What is the point of my business?

As my business develops, I am thinking about how I got started and where I hope to go from here. I started teaching music lessons because those were the skills I had. What would I do if I were starting a career based on the skills I have now?

I am passionate about music, and I'm passionate about education. Of course I'm passionate about music education. But I'm thinking: Why? What is the point?

The ideas I get the most excited about sharing have to do with effectiveness - doing the most with the least. Fixing problems that most people miss. Finding shortcuts that sharpen and strengthen. Uncovering the principles that underlie all effective methods and applying them in innovative ways. This is how I teach, this is how I run my business, this is how I run my life. Classic NT personality type.

However, my job in business is not to scratch my own itch to make things more effective, efficient, and excellent. It is to serve people, and often the most effective way to do that is a principle that contradicts some others:

     Figure out what people want, and help them to get it.

In some cases, I have to help them to figure out what they want. And in some cases, I have to help them to figure out that there is something worth wanting. And in some cases, I have to figure out that what they want is not what they say they want...or not what will help them to achieve their larger goals. It gets confusing and murky in there, but as long as I still have some guiding principles to go by, we're fine.

Here's what I believe:

• Music is a means of self-expression and connection.
• Self-expression is a means of self-development.
• Life is a process of self-development.
• Self-development is discovering and enhancing your ability to be of service in the world.
• Being of service means connecting with others through who you are, what you create, or what you do.
• Connecting with others, whether directly or indirectly, helps them in their own journey of self-development.

What's exciting about music is that it's a direct and immediate connection - that's what makes it so powerful. But sometimes, in the process of developing a musician, we discover that their most authentic means of self-expression is another instrument or another medium entirely. That's okay - that's the point.

So, the point of my business is clear: to encourage and develop self-expression for people of all ages. Our most obvious way of doing that is through music, and that's enough for me right now. But obviously, I love playing with the larger ideas, and I hope that others can find something here relevant to their own work.

The Things We Think But Do Not Say: The Future of Our Business

I'm in the midst of working on a humongous project that is scary and exciting. I'm taking a break to write a blog post, and thereby the blog post will actually become part of the project, and then the post (this post) will become a story about that process (kind of like the Land o' Lakes butter thing). But I'll try not to get too meta - what I really mean is, I just want to be honest. Transparent.

The title of this post is the title of Jerry Maguire's manifesto in the 1996 film of the same name. When I'm writing copy, for a brochure, a website, or any kind of business-related thing I tend to write boring, awkward, hype-y prose that would not be out of place in the newsletter I used to write for my college dorm when I was an R.A., the Cumberland Crier ("We're the coolest dorm in the Stewart Quad because we have all of the freshman ice hockey players living here! [Actually, totally uncool if you're an R.A. - they won the championship that year and raised holy hell when they got home, triumphant, at 2 A.M., and none of us got any sleep]."

Risky business.In other words, I write safe, unremarkable, salesy copy on the first pass. But then, if I have enough caffeine, guts, and time, I have my Jerry Maguire moment - the point at which the real truth of what I want to say starts to emerge. I start to get at the authenticity underneath what is certainly true but would be meaningless if I didn't dig any deeper.

The digging gets much easier the deeper I go. I start to get bold - I start to become me. I start to remember how Eclectic Music came to exist in the first place, and why it's grown, and where we want to go.

The humongous project is that we're opening a new facility, in Ansley Park, and launching new programs starting in January that are a new direction for us: group classes. It's so big that at first I could only list off all the classes - features, not benefits. Dull facts. But now I'm starting to find some life there, uncovering what is special about what we're doing. After weeks of confusion, I have some precious clarity.

Ready.The dream: Eclectic Music will be a place where people of all ages, from infants to adults, can connect with music in a way that is meaningful to them. I want it to be a place where you don't have to be "talented" to participate. I want it to be a place that encourages authenticity, community, and self-expression. A place where there's always something cool going on. A place that doesn't just attract noteworthy people but actually creates them.

In the past, we've had lots of private lessons and performance events, but the thing that has been missing is encouraging people to make music together. It's been too difficult logistically to do more than one-off workshops and jam sessions. But now, these new group classes for kids and adults, plus a preschool program that lets kids play in a musical environment for hours every day, plus the right physical environment, will make that possible.

See what I mean? Jerry Maguire. I can see why there are layers of crap on top of this sunny postcard from the future, and why it has to fight to get out. Sharing this passion, this vision, is scary. People can pick it apart. They can steal my ideas. They can criticize and mock. They can confront me in six months and ask my why it hasn't happened yet. Or worse - they can not care, and our beautiful new home will be an empty, expensive shell.

Writing all this is my way of flicking on the light to make the nightmares flee. If I acknowledge what I'm scared of, I can work through it.

Guts.While this might all seem like navel-gazing, it's really not: I'm the one who has the vision, and I'm the one who has to sell it.

I have some truly wonderful people working alongside me to make the vision come true, but I am the leader: I need my passion to come through so it won't sound like some faceless corporation.

Writing this post has helped me to get some clarity on how to make that happen. I hope it has been worth reading for you - maybe you are thinking about something in your own life that's caked up with fear disguised as boredom. Maybe you have been where I am and have already worked through to the other side.

That real, fearless, human voice is so hard to find. Right now, in this moment, it's here, and it's exhilarating.

Eight reasons your kid needs a new music teacher

There can be obvious indicators when it's time to find someone new to give lessons to your children: the teacher is late or cancels all the time, takes phone calls in the middle of the lesson, raps your kid's knuckles with a ruler, et cetera. I'd like to discuss some less obvious signs that nonetheless point to the fact that things aren't working out.

Sometimes it's more a matter of taste.1. There is no accountability. A professional educator should have a book wherein he or she records the lesson's assignments in detail for either the parent or the student (depending on the student's age). Ideally, there should also be a place for the student to log their practice. A teacher who leaves no trace ends up treating each lesson as a discrete meeting with no thread of continuity, which hinders forward progress.

2. The teacher is not using professional materials. The best teachers have strong relationships with local music stores and are keeping up with the latest books and methods. These teachers understand that costs of $5.95 here or $6.95 there are not unreasonable in the context of the overall investment of music lessons. Furthermore, an experienced teacher has a plan for the student's education that means any individual book will be useful.

An instructor who uses photocopies, outdated method books, or handwritten materials may be thinking small, uncertain of the best direction to take, or reinventing the wheel.

3. The teacher moves straight through each method book, page after page, week after week. This teacher is using a one-size-fits-all approach and is not really present. The student is not gaining independence or skill, since very few students can assimilate new concepts at this rate.

