All Soft Mozart Discussion

[SoftMozart]

English translation of Hellene Hiner's speech in Herzen State Pedagogical University (St. Petersburg, Russia). March 26,2014

1.
One of the paradoxes in this world is that it’s difficult to state ideas in a simple way; it actually takes much less time to make things complicated. Let me give you an example.

In the USA and other countries people call me Hellene Hiner. This name is easy to spell and pronounce in different languages. The Russian version of my name is Yelena.

My name is spelled differently for Russian and English communities for a reason. I try to use common sense in everything and did when I developed my invention – “Soft Mozart” system. Let’s think together, using common sense: if I insisted on calling myself Yelena in the USA, the people that I meet would have to spend unnecessary time and effort learning how to pronounce it. In the English language, the phoneme “le” exists as “lie” or “lio.” People speaking with me would try to pronounce my name as Yeliena or Yeliana. Much too complicated if we really just want to have a conversation! I am perfectly happy to be Hellene for my American friends and audiences.

Changing the spelling of my name doesn’t damage the essence of who I am. Whenever we simplify ideas, it is important to realize when the new version helps us to understand the idea and when a version has been simplified so much that it harms the very essence of the idea trying to be expressed.
While I was working on the “Soft Mozart” system, I set a goal to find the simplest way to state the ideas without damaging any important concepts in the system of music education. Now that the system is being used around the world, I can proudly assure you that I reached that goal. As our seminar progresses, you will see that this is true.

Today we are here with you to discuss the most important topic of modern education – the use of computer technology in music education. For many professors of music in colleges and universities as well as for many traditional music teachers, the combination of words, music, and computers is associated with artificial, squeaky, and crippled inanimate electrical sounds. I have been there, thought that and passed that stage. I hope you will, too. Let’s try together to rethink it.

The words “computer” and “digital” are usually perceived as referring to something dry, abstract, unemotional. These words apply straight to the left hemisphere of our brains. Isn’t it much the same challenge as the name “Yelena” for the English-speaking community? Let’s try to overcome our fears and obstacles and see what we can actually gain if we focus on the essence of the phenomenon and avoid the “naming” part of it.

Think about what has happened in technology over the past two decades: while many of us were all going about our non-computer lives, our competitors – hustlers of the big corporations – managed to get ahead of us.

They were finding ways to use computer technology to get our children to spend much of their “quality time” playing violent and useless computer games. They, and not we, carefully studied the psychology of our children’s perceptions, children of the 21st century. In fact at this point, they, not we, are the rulers of our youth. My company’s goal today is to treat this problem very seriously. Our strategy is to take all the knowledge that has been collected by advertising firms and designers of addictive computer games and use it for raising our children, for educating them about important, useful and eternal values. How we all can make it happen? I will tell you later in this presentation.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/DIH9npACNUw&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/DIH9npACNUw&rel=1</a>

To be continued...

[SoftMozart]

English translation of Hellene Hiner's speech in Herzen State Pedagogical University (St. Petersburg, Russia). March 26,2014
Part 2.

What is a “computer” from the educational point of view?  It is an interactive way to communicate with a program or with a person by a code.  Computer technologies today are a very powerful educational resource.  Not long ago, it took a lot of labor to find any research about any piece of literature.  Now such information can be retrieved with the click of a mouse. 

With the help of the Internet, we can easily exchange our ideas with people from any country and any part of our planet.  Knowledge and skills begin to spread instantly–and this is outstanding!  But we don’t use all the potential of digital tools in education today; we can use more interactive learning, graphics, and audio capability for the creation, development and mastery of music skills that we can apply to our academic practice every day.



I would like to offer an unexpected analogy:  Leopold Mozart, while teaching his own children music, interacted with them and was available, knowledgeable, and capable of correcting mistakes.  He could show them “how it should be” by playing for them, estimating all the errors made and helping fix each and every one of them.

Today, all this valuable feedback can be delivered by the computer program “Soft Way to Mozart.”  The best news is that this program will never lose its temper or punish the child for repeating any errors.  Does our music education need it?  I think we will all find the answer to this question later in this seminar. 

I often hear the question: “Do we really need so many mozarts”?  Many are afraid that my computer system will promote a disregard for music professionals and will cause piano teachers to be replaced by computers.  This is not true!  We always need talented people. Music helps develop human brains, and piano playing especially contributes to such development.  We also always need talented listeners with well-developed minds for music.  Nothing builds musical aptitude better than the personal hands-on experience of playing a musical instrument. 

If reading music text and playing the piano becomes popular across the country, many gifted students will start to shine.  These students will continue to study and will need performance venues as well as professional teachers to help direct their programs of study.  Music studios, philharmonic concert halls and opera houses not only won’t be closed–they will thrive without the help of any subsidies.

Professionals, who would then be needed for polishing the skills created by the software, would have more time to hone their students’ skills and guide their professional training in the right direction.  Instead of listening to repeated, tedious drills, these teachers will be able to follow their mission more precisely–they will be able to focus on developing each student’s creative personality.

To understand how we can build our children’s interest in music education, I would like to draw your attention to a very important phenomenon that was given to all of us by nature and that is very widely exploited by producers of violent computer games:

Cognitive Demand.

