we're talking about, whether we're

talking about gender as I just did, or ethnic background or height.

If we don't see ourselves represented, if we look at basketball and see

all tall people, we don't think that a short person can do that.

And maybe we were right in that case.

But in many areas we could be doing it.

Our students could be doing it, but they still don't see themselves in that role.

So that's a bit.

Why we're doing this now, let's look for the music.

Where do you look for music that you don't normally find?

That's the tricky part, right?

I think you're already on board even before my little introduction.

I think you were probably already on board weren't you,

but you have to find the music.

Not a so hard.

We know where to look for classical pieces collections.

We know where to look even for some pop arrangements and stuff like that.

But if we want to go beyond that, where do we look now in Joanna's

post, she is talking about five books and she goes much beyond that.

I highly recommend you read her full article, but she

does list these five books.

And I'm not going to even list them here because it's the easy answer.

And it's usually the wrong answer.

Those five books would be a great starting point.

Go look up the article, check them out.

But I think we need to break out of that.

I think we need to go beyond looking for books, which is really what

Joanna comes to in the end as well.

If we just rely on looking up the latest publications from our favorite

music publishers and hoping that they come up with more diverse options.

Well, that's one thing and that's great.

And we should support that effort.

And I believe by those books look into.

If they're relevant for our students, don't waste your money.

But if they're relevant for our students, if we think our students might enjoy them,

or we want to play them ourselves for our own development, I think that's wonderful.

And that's a great place to start, but I'm not going to list those five books

here because I think in most cases we need to go outside of publications.

The first step I think you should actually take is to ask your students.

I come back to this again and again, in so many areas, because it's so important.

There's no point you seeking out anime music that I just mentioned.

If you don't have students who watch anime, I do have one right

now who's asked me repeatedly.

And he's being very understanding about the fact that I'm finding it

super hard to find relevant music.

But if you don't have that student.

If none of your students watch those films or some other area, right.

If they don't have that influence in their lives, if it's not relevant to

them, then gay, you could still explore it as a general exploration, but you're

going to do much better with starting with something that is relevant to them.

So.

And then if you get influences back, if you get different things,

like one of them likes anime and the other one loves Cuban music.

Well, great.

Teach that to the student in question and also mix it around your studio because

that immediately becomes more relevant to that student just because they kind of

know someone who likes that music, right.

This was a request of another student.

You met him at a group workshop, or you saw them in this concert, or maybe

they've never met each other, but it still is a direct connection for them.

They can see how someone else around their age, from their

area, from their background likes this and thinks it's relevant.

And that's great.

Now, if you don't have those requests or do you want to go another direction?

Another great way to go is to look at the background of the music.

You do know yourself or that your student is currently learning.

So I mentioned that salsa piece earlier, you could go further than that though.

That's quite direct.

So they're learning yourselves a piece, look up salsa.

I mean, that's a direct connection.

Then you could go back in time and look at where ourselves that

came from, but you can also look at things like, say a jazzy piece.

Let's say it's the blues just for argument's sake.

So it's a blues piece.

Well, where did the blues come?

It came from the most wonderful melting pot.

So unpack that, take some different elements out of it and learn different

things about those components to that background, learn about the

pace and the time where that music originated, where the style originated.

Take one piece and just go deep into it.

Figure out where it came.

You could also just pick a random country and go super deep on that.

I mean, really just like have a globe in your studio and spin it and

wherever your students finger lunch.

That's where you're going, unless it's in an ocean, that's what

always happens in that game.

Right.

But until they lie down to country, they can keep going.

And, this idea just occurred to me on the spot.

Right?

Well, I'm recording this podcast, but I want to globe out.

I think I'm going to go buy one after this episode.

I think that could be super.

And then you explore what the music from that country is like the current

music, the folk music, any different traditions that came from there or

were inspired by music from there.

There's so many directions you could go with that.

So speaking of directions, you could go, what do you do with it?

Once you find this music to listen to at least what do you do?