A better teacher will supplement the method books with folk, classical, jazz, and pop repertoire tailored to the student's desires and needs.

4. The teacher asks for a longer lesson. This is a red flag, especially if the request is accompanied by skipping the student from, say, book 1 to book 3 in a given series. Some teachers pinpoint a student as "talented" and then unwittingly set them up to fail by giving them repertoire they are not prepared for, requiring a lesson that's too long for a beginner.

5. The student is not playing rhythms correctly. It can be tedious and difficult to teach a student to count rhythmic patterns on their own, which is why a lot of teachers don't bother.

6. The student has curled-up pinkies, hunched shoulders, or keeps looking at his or her hands when playing. These are signs of tension that scream, "too much, too fast."

7. The student is not practicing. If you, as a parent, are supporting your child's practice and it's not happening, the teacher is perhaps to blame. A student will practice if he has a practice routine and a clear idea of what he is supposed to do during the designated time. If the piece is too difficult, he will balk.

A pro teacher will spend a lot of time during the lesson teaching the student how to practice. Not every detail will transfer to the student's own practice sessions, but specific guidelines are much more inspiring.

8. There is no recital. Recital preparation is "teaching to the test" but in a very healthy way - it shows that the teacher can help the student set and follow through with longer-term goals. If there's no performance opportunity, there is no bigger picture and it's all too easy to lose momentum.

**
All of the eight no-nos above are things I've learned in part through the many transfer students I've taken. I've encountered these teaching mistakes so many times that it now takes me only a few moments to diagnose them with a new student.

Some of these things can be corrected - I've had lots of parents say things like, "He never used to practice but now I don't even have to remind him," or "She doesn't get frustrated the way she used to." However, some students never recover from the lack of momentum created by these failures of instruction, and it's a shame.

In a field where so many adults are intimidated by their lack of knowledge, my goal is to spread the word about the problems I see in a way that is accessible to the layperson. I hope I've done that here.

As a student, teacher, or parent, have you encountered any of these eight reasons to seek a new music teacher? Or others?

Slower is faster (whether swimming or getting shot at)

I believe very strongly that the principles which make you successful in one area can and will apply to other disciplines. This makes teaching music lessons very satisfying, because I'm sharing strategies and habits of mind that are useful beyond the instrument.

One example of a skill that is relevant in every aspect of life is learning to slow down. Slowing down leads you to reconsider saying things you'll regret in an argument. It helps you prevent injury in athletic training. Slowing down reduces your risk of death on the highway. It prevents you from spilling your coffee all over your laptop. You'll also trim the time it takes to learn a new piece of music. Slower is actually faster in the long run.

When practicing music, a slower pace/speed/tempo gives you the mental space to work on technique, expression, fingering, rhythm, and melodic accuracy all at the same time.

The right "slow" is different for everyone and might change day-to-day, regardless of what the metronome or clock says. However, using an external means of marking time can help you to slow down if you use it to pace yourself rather than push yourself.

A brutal rule of thumb: If you're still messing up, you're still going too fast. You'll know when you're going slow enough because you'll feel totally in control of everything your body is doing. It's like that scene in the Matrix where Neo can see the bullets coming at him and thus, avoid them. True slowness is mental, not necessarily physical.

For some people (regardless of age) it takes many failed attempts at a specific task before they are willing or able to dial down the tempo to what is truly comfortable. Heart rate, stress level, room temperature, distractions, and good old ego can get in the way. Slow is a feeling, and it takes practice to go inside yourself and find that quiet, calm place.

I recently took up swimming again after over a decade away from the sport. I'm in pretty good shape from walking and running, but lap swimming is a totally different physical experience. I assumed I wouldn't be very good at it at first, and I was right. But I thought if I took things slowly, I would succeed.

The first time out, at the Piedmont Park pool on Monday, I swam one lap of the crawl and then found myself huffing and puffing at the side of the pool. Another lap, and more huffing and puffing. Another lap, and I was done. I was going slowly in the macro sense - I didn't try to push myself past the point of fatigue, because there's always tomorrow. However, in the micro sense, I was basically sprinting across the pool and didn't know how to slow down.

I consulted my favorite coach, the Internet, and learned why I was having this problem: the crawl is the fastest swim stroke! Paradoxically, if I want to learn to swim faster and better, I cannot do the crawl because it will exhaust me too quickly. I reasoned that working on slower strokes will allow me to build up endurance over the course of a few weeks, and then the crawl will not be as intense.

So, this morning I took the bus to the MLK Natatorium before dawn. I dropped into the water and swam ten laps doing the breaststroke, backstroke, and elementary backstroke. No clinging to the side huffing and puffing - I built the recovery into the swim, and it worked! Twenty minutes of continuous swimming, and, most importantly, enough mental and physical energy left to come back tomorrow and do it again.

Culturally, we are all speeded up: kids in a million activities, quick cuts in advertisements, blah blah blah. Playing music goes against that trend. It takes awhile to learn an instrument, it takes awhile to learn a given piece of music, and it takes awhile to sit in that chair and slow yourself down enough to string two notes together correctly. It is worth it. There are benefits that come from learning to slow down instead of muscling through, and they show up in unexpected places: the track, the pool, an urban roof-top showdown.

Soggy mail

This morning I woke up before the alarm and went for a run before dawn. I checked my email and there were receipts from three families I didn't know, signing up for camp. I felt like a rock star, totally in control of my world.

Guess what? It didn't last. My phone was broken, preventing me from accessing voicemail. The AT&T rep. was great but kept calling when I was in an appointment. I started a project I couldn't finish. I was fifteen minutes late for a lesson because I lost track of time. A kid who was supposed to take a piano lesson refused to, and insisted on drums instead. There was a miscommunication about a teacher's schedule, requiring me to call several families and grovel. An afternoon camp wasn't running so smoothly, the teacher in charge having had little experience working with groups. Oops, I was supposed to make the plan earlier and instead spent the morning fixing my phone. Yikes!

As an entrepreneur, it's easy to get a God complex - you are the go-to person for everything if you don't delegate properly. As a teacher, you can end up in the same place if you aren't cultivating autonomy in your students from the get-go. And as a coach of leaders, you can dole out responsibility but find yourself micromanaging if you haven't shown your team the procedures they will carry out and the standards you expect.

So it's a triple-whammy for me, and today it was hard to reconcile my sense of responsibility with actually being able to keep it all together. The constant interruptions, the dozens of crises, the relentless need to watch the clock...it's all been a big challenge and I made lots of mistakes. I tried to keep the attitude of "it's all a learning experience" but after ten hours or so, I was pretty tired.

