I’m going to talk to you about something
very exciting today you probably guessed
already it’s music music is the
incredible capacity of our brain to
think in sounds it is also one of our
think about it we have music for just
about any type of emotion you have
joyful music we have sad music we have
music which we like to listen to you
when we want to feel energized motivated
or inspired and we also have music for
moments when we want to relax slow down
or just entertain ourselves but music
also teach us about ourselves and others
helps us explore this inner emotional
being and helps us understand get to
know how other people feel and think
this aspect of music being an incredible
incredibly strong way of showing us and
learning helping us learn about
ourselves and other people for me is the
most important thing about music you can
listen to the Beethoven’s moonlight
sonata for example and enjoy its
incredible beauty but it’s a completely
different experience to sit in front of
the piano and being able to play it
yourself
to look through the composer’s eyes to
see how he takes a simple melody and
transforms it into a powerful statement
to feel each arpeggio or chord
progression with your whole body this is
the ultimate way of getting inside the
brain of a genius and we don’t
necessarily have to be you chose or
performance to do this the intellect of
a genius is felt even in the simplest
works you’ve probably noticed that music
is just about everywhere around us it’s
in the stores in the cars on the TV and
radio and movies sports games every
occasion it’s everywhere one would
probably wonder where all this music
came from well the reason for this is
because so many people before us compose
music and with the time the tradition
expanded and now we have all these music
available but there is one more thing
people used technology to record music
not in the sense of technology we use
nowadays for sound recording no
something’s simpler but even more
powerful it’s a notation the tool which
allowed us to write music on a sheet of
paper and remember it or give it to
someone else so the other person is able
to read it and performant using the
meaning we assign to other notes imagine
before the notation people knew how to
write down the spoken language and to
communicate meaning by different
combinations of letters and words but
sound music they believed was impossible
to write down
the sound vanished the moment our ear
stopped here in it the discovery of
notation changed all that it took over a
thousand years and now we are able to
record music very very imprecise ly at
the beginning but better and better with
the time think about it if we dawn if I
didn’t have notation all the music by
Bach Beethoven Mozart
Tchaikovsky all the great composers
would have been lost they wouldn’t be
able to write it down and we would have
never had a chance to hear it
other uses of technology the invention
of the printing press and the use for
mass producing sheet music the invention
and the engineering of different
instruments very very simple at the
beginning primitive at the beginning
shockingly complicated nowadays what I’m
trying to say with all that is that
technology allowed us humanity to record
our musical creativity to inspire to
influence to copy each other and to
create all these amazing music we have
now available as a violin teacher
however
I would like to ask are we using the
full potential of the technology
available to us nowadays to teach that
amazing music or we just repeat whatever
our teachers taught us back in the day
when we were students and this
there is an unofficial statistics
showing that more than 50% of all the
students who start learning a classical
musical instrument quit in a year or two
and no wonder I would say most of the
music schools and conservatories use the
methods teachers used 100 years ago
students are asked to play tons of
boring exercises and skills just like
this one
[Music]
I’m here to tell you that there is a
more interesting way of playing scales
and I’ll be happy to demonstrate it to
you in a moment
and also the repertoire the repertoire
is strictly classical meaning most of
the time the students don’t understand
the music and cannot relate to it and
especially the beginning it’s very
important that we offer them variety of
approaches variety of exercises games
genres even popular music we tend to
forget that what we now call classical
music was the popular music the pop
music of the sixteen seventeen
eighteenth century
popular music nowadays uses melodies and
patterns which are very repetitive
you’ve probably noticed this and a very
convenient can be used very wisely as
exercises and to teach and explain
technique in my experience as a violin
teacher I’ve experimented several times
with assigning to my students songs
performed by Lindsey Stirling for
example and I’m happy to share with you
my observations first I would never
forget their surprise and the moment
later the joy in their eyes that they’re
going to play a song which they like and
a song which they know very well and
then the motivation with which they
practiced in order to learn something
which was which was not easy but they
felt a very very strong desire to learn
and then the diligence with which they
followed all my notes and remarks and
lastly but most importantly the
confidence they gained after they were
able to perform
the song the piece at the level of their
favorites performer all that proved to
me by a strong belief even at that point
that classical repertoire and popular
music can be studied side-by-side in
short we need to develop we need to
explore developing systems educational
systems which incorporate contemporary
music but let’s say for for kids teenage
world teenagers but not just sheet music
or audio tracks or videos on how to play
a particular song that kind of material
exists everywhere but instead very
well-organized systems which incorporate
contemporary music with gradual
difficulty progression teaching
listening skills teaching music notation
reading skills basics of anatomy for the
body movement for the particular
instrument basics of musical analysis
history theory this will only help
students get familiar with the
instrument much quicker and will prepare
them to approach classical repertoire
with much more a much better
understanding of the nature of music and
better confidence the other aspect which
can be helped so much by technology
students are very very limited in their
time spent with the teacher a usual
lesson duration is between 45 and 60
minutes once or twice a week for that
time the teacher has to explain has to
listen first to everything assigned for
this week than to introduce and explain
the new material give suggestions for
all the challenges the student is facing
this particular week and the limited
time makes the student makes the
sir forces him or her to introduce a lot
of material in very very limited of time
but even after a very successful very
productive lesson the students are left
on their own to practice what was
introduced during the lesson usually
that’s the most challenging tank time
for the student because as we all know
patience is not part big part of the
students psychology so they have to
practice in the slower tempo to be very
disciplined and focus on correct
repetitions almost never happens so my
solution for this our video practice
sessions recorded by the teacher or
other pedagogues who helped the students
practice at home so at the beginning the
first first the student is presented
with the main points of the practice
session then starting at a slow tempo
gradually getting faster constantly
reminded of the most essential elements
of the technique they are working on I’m
sure other teachers will come up with
different ideas but we have to open our
minds and start looking in this
direction the third very important
aspect musical education is still very
expensive and for that reason there is a
large large number of people who cannot
afford it
moreover urban areas big cities with
large conservatories or music schools
are saturated with music instructors
whereas other areas finding a music
teacher is next impossible good
educational systems based on video
lecture for example would help
introducing this incredible thing to
more people and will allow people with
less income or living in less populated
areas to get to know this incredible
treasure we have moreover this kind of
systems would not make any difference of
in race gender age talent and there will
be much less expensive than the
conventional music education finally I
would like to play this for you the same
scale I played before but in a way I
think will be much more appealing to the
student and will make them spend more
time with instrument in advance much
quicker I still wonder why do we make
our students play all that boring
exercises when we have so much amazing
music available special thanks to
composer George stress off for
supporting me in this adventure thank
[Music] [Applause]