I think we start by trying to decipher what makes this music, this music.

Now there's going to be some intangible qualities.

Yes.

But really, if you unpack these things, there's some defining characteristics

about that music that makes it sound like it's from there or in that.

So explore the rhythms that are used on pack.

Those, dissect them with your student, do all of this in the

lesson with your student, explore the instruments that are used.

This is huge.

And even explore the incident.

That aren't used.

I think that can be fascinating.

For instance, in Chinese music, I've noticed if you're not familiar, my

husband is Chinese, so I've listened to a bit of Chinese music, including

a lot of pop music from the eighties.

He's an eighties kid.

So a lot of Chinese pop from the.

Or like pop rock kind of stuff.

And I, for ages, I was listening to it when we first started going

out and listen to it in his car and going, why do I not like this?

And it wasn't because it was in Chinese and it wasn't because of

anything else I kept trying to decide.

It just feels empty to me.

Why does this feel so empty?

And then I realized there was no base.

It was lacking in base.

Now more recent Chinese music does include base.

It's much more Western and stuff, but this stuff we were listening

to, there was no pace there.

Just left it out.

Like, what were they doing?

And then you look into folk music, and there's not a lot of bass

instruments in Chinese folk either.

So that's where it comes from.

But to me it felt like, well, this isn't connecting with me.

What is it?

Now?

It could be a little.

In that sense, or it could be something that's missing that actually

makes everything more interesting.

You can also look at the scales, use the harmonies used and those kinds

of things to really try and decide what makes this music, this music.

And then the next steps you can take depend on what defining characteristics

you found and what was most interesting to you and your student

when you were exploring that music.

So figure out the melody by ear.

That might be your go-to as a piano teacher.

But it's often not the best solution for a lot of folk music, a lot

of different backgrounds, because the melody is not the main focus.

So it depends on the music, but maybe you figure out the melody by ear.

Maybe you make a lead sheet out of it.

Maybe they figure out the melody or just the chords and make a chord chart.

Um, if there are words and make that together, construct it together, it

doesn't have to be super precise or.

You know, win any awards or be able to be published.

It's just for you and your student to do together.

Maybe you compose a piece using a similar arrhythmic structure.

If it's this rhythm against that rhythm twos against threes or something much

more complex, you compose something together using that structure.

And yes, it won't sound like it's from that place, but it will be inspired by it.

And it can be a fascinating process to go through and maybe.

Just maybe you can borrow an instrument that's from that culture.

If you do explore, say Chinese music, if you can find someone who

has an actual Chinese instrument, um, a native Chinese instrument,

they're fascinating to explore.

I messed around with some of them, myself.

Or whatever culture you're talking about, whatever instruments you're talking about.

If you can't borrow an instrument, maybe you look up examples of it online,

or you borrow something similar that maybe was derived from that instrument.

Um, like if you teach piano usually, and you're talking about string instruments,

bring in a guitar at least and have them feel what that feels like and talk

about the difference in the instrument that you're actually listening to.

Let's say it's the mandolin.

Well, what's different about that.

How does it work different?

When it comes to exploring music that we don't normally find seeking out music from

different cultures, from different styles.

It is not easy work.

It does matter though, because it's going to make your lessons that much

more relevant to your student's going to make them understand where their

music comes from and why it matters to them in their culture in their time.

So, You can start with books, but I suggest you take the less trodden,

more difficult route whenever you can, and really seek out the

music, listen to it, dissect it, understand what makes it different.

What makes it sound like it is that type of music and then do something with it.

You're one thing this week is to pick a place or a musical.

This could be something based on a student request, but it doesn't

have to be, you can pick at random.

If you like, then what you must do is to do something with it in your

studio, do something, pick out the rhythm, make a lead sheet, compose, do

something with that music, explore it with your students in an active way.

And let me know how you.

I would love to hear from you in the vibrant music studio teachers' group

on Facebook or on Instagram, where at colorful keys, see you next week.

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