I did make it. My last lesson went from 6:30 - 7:00, and it was pleasant - a thirteen-year-old beginning guitar student. About ten minutes in, a woman walks by on the sidewalk, on the phone, dragging a roller suitcase. I watched a magazine and a letter fall out of her back onto the ground. I jumped up and banged on the window, pointing to the stuff that had fallen out. She just looked at me like I was crazy and continued walking and talking.

At this point I had a choice. I could run outside and save her mail, or I could focus on what I was doing - what I was being paid to do. Did this student deserve an interruption? No. My work with the student was my priority. The lesson continued.

Ten minutes later, a surprise rainstorm came up. I watched as the pieces of mail in the street got wet, and then got soaked. Again, I had an opportunity to save this woman's mail - maybe I could have dropped it in a mailbox and it would get to her again - and again, I let the opportunity pass me by in favor of doing my real work, serving this music student.

Tim Ferriss, in The Four-Hour Workweek, says "you must be willing to let small bad things happen" if you ever want to escape meaningless chores and interruptions and spend your time and energy doing what matters to you. This is really hard for me. The buck stops here, and when something goes wrong I feel the need to make it regardless of what I actually have control over, or whether it was even a big deal.

But at the end of the day (literally), it might be okay to just let the soggy mail sit there.

Breaking a habit

Ali, an eight-year-old piano student, was having trouble keeping her wrists level. She kept resting them on the piano case while she was playing, thus creating tension and restricting motion. Every few seconds, I had to either verbally correct her or gently nudge her wrists up.

Because I secretly desire to be a mean piano teacher rapping knuckles with a wooden ruler, I did this:

The tape is sticky-side up, fastened with a piece of folded-up tape on either side.

This turned out to be an immediate, complete solution to Ali's problem. She never touched the tape, and I never had to remind her not to. She simply decided that she didn't want to get stuck to the tape, and reminded herself to keep her wrists up.

Proof that to break a habit, everything you really need is in your own mind.

On not giving people their money's worth, and also benevolent dictators

I think I know where my tendency comes from, as a teacher, to try to fill every moment chock-full with Productive Learning Experiences. When I was a freshman public school teacher, it was fear of the administration, and as a teacher of one-on-one piano and guitar lessons, it's the whole being-paid-by-the-hour thing.

Now, I'm the administrator of my own school, and I have a bunch of preschool kids attending a group "music camp" where the primary purpose is either:

having fun through learning music, or

learning music through having fun.

Whichever way you think of it, it's not appropriate nor effective to try to manage every second of the kids' time.

Instead, it's desirable to create an environment that has a strong framework, and then trust the kids to fill in that framework with their own choices, ideas, and actions.

I know that sounds like a concept you'd find in an education textbook that would never work in the real world. But student-centered learning really does work. I learned about it through Peggy-Jo Wilhelm, my amazing music education professor at the University of Maine.

I discussed in a previous post some of the specific activities and techniques I use with young children. This morning at camp, we incorporated the rhythm cards, resonator bells, and several other activities into our centers, where kids get to move from one activity to another at their leisure. Sometimes you will find three or four kids on one center; sometimes a child moves restlessly from one center to another; sometimes a child spends the entire time on just one activity, mimicking the way I did it and then adapting it into a different, equally valid game. I steal their ideas all the time.

Behavioral issues disappear (no "sitting still" is required). Other behavioral issues crop up, usually related to sharing. It is so fun as a teacher to sit back and witness the kids independently explore rhythm and  melody, sound and pattern. You become a facilitator not a dictator.

Of course, the dictator role is important, too.

"My turn is next!"

"Who's in charge?" I say.

They point to me. It is so important that I be in charge. It is vital that I have enough adult and teenage help so that I don't become frazzled, so I can maintain the benevolence in my benevolent dictatorship. It is crucial that I have the power, so that I can set the pace and foster the culture that allows me to share that power.

So I decide whose turn is next. But once that understanding is in place, we can go beyond turn-taking. I might present a new song, a new instrument, or new idea, and then just wait. Stretch the moment out. I leave little spaces where the kids can chime in, making suggestions, asking questions, relating the new thing to their own life in a way that often seems nonsensical to adults.

In classroom management, one of the first things I learned was to keep a fast pace. Don't allow any downtime, and the kids won't have a chance to get into trouble. Well...yes and no.

As a beginning teacher, a slower pace meant I was looking at my notes, or trying to remember the melody of a song, and generally creating a petri dish for mischief. But I've learned that activities need breathing room. Sometimes I can let the kids see me thinking, deciding. Sometimes I can try something new that I haven't planned out, allowing the kids to lead me. Sometimes we can take a few minutes to rest, singing a quiet song or having a quiet conversation. Doing that with a bunch of five-year-olds is incredible - it is such a different use of their energy.

Looking around Swiedler Hall, you might think the kids are running the show. No - at best it is a federation with the occasional illusion of democracy. And ideally, the ruler does not have to demonstrate her power.

Moments ago, a child of six came into the room, sobbing. Tara to the rescue: "Are you ok? What happened?" He could barely speak, so she went to investigate. She came back and said, "Uh...Smoothie King cleanup on Aisle One." Apparently he had dropped his smoothie all over the rug, and his teenage sister hollered at him.

his afternoon workshop was beginning, but the child was inconsolable. I led him away from the scene of the crime to a cool leather couch in the back room. "Here, this is a comfortable couch. Just relax, and when you're ready, you can join the camp. Here's some Kleenex."

I went back to work, keeping my eye on the boy. His sister came and went. Tara came and went. In the meantime, the kid stretched out and took a twenty-minute nap or so. Presently, he came to, and went of his own accord to join the session in progress.

My mind went to that neurotic place ("His mom is paying for this camp! He shouldn't be napping! Too much downtime!"). But as I continue to detox from all that school- and work-related baggage, I'm uncovering the sweet truth: the joy of leadership is to build the trust that allows the sharing of power, and the joy of sharing the power (i.e., teaching!) is to go beyond time, lesson plans and even subject matter to the core: discovering and celebrating our mutual humanity.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go clean up the remains of what appears to be a strawberry smoothie, and then teach a piano lesson or four. Thanks for reading.

Those who can't do...

Two things kind of stink about teaching music: The first is that when a student fails, it's all my fault, but when a student succeeds, it's because of talent. Bummer.