This is a basic demand of each human being.  We are explorers by nature, but in the process of exploring, we are very careful when we take our first steps into new places; we begin walking by taking baby steps, checking whether or not it is safe, scouting before making one step at a time.  This scouting is what I call the “cognitive request.” 

The essence of such a request is “Is it the right move, and if not, what should I do to fix it?” 

Receiving immediate feedback after such a request gives a person a feeling of safety and confidence, motivating him or her to move on more eagerly.  Because we are all accustomed to the instant answers offered by computers, today the speed of the feedback to such requests is quite critical. 

To be continued...

[SoftMozart]

Part 3.

This cognitive request is pushing us to communicate online. When we share our thoughts, information or comments, we expect an immediate reaction from our surroundings.   Facebook ingeniously uses this very idea by adding a simple LIKE button for all users.  Apparently such a simple decision has become very popular among the millions of people that receive immediate answers to every posting on Facebook (their cognitive requests).


Interaction is the very foundation of giving immediate satisfaction for our cognitive questions.  So a cognitive request is a thirst for information from a motivated mind.

This exact engine that was given us by Nature is now being exploited by “Big Bosses” in their businesses as a hook that catches our children’s interest for hours and hours every day.

Why do people today spend all their time playing computer or video games, mastering absolutely useless skills by pushing a couple of buttons, yet they couldn’t care less about playing musical instruments, where they could combine business and pleasure?  That’s easy!  Simply because the video/computer games IMMEDIATELY answer all of their cognitive requests while we music educators keep teaching using the “good old ways” that were used to teach us, when we sat waiting for lessons or letters and answers to our questions for weeks, months or sometimes years.

Let’s not blame the new generation for this attitude, suggesting that they are spoiled by the digital age and video games. We ourselves, each of us, are not any exception: if we don’t receive immediate satisfaction of our own cognitive requests, we easily get frustrated and lose interest in any new activity or new knowledge.  Thus, without the precise answer to our questions, such as “Am I making the correct move?” or “What do I do to fix my mistake?” our consciousness has the tendency to fall into a stage similar to a frozen computer screen. 

Mature people have some experience at being patient, of having the will and the guts to solve some problems on their own.  Amazing as it may sound, we actually grew up with no mobile phones, text messages, Skype or emails.   We got used to having to wait, be patient and meditate. 

But this new generation of the 21st century does not want to wait—on anything!  People expect to find out instantly whether or not they are able to perform a piece of music whenever they like. 

Considering that cognitive necessities are basic for a student as well as the fact that the exchange rate of information has increased greatly, we face an urgent need to reassess our kids' education.  Old methods barely work nowadays, and when we ignore technology, we teachers quickly lose our credibility among children and youth.

Children’s passion for music and a desire to play instruments on their own not only stayed around but also grew up.  Remember the popular worldwide fad of such toys as Guitar Hero or Garage Band, for instance?  Millions of users keep purchasing those applications. But are you aware that Guitar Hero does not actually teach a person to play a real guitar? Or to read a music score? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yEjyuw42YY

Still our kids waste hours and hours improving their skills at performing on an artificial instrument made particularly for this or that game. It turns out that musically illiterate corporations nowadays coach our children to perform in droves while we, the high-ranking professionals, are pushed aside. That is a pretty grave warning for us teachers and methodologists.

[SoftMozart]

Part 4

Right now, we must interrupt this process in order to teach our children to play Mozart and Bach on real keyboards following the real scores. The method that can help us achieve that goal is the point of today's seminar.

Motivation . . .

One of the most important issues in music studies is a lack of motivation to study long and hard.  One of the reasons that cause such a problem is the lack of immediate satisfaction of cognitive demands.

We can talk as much as we want about the benefits of music studies, but the absence of actual achievement will be what determines whether or not a person stays motivated to learn.

We grossly overestimate the role of a precious piece of music that a person learns to play in a desire to get a music education. Let me provide a brief example.  Before the extensive use of Alphabet Book (Russian: Azbuka) with illustrations, as far back as the late 19th  to the early 20th  centuries, Lev Tolstoy set up a hypothesis that an engaging colorful story might be enough motivation for students to overcome their problems with reading.  In 1872, he created Azbuka with short entertaining stories for kids. 

It didn’t work.  This approach neither invoked any significant response in education nor eliminated illiteracy.  The absence of immediate cognitive satisfaction was the missing link in Tolstoy's Azbuka. The long-term objective (to read the story and understand its flavor) seemed too distant, and being unable to fulfill a student’s cognitive demands was too severe.

The use of pictures beside some abstract figures (the letters of the alphabet) solved the problem of pronunciation and memorization. 

Methods like this looked quite primitive and perilous.   It is hard to believe, but at the beginning of 20th century lots of teachers and methodologists flatly contested the use of pictures in alphabet studies. 

In the opinion of the former, such an approach would have only spoiled our children, and they would never learn to read regular texts.

These hesitant teachers did not take into account the phenomenon of our cognitive needs, which shows that by receiving instant responses to our cognitive requests, we rapidly move on, constructing new grounds for new cognitive needs, and our requests become involved in an infinite process.