The second thing that stinks about teaching music is the topic of this post: Spending time helping other people develop their musicianship means I'm not spending my time developing my own. What is the relationship between these two activities?

There are six-year-olds playing way harder stuff on their YouTube channels.

It takes time and focus to get good at something

Gladwell, in Outliers, talks about how research suggests that a person needs ten thousand hours of practice at a skill in order to get good at it. I can tell you that I've easily put 10,000 hours and then some into teaching music lessons. I've probably amassed another 10,000 hours or so on music in general, but since I spent that time listening, singing, songwriting, recording, and playing a few different instruments, I do not have any serious musical chops. Yeah, I can play, but I'm no Jimi Hendrix (or Keith Jarrett, or Bob Dylan, or Paul McCartney, or George Martin for that matter).

The past few years have been particularly painful in this regard, because I'm spending most of my time being the administrator of a school. But to use that as an excuse for not going anywhere as a musician would just be rationalization, so I'm working on a couple goals: playing more music and refining and sharing my teaching methods.

Doing two things is not focus, in case you were wondering

Ugh! Why can't I just have one goal instead of two? That is how you become successful, right? Well, I really do feel like I have to have both in my life. My teaching is at its best when I'm actively pursuing my musicianship (playing in a band, writing songs, performing, etc.) and my playing...well, without the teaching, my playing would really suffer because I'd have to sell my guitar to pay my mortgage. Teaching has always been the foundation of how I make my living; however accidentally I may have landed in this profession, it seems to be what I'm good at.

So if I've been spending a disproportionate amount of time teaching and not playing, at least I've really learned how to do it well. Meanwhile, those of my peers who spent the past decade in grad school and then practicing six hours a day? They are excellent players, and they are not automatically good teachers as a result. In fact, some of the best instrumentalists I've known are also the worst teachers I've known. This is not a coincidence, the same way that it is not a coincidence that I cannot play Fantaisie-Impromptu: There is only so much time in the day. Corollary: We focus on what we're already pretty good at.

Those who can't teach, do

So that old saw, "Those who can't do, teach," has some validity. But! I take issue with its implication that a) teaching is easy; or that b) I have to be able to play like Glenn Gould in order to be qualified to guide a student through their first several years of study on the piano.

I had lunch with Katie Baughman today, and we talked about how our colleague, Jennifer Christie, is such a gifted piano teacher precisely because piano is not her first instrument! This unique perspective gives Jennifer an insight into the mind of the beginner (and people stay beginners for a long time, so this is very important). Also, Jennifer has made the choice to invest in learning how to teach well, since she can't rely on dazzling her prospective students with virtuosic abililties on the piano.

It's funny: every so often, a parent wants the teacher to audition. I absolutely believe that regardless of the specific repertoire a teacher has mastered, he or she should have excellent technique and artistry. But in listening to your teacher play, you might miss the point, which is that being able to play Fantaisie-Impromptu does not mean you have the tools to teach someone else how to do it. Really, they are separate professions.

George Martin was a rock star, too

The performer gets the glory - his work is breathtaking, memorable, inspiring. And great teaching exhibits the same level of elegance, grace, and ease that great playing does. It's less flashy, but just as vital. That student who gets props for his talent? I'll let him take the credit. But I'll also take the warm fuzzy feeling.

What do you think? Is teaching the ugly stepsister of music? Do I sound defensive?

Finding your inner fourteen-year-old

A songwriter who doesn't write songs

Eclectic Music was founded in the Fall of 2001. I moved to Atlanta in January 2002 and hit the ground running, trying to build my business before I ran out of savings. I took a job waiting tables for a little bit, but I was teaching full-time by June, on my own and as a contractor at a couple of schools.

By 2006 I was fully on my own, and then in July 2007 I brought on additional teachers. That's also about the last time I wrote a song. Well, I wrote one last one after the Red Sox won the World Series that fall. But since then, nothin'.

Songwriting has always been a huge part of my life and my identity, and for me to not write even one song for two-and-a-half years is a really big deal. What happened?

It's not like I haven't been feeling creative. But a lot of that creativity (and a lot of my time) has gone into my business. Eclectic Music, as much as I love it, is a lot like an evil vampire baby.

For some people, running a school would be enough. However, I've always believed that my teaching must be balanced by attention to my own musicianship. These days, I feel very strongly that my challenging left-brain work as an administrator must be balanced by joyful, challenging right-brain work as an artist. So, I gotta get back on the musical horse somehow.

Sitting on the end of your bed

Adult students often have trouble building momentum due to a lack of time and a lack of self-confidence. I tell them the same thing I'm telling myself now: you have to put yourself back to age fourteen or fifteen, before you got your driver's license, before you and your friends were up to anything cool, and well before you had a job, bills, and a stupid incessantly buzzing BlackBerry.

"More Guitar" (detail) by Michael McGillImagine sitting on the end of your bed, back at your childhood home, with a guitar in your lap, just playing the hell out of that thing. There you are for hours upon hours, muscling through the physical pain and the lack of any clue what you are doing, with brazen, cocksure determination. "Of course I can do this. Keith Richards/Johnny Ramone/Kurt Cobain/Billie Joe Armstrong/Jack White/Taylor Swift can do this."

Now, sitting on the end of your current bed or piano bench or whatever, put yourself in that same place, even if you only have ten minutes. Find your inner fourteen-year-old, and you will start to silence all the inner noise about how you're too old and you have more important things you should be doing.

If you are fourteen (or younger), you only have to silence your phone and log out of Facebook, and you'll be in the zone.

Immersion

Obviously, this all works better if you give it hours, not minutes. This will not be possible or practical for everyone, but for me right now it's a must. This week I'm on Spring Break, so once I'm in the right place emotionally, I'm going to do what I did in high school and dive in completely: musical immersion.

My goal is to have four three-hour sessions this week. It's okay with me if my songwriting dry spell continues during this period - I just want to build up a little momentum. I want to get back to that place - that delicious, timeless Eden - where music was on my mind constantly and it was all that mattered to me. I feel that way when I hear a great song or play drums with The Omnivores, but it's not often enough to create the momentum to create.

If, each day, I could taste a little more of that freedom and expansiveness offered me by my inner fourteen-year-old, I might have the emotional energy to get through the pile of emails that is no doubt piling up as I write this. Or I might not even bother, and not care, and just go write a song.

"Sweet Little Sixteen, she's got the grown-up blues.
Tight dresses an' lipstick, she's sportin' high-heel shoes.
Oh, but tomorrow mornin' she'll have to change her trend.
And be sweet sixteen an' back in class again."

-Chuck Berry

The worst mistake a music teacher can make

The worst mistake a music teacher can make:

Deciding that a student "just doesn't have it."

"Alas, this poor soul was born without the talent necessary to become a musician. I'll collect my fee, but I really can't do anything with this one."

This is such a depressing idea. If this is where you begin, why even bother being a teacher? And if this is where you end up, you are seriously burned out and should take some time off.

There have been times in my career that I've struggled in finding the best way to reach a student. There have been times when I was frustrated at a student's lack of practice or progress. But instinctively, for self-preservation as much as compassion, I've avoided thoughts that allow me to take myself off the hook and blame the student.

Once you go down this road, it's very difficult to find meaning in the work of teaching. All of a sudden, you're deciding the destiny of a student based on your assessment of ability. You become a judge, rather than a teacher.

This is an incredibly destructive attitude. For many teachers, "None of my students has the dedication and talent I had," becomes a self-satisfied, self-fulfilling prophecy that stunts their own growth as educators and musicians. Obviously, the student herself suffers as well, since she's put her trust in a mentor who doesn't believe in her.

Photo by Erik CharltonIf you are a teacher who is tempted into this thought process, it might already be too late for your student. However, you can work on it. Consider that the student might have a unique learning style that you are not tapping into - for example, he can learn very well by ear and has trouble reading notes. Or he might have certain personal qualities, such as determination or a great attitude, that will make up for a supposed lack of talent.

While it is unfair to blame failure on the teacher and credit accomplishments to the student, neither is it acceptable to blame a student for lack of aptitude and at the same time claiming faultless teaching methods. Focus on yourself and not the student, and do what you can to improve your own work. 

Whatever you observe as weaknesses on the part of the student, figure out how to strengthen their underdeveloped ability by breaking its necessary elements into achievable steps. Many things that people dismiss as innate talent (sense of pitch, sense of rhythm, expression, "feel") can be explicitly, systematically taught by a teacher who is able to calibrate her expectations down to very tiny increments of forward progress.

In acknowledging that anyone can get better at music, you might have to confront some uncomfortable realities about your own talent, accomplishments, and weaknesses. You don't have to be stuck where you are, either.

Somewhere along the line, you might have encountered a judge masquerading as a teacher. It's time to silence that critic, and in so doing, let a more compassionate, creative voice speak up. Instead of, "maybe she just doesn't have it," how about, "I charge myself with the responsibility of awakening this person's musicianship."

Harder, and worth it. If you can't do that, maybe you just don't have what it takes to be a teacher.

Let pressure make you better

Students often get bummed out about their performances, either onstage or just playing for me in their lessons. "But I played it so much better at hooooooome!" I know they did. And the difference between an amateur and a professional is that an amateur's playing suffers slightly with the pressure of performing for another human being, while a professional's playing actually improves.

Your own internal pressure gauge probably has fewer lines on it. Photo by eschipul.I like to quantify things that aren't usually measured in order to make certain ideas less mysterious, so bear with me here. Suppose you play a piece extremely well at home - you get an A. Then, when you perform in front of someone else, you become self-conscious. You are imagining yourself from the other person's perspective, which creates a feedback loop wherein you become self-conscious of your self-consciousness ("What if I mess up? What will she think of me then? Whoops, I just messed up - now what does she think?").

As a result of this discomfort, your "grade" drops down to a B. And if you are playing faster than usual, or you're playing on an unfamiliar instrument, or your bench/bow/footrest isn't adjusted perfectly, or you have physical symptoms of nervousness that interfere with your playing, you might drop down to B-minus or C.

One solution to this problem is to practice your piece until it is an A-plus. That is, work until your Comfort Score is a solid nine out of ten. Then track how long it takes you to reach that score from one practice session to another. Five repetitions? Three repetitions? Can you get a Comfort Score of nine on your first try? Once you can do this, your performance will be less likely to suffer in the presence of an audience.

Statistically speaking, it's possible I was messing up big time right as this photo was being taken.Being more comfortable with your music will not solve the problem entirely. You'll still have to figure out how to deal with the adrenaline flowing through your system. Skilled performers, instead of self-conscious, become self-aware. They use the adrenaline to attain a heightened state of perception, like in that long moment when an outfielder has already anticipated exactly where a pop-up is going and stands waiting patiently for the ball to drop into his glove.

Experienced performers feel the intensity of the audience's presence, but do not second-guess themselves - instead of hoping that they look good, sound good, and don't mess up, they focus on serving the audience well, which makes these musicians authentic and compelling. Doing this sometimes actually leads to weird mess-ups in itself, but not the kind that ruin a performance. Instead, these quirks contribute to the intimacy and immediacy of the moment. 

So how do you get to the point where you can do that? Playing at the A-plus, high Comfort Score level definitely helps - mastery allows you to let go of what your hands are doing. Then, you have to let go of what your thoughts are doing. This, too, takes practice.

Experience will contribute significantly to your ability to exhibit grace under pressure. The more you play in front of people, the more effectively you learn to transform anxiety into electricity. Be compassionate with yourself, and expect that in the beginning you won't play as well under stressful conditions. As a result, gradually, you will.

When not to use momentum

I've talked about the value of momentum, how it allows you to create a positive feedback loop when learning a skill. However, there are times when momentum actually slows you down or interferes with the learning process.

Heavy Lifting

When you tax a muscle beyond its ability, you allow it to grow. When you do it right, this process is so intense that it fills up your entire physical and mental experience. Big results come from this kind of effort.

At the gym, you aDon't be a dumb bell! Slow, deliberate work is most effective. Photo by jerryforlife.lways see dudes putting a ridiculous amount of weight on the barbells and then lifting and lowering as fast as they can. They are letting momentum do the work for them instead of the muscle. A better approach would be to lift far less weight and go as slowly as possible, feeling every sensation on the way up and the way down. This is much harder, and that's why it will pay off.

My piano teacher, John Swiedler, used to tell me, "You should practice so slowly that a listener will not be able to tell what you're playing." Why is this slow playing so important? Because it prevents you from being able to use momentum. This leads to a deeper understanding of the music you are playing. Students always say, "but it's easier to play it faster." Exactly. If it's easy, you're using momentum. We don't want it to be easy. Bwahahahahaha...

"My brain is full."

There's that Far Side cartoon where a student raises his hand in class and asks to be excused, because "my brain is full." Now, part of the punchline is that he has a smaller head than his classmates, but in reality, this feeling happens to those of us with normal-sized brains all the time. It's that feeling you get after staring at a single math problem, crossword, Sudoku puzzle, or highway map for a quarter of an hour with no apparent breakthrough. Believe it or not, very good things are happening in your brain even though it feels like it's melting.

Yes, he has a band-aid, but slow practice won't hurt you.Where this often comes up in music lessons is switching between chords on the piano. One chord is A, the next chord is D. The pianist has to locate the three notes of the A chord, and then find the three notes of the D chord.

Students always rush through this, and sometimes accidentally get the notes right. They are using momentum. Far more difficult (and far more effective) is to slow down and do the mental heavy lifting that this activity requires.

Find each note separately and deliberately. Think out loud. Take note of which fingering will work best, and be consistent. Resist the temptation to rush yourself. Stay completely calm and in control.

It may take you minutes, not seconds, to find the next chord. Paradoxically, however, it is precisely this slow, painstaking process that will allow you to nimbly hop from chord to chord without conscious thought in the near future.

The bonus

You lifted ten pounds instead of your usual forty and you were incredibly sore the next day. Two weeks of this regimen, and you see muscle definition you thought you'd have to lift eighty pounds to get.

You see that same crossword puzzle sitting on the kitchen table the next morning. All of a sudden, three previously inaccessible answers pop out at you ("Aha! Magnum, P.I.! Elk! Spartacus!").

You lay your hands on the instrument, and you play a difficult passage with ease and precision on the first try.

An unexpected bonus often comes along after a period of concentrated effort. There is thus another layer of paradox here: Take the slow, frustrating path, and it ends up being the quickest, smoothest one. Deliberately avoid momentum in the short-term, and you'll end up gaining a lot of it in the long-term.

How do you know if you'll get better?

Times are tough. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with the times - it's me. It's my own private struggle.

Like right now. My business, my school, has been growing at a good clip for the past couple of years, but each phase of growth brings new challenges. There have been so many times when it felt like I couldn't keep going, that it wasn't worth it. Now is one of those times.

In my former studio at Virginia-Highland Church, January 2007Every time I've come to what seemed like a dead end, I decided to keep on pushing through. It's been painful, grueling, exhilarating, and I still can't say whether it's been worth it. I still don't know how it will turn out. I do know that I'm learning a lot, and that every time I think I can't work harder than I'm already working, I discover grimly that it is possible.

This business experience definitely parallels my musical experience. A student recently asked me, "How do I know if I'll improve?" He was working on songwriting. I had told him, "keep writing songs, and eventually you'll write good ones."

"But how can I be sure my songs will actually get better?"

"That's a very good question," I said. "But, I mean, how can you not get better? You're working so hard on this in a focused way. It's inevitable that you'll succeed."

I pointed out to him that by coming to a music lesson each week, he is opening himself up to input from another person. Without that input, his songs might stay the same, but being open to the influence of an outside perspective will allow his work to change and progress.

I do the same in my career - I consult with trusted advisors (of which I'm fortunate to have many), read The Dip and other brilliant books over and over again, and listen a little harder to what my business is telling me. And I keep going.

Be open to the wisdom of others, and keep at it. You can't help but get better, in music and in life.

As for me: I'm going to continue pushing through my discouragement, fear, resentment, and confusion. I'll follow some good advice and visualize a desirable outcome for myself. A better existence is in my crosshairs, and I do have the tools to get there. I'll let you know how it goes.

Chords are colors

Imagine that you are in a room that is illuminated by one strong light. As you are listening to a piece of music, the color of the light changes with every chord change - from blue, to red, to green, back to blue.

In that blue light, everything in the room looks blue, and when the light is red, everything in the room glows red. Everything you see is affected by that color.

Photo by DocklandsboyEverything you hear is affected by the color of the chord as well. Violin, flute, guitar, bass, piano: each instrument that produces a musical tone will obey the laws of harmony and become a part of that chord, reflecting its color just as each visible surface will absorb and reflect color in accordance with the laws of the light spectrum.

Chords are not like colors. Chords are colors. Harmony is color you can hear, and with this understanding you can solve the mystery of what chords you are hearing in a given piece of music.

Although the options may seem limitless, the list of most likely chords in a given song is actually pretty short: They are a family of six, who will often have friends over for dinner.

Based on the seven notes of the major scale, you'll get three major chords and three minor chords. And 80% of the time, you will use the three major chords.

Yes, for all you music theory nerds, there is a diminished chord too, but that's like the end of the onion - you throw it away unless you're making soup stock.

The subtle, muted palette of our Virginia Avenue location is clearly visible here.The diatonic chords (those that are native to the key) are called I (one), ii (two), iii (three), IV (four), V (five) and vi (six). Each chord (and for that matter, each tone of the scale) has a different color that you can train yourself to hear. Their friends (chords borrowed from other keys) have distinctive colors as well.

When people sit down and play a song perfectly on the first try having only heard it a few times, it seems like magic. It's not. Trained musicians recognize the colors of the chords and scale tones they hear and have a command over the physical interface used to produce them (that's, you know, the instrument).

Here are a few ways in which chords are colors:

• They can be described but not defined. You can describe blue as calm, peaceful, cool, but that is completely subjective. Likewise, I can describe the I chord as grounded, settled, and warm but that is a subjective description of an objective reality. Each musician must develop their own experience of each chord.
• They can match or clash. Fluorescent orange really stands out if put in a baby's nursery of lemon, baby blue, and lavender, just as the bVI (flat six) chord sounds jarring amidst the usual I, IV, V, vi. I learned to identify these "borrowed" chords before I learned their normal, diatonic cousins because they stood out so much.
• They can be used strategically to evoke emotion. Combinations of colors can be soothing, patriotic, aggressive, sophisticated, neutral, or romantic, whether visual or aural.
• They can become dated. Avocado, rust orange, and the major seventh chords of Bread and The Bee Gees were all very much at home in the kitchens of the 1970s.
• Variations can be too subtle for the casual observer to detect. To the layperson, it's green; to the designer, it's sage. And that's actually a minor ninth, not a minor seventh.
• They are learned through trial and error. We start learning about color when we learn to talk. It's amazing that toddlers learn so abstract a concept so early in life. However, there is a lot of, "No, this isn't purple. This is green," on the way there. "No, that's not the V chord, that's the IV chord."

As you listen to music to hear the colors created by the chords, don't just listen to your instrument in the mix (for example, the horn section). Remember the room with one light in it, and how everything is affected by the color.

Hearing these colors is not an innate talent that you either have or you don't. Identifying chords by their color is an ability that anyone can develop. I hope this post will help you to better understand the nature of this skill, so you can put it to good use!

Guitar Hero & Rock Band missed a great opportunity

Writing about "Cliffs of Dover" recently made me think about Guitar Hero, and how awesome it could have been. I think it's great that Guitar Hero and Rock Band have gotten kids enthusiastic about music they might not otherwise have been exposed to, but I wish these games actually taught people how to play an instrument instead of a plastic controller.

The thing that makes teaching such an interesting challenge is that you must find the sweet spot where something is challenging enough to keep the student engaged, but not so challenging that it makes you want to give up.

This is what video games do marvelously well, and what makes them so addictive. You have a perfectly graded learning curve, with new information being added all the time in just the right dose.

The technology certainly exists to create a video game that will actually teach you how to play an instrument. While there are games that were created for an educational purpose, none are as perfectly sequenced or on as grand a scale as Guitar Hero.

Imagine a game in which education and entertainment are perfectly blended, with the big budget and classic songs that Guitar Hero and Rock Band have. Imagine the gamers of the world putting those vacant hours every day into learning a real skill. We would have an army of real guitar heroes.

The two different kinds of mistakes

Musicians (particularly music students) sometimes get hung up on mistakes. "You played so well!" "Yeah, but I messed up on that one part."

Especially since so much of the music we hear these days is sanitized and computerized and auto-tuned within in an inch of its life, we lose perspective on our humanity as musicians and hold "no mistakes" as the standard we aspire to.

Wildflowers are neither flaws nor errors. (Photo: Per Ola Wiberg)This standard creates problems in learning and playing, because we're only looking out for wrong notes and lose our connection with musicality and emotion. We aren't in touch with how comfortable we are with a piece, we're only thinking about getting through it for the sake of getting through it. Play, mess up, go back to the beginning, play mess up, go back to the beginning.

What's more, fearing mistakes can create psychological reactance: we are trying so hard not to mess up, that we mess up. This is a negative feedback loop that affects students from beginner to professional.

It is true that a bad habit is difficult to unlearn. There are certain kinds of mistakes that become bad habits. Ironically, these are often created by the very attitude that seeks to avoid any mistakes. Steamrollering a piece of music with unrealistic expectations leads to rushing, tension, frustration, fatigue, all of which foster the type of mistakes that tend to stick. Let's call these errors.

On the other hand, there are mistakes that happen simply because you're a human being striving to accomplish something. These imperfections occur and can be brushed off with no lasting impact. We'll call these flaws.

The following table shows the difference between errors and flaws in several common circumstances:

Situation	Flaw	Error
writing an essay	typo	drawing a conclusion not supported by the facts
public speaking	saying "um"	saying something offensive
driving a car	swerving around debris	speeding through a red light
getting an injury	bumping your shin on the coffee table	hurting your back as a result of weak muscles and poor posture when lifting boxes
eating	a couple extra cookies	eating ice cream when you know you're lactose intolerant
healing	scab	scar

The relationship between each flaw and error is imprecise at best, and one could argue that any mistake is a result of carelessness or excessive speed. But there is a difference, which is that all of the flaws are generally things that could happen at any time, while the problems created by the errors are avoidable or caused by long-term issues. 

In music, flaws show up when you lose yourself in what you're doing, and when a piece of music is unfamiliar. They are superficial, and can mostly be ignored. They are the human element showing up in your otherwise mindful, methodical work. Sometimes they appear when you get tired, and as such can be indicators that it's time to give the instrument a rest.

Errors, on the other hand, flourish in tense situations where there isn't time to think. When you're going too fast, you have no time to exercise good judgment and your work suffers. "I always mess up at this part. I keep trying but I can't get it right." You can bet these ingrained errors, these deeper issues will show up in a performance situation as tension or, inevitably, mistakes.

What to do about it? Slow down, relax, be mindful, and take the music in small sections. Let go of the flaws, and do everything you can to avoid the errors.

Beware the Song Machine

Along with learning things in the same spirit in which they were created, I believe in teaching things the way I learned them (while of course allowing for different learning styles). When working in pop music (i.e., anything that is not classical or jazz), this has some counter-intuitive implications.

Most guitar teachers (and those piano teachers who teach in pop/rock styles) learn the drill pretty quickly: student wants to learn Song X, teacher transcribes Song X after having spent a few minutes working it out by ear. Student goes home, dabbles with Song X, brings in Song Y, and the cycle continues.

Some teachers are especially enthusiastic about creating professional transcriptions for their students. They spend their own time outside of the lesson working out every detail of the recording.

This works - to a point. The student is learning songs. However, the teacher is actually the one learning the instrument. How's that for counter-intuitive?

Randy Pausch, in The Last Lecture, talks about the "head fake," in which students think they are learning one thing but are actually gaining something deeper. In this case, the teacher has set up his own head fake. He thinks he is teaching the student, but in reality, through the process of working out a song by ear, assimilating it, transcribing it, and then teaching it, the teacher is the one who gets the benefit. The student just gets the by-product!

Through the process of working out song after song, the teacher's musical ear gets ever sharper, his transcription skills get quicker, and his facility on the instrument increases. This, my friends, is how you actually learn how to play an instrument: by teaching yourself songs. That's how the teachers themselves learned (and continue to hone their abilities).

Yet, instead of teaching the student how to figure out songs, the teacher functions as the student's Song Machine: bring in a recording and the Song Machine will spit out a transcription, teaching the student nothing but the superficial details of how to play the song. This is the opposite of teaching something the way you learned it.

This whole idea dawned on me when I started getting annoyed at a couple of students who were bringing in songs each week, but never following through by learning them well. I felt taken for granted because they weren't even mastering the songs I was giving them. "I ain't yer Song Machine," I grumbled to myself. "I never had anyone to work out songs for me."

Hey! Wait! That was not a grievance: that was my secret weapon. I'd always been my own Song Machine. And after many years of playing and teaching, it's become a well-oiled machine.

At first, a student doesn't have the skills to work out a song by ear, so we usually start with a few simple songs. But right from the beginning, I'm going to show how those songs were built. As I model the protocol for figuring out a song, I will also explain what I'm doing and why, and get the student doing the heavy lifting as soon as possible. Teach a musician to fish, if you will. 

I hate just being the Song Machine for my students. There's no depth to it. The student gets the song, but the Song Machine gets to keep all the quarters.

Rebuild it the same way it was built

Whenever possible, get inside the head of the writer or the composer of a piece you're working on. How did this song come into the world? Learn it by retracing the steps the artist took to create it in the first place.

Strumming the guitar Try to get it by feel first - I'm sure Bo Diddley never sat down and wrote out a strumming pattern in his life.

Learning a classical piece Imagine Haydn at the piano, transcribing the notes onto the page in small groups. Learn it the same way.

Mastering a specific guitar solo Find the scale shape that makes sense in that key, and play around with it until you find a few licks that match what you're hearing on the recording. You know that Hendrix was also just poking around until he found something he liked.

Figuring out an acoustic pop song Don't forget to use a capo if you've got a lot of chords that aren't available in an open position. Why would the songwriter be playing a bunch of barre chords on an acoustic? If it sounds easy, it should feel easy.

Learning fingerpicking on the guitar, or an intricate repetitive figure on any instrument Except for classical music, don't worry about making it identical to the recording - just get the gist of it. If the person who played the part on the record was being loose and spontaneous, you should be, too. Forget about the twenty pages of minute variations and just play.

Combining sections of a pop song Put the record on really loud and play along with it. Don't ask me "how many strums until..." Listen to the record, play along with the record, listen to the record, play along with the record, ad nauseum. The person who wrote it had to play it repeatedly to get the right feel.

Finding the groove of a song on the piano Tap it out on your legs, as though drumming, to get the relationship between the hands. Rock piano is very percussive.

Assimilating a rapid passage Play a few notes at a time in short bursts. You can't play the whole thing that fast yet, but right from the start you're teaching your fingers how it's going to feel when you do.

While you might not be able to follow this path all the way to the end, your playing will be stylistically appropriate even in the early stages of study on a given piece. In other words, it will sound like you understand the music.

To leap across a chasm in several systematic steps

When I was a kid, we had to do the President's Challenge for physical fitness. I failed every time, because I could not do a pull-up. Every year, I would watch the little monkeys in my class who could do a bunch in a row, and then I would get up there and struggle mightily while the P.E. teacher would say something like, "I think you did...one-quarter..." and make a note on my sheet.

I wished to avoid this humiliating display in the future, but I had no idea how. Every so often, I would go out to my swingset int the backyard and hang until my shoulders felt like they were going to pull out of their sockets, but I never could do a single pull-up.

I think of this when I have a student who requests to learn a piece well beyond their ability level. I think an exciting, challenging piece can be a great motivator, but there is a point where a piece can be so difficult it is truly inaccessible for the time being. The student will try and try, like I did with my hopeless backyard strength training, and get no return.

What's the alternative? Systematically breaking it down (yes, sorry, sometimes you have to be a geek if you want to do a thing well). Unfortunately, when I was a kid we did not have the Internet, but if we had, I would have been able to research pull-ups to learn how to do them, including ways to make them easier. I could learn about the muscles used in pull-ups, and create a plan for building strength in those muscles. I might also acknowledge that overall upper body weakness is an issue for me, and create a complete plan for strength training with the help of a personal trainer.

Maybe, after six months of focused, targeted, and carefully sequenced training I would do a pull-up on the first try. From there, I would finally build up the number of reps I could do in a row.

By contrast, I could take those same six months and spend a few minutes every day trying to do a pull-up to no avail. I strongly doubt I would be able to do a pull-up after six months of that, for two reasons: One, I wouldn't even get to the point where the correct muscles were supporting my body weight; and two, I would probably get bored and frustrated and quit three days into it.

So, back to the musical example. Usually, students have great intuition about which pieces are right for them to learn. But occasionally, not. "I want to learn 'Cliffs of Dover' because it's my favorite song on Guitar Hero." Okay, fine. Go ahead and download the bazillion-page tab and set about learning it. Learn a tiny lick every day. If you don't go mad in frustration within the first ten minutes, after six months you might be able to play the whole thing (if I painstakingly show you how to play every note that you can't figure out on your own).

On the other hand, you could spend those same six months learning fifty easier songs that use similar skills and a similar vocabulary. You can build fluency, speed, and technique while improving your musical ear and your reading skills.

After six months have passed, you may well be able to pick up most of "Cliffs of Dover" by yourself in just a week or two. You might not even need the tab for very much of it, because your fingers will "hear" different parts of the song and automatically go where they belong as a result of playing so much. Because in the process, you learned fifty other songs. You learned how to play the guitar, not just "Cliffs of Dover."

They say you must leap across a chasm in a single, dramatic, all-in move. Or you could go to school, become a civil engineer, and design a bridge that will enable you to easily walk across. The first way only works if it works, and most of the time it doesn't. The second way is built to work every time. Not as daring, but you'll get there in the end.

Where are you attempting with no visible progress? Is there an intermediate benchmark you could be striving for, or a more systematic way to achieve your goal?

"So what did you use computers for?"

Andrew, fourteen, did an amazing job learning the guitar solo to "Let it Be". Armed with a fairly accurate tab acquired on the web, he went home and practiced effectively and thoroughly. He told me he broke the 'back' button on his iPod remote from scrubbing backward so much to listen to small sections of the solo repeatedly.

"Good job," I said. "You did it right, then!"

We explored some other solos he could learn, since he's on a roll. "'Maybe I'm Amazed' would be good."

"Ok, should I get the tab online?"

"Well, it's better than nothing. If it's wrong, we can fix it. God knows I've had enough practice doing that."

"So what did you do to learn a song when you were a kid? Did you just download the tabs?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "It pains me greatly to say this," I said. "But you see, we did not have the Internet when I was a kid."

Andrew stared, amused and flabbergasted. "That sucks. So...what did you use computers for?"

"You know, word processing, spreadsheets, accounting..."

"So did you have Word?"

"I think by the early nineties. But I remember a time before Windows. We had," I paused. "DOS."

His eyes widened.

"Black screen, C-prompt, blinking cursor," I went on. "You had to talk to the computer in its own language. No photos, no movies, no music..."

"That sucks!"

"No mouse."

"No mouse?!"

"Well, it wasn't all bad. We also had ATARI 2600 - joystick, single orange button..."

"Wait - are you talking about a GAME CONSOLE?"

I had to laugh. I'm not so old, it's just that things have changed so fast.

"So anyway, there was no online tab. And if you wanted the lyrics, you had to figure them out by listening." And pausing your cassette to write them down.

"That sucks!"

Maybe. But kind of special to be among the very last generation of American teenagers who had to do things the hard way. Of course, even that is relative since I am also among the first generation who can't remember life before computers.

Ironically, Andrew's learning the same songs now that I did back then. The good news is, the songs haven't aged a bit.