Moreover, the more we are confident in a particular area, the more boldly and emphatically we strive to improve our skills.

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That is exactly the feature used by Big Bosses to hook our kids and make them strive for more and more complex levels of useless games. These game designers utilize a person's deep cognitive mechanics for solving futile, sometimes even dangerous tasks.

We can change the stream and substitute the excitement of collecting virtual treasures for collecting true ones. Following my program, kids become enthralled with learning musical compositions; they compete with each other in hitting a higher quantity and level of performance while lowering their number of mistakes.

Unlike our competitors, we do not feel it necessary to invent fantastic, spurious spaces. The art of music is an inexhaustible source of true treasures that can spiritually enrich every human being.

[SoftMozart]

Part 5.

“Soft Way to Mozart” is a Traditional and Approved Approach in Education.

Many music teachers call my method new and unique. That is not quite true. Once you have dug into the core of the program, you will discover that the approach actually consists of existing methods: I made the staff ABC-like and interactive; then I developed gradual modifications of musical scores according to the growth of a child’s ability to process abstract information.

I balanced this process with concrete hints.  That is how kids are led from the ABC’s to picture books, from illustrated books to stories and novels and much further.  And that’s how “Soft Way to Mozart” leads them through the process of learning to read and play music.

“Soft Way to Mozart” is an Elementary and Interactive Staff.

In the scope of youth education, it is a common practice to alter the visual presentation of text to make it easier for people of different ages and experiences to understand.  I made “Soft Way to Mozart” the same.

Following the principle of an illustrated ABC book, I picked out an abstract unit—a note—and interpreted it through specific images. For instance, each note embraces the following parameters:

-   the name of the note;
-   its location (on or between the staff lines);
-   its location on the staff (the sequence number of the line or space between the lines);
-   its duration;

As in an ABC book, I put the name of the note right inside the note's round mark.  Notes that are on and between the staff lines were painted with two contrasting colors. I turned the staff to a vertical instead of horizontal position and accented its symmetry with a color code.


I also showed the duration of each note by using animation and computer technologies.

In this coordinate system, the staff with its clefs going up, together with the keys going up, appeared to be a single unit.  Note C of the 1st octave became a kind of pole, the origin of this musical thermometer for the coordinates of each note. 

Colors and pictures helped me emphasize the individual features of each note’s sign.  Later, I was surprised to learn that the approach to the color spectrum and images used in my system is already approved in educational practices around the world.

So, pictures containing solfege names of notes (“do” for “door” or house, “re” for “rain” or mi to 'mirror') are borrowed from the ABC book.

The choice of the color red to represent notes on the staff lines and the use of the color blue to represent notes between the lines follows the Guidonian hand, whereby fingers are seen as lines and spaces between them–as air.

For the music staff, I used two non-contrasting but complementary colors: brown and green. These are colors we see in nature; the colors of a tree, whereby the transition from trunk to crown mirrors the gradual transition of the scale from low to high. 

As you can see, there was nothing accidental about my choices in presenting abstract concepts through concrete forms–and there are no concepts that were not originally embedded within the music system.

As expected, these proven approaches of transforming abstract concepts into concrete ones greatly helped us offer immediate satisfaction of some of the cognitive needs of students, specifically, the ability to name a note and locate it on the keyboard.

However, the particular qualities of musical language (as distinct from spoken or written language) presented me with the need to solve more complex problems.

It turned out that these problems could not be solved by graphics alone.

Modern music technology proved to be the best tool for tackling such problems. With the help of technology, I was able to effectively establish a process of understanding the musical text.

This digital approach helped me develop a system that is based on immediately satisfying almost all of the cognitive needs of students. Now, when parents and teachers from many countries tell me that it is difficult to pull children away from “Soft Way to Mozart” piano lessons, it confirms my belief that this is the precise direction in which we should all move and work to further expand the popularity of playing the piano.

To be continued...

[SoftMozart]

Part 6.

There is a difference between sight reading music and reading text, in terms of the immediate gratification of cognitive requests.

What is the difference? 

Musical language is an abstraction of the highest order.  Reading literacy is based on specific words that define specific images.

When learning to read, a beginner can rely on his own speech. He can also get help from his environment, which will help determine the error and immediately suggest how to fix it.

When reading music, with rare exceptions, a student has no realistic opportunity to get immediate answers to the cognitive questions.  For many beginners, the biggest challenge is the need to deal with musical text all by themselves, with no one around to answer questions. 

It is then that a digital piano or a synthesizer, connected to a computer, becomes an effective training device, an indispensable tool for the formation, development and improvement of sight reading skills; the development of hearing and aural skills; the development of fine motor skills; the coordination of both hands; the ability to learn pieces by memory; and the ability to succeed at many other simple and complex activities.

The problems of visual perception of sheet music, as the main obstacle to teaching musical literacy.

Is it possible to learn to play tennis on roller skates?

It so happened that the musical notation, conceived by Guido of Arezzo as a visual aid to help choristers visualize the movement of a monophonic melody, ceased to be legible with the development of polyphony.

The point of optimal perception.


When reading sheet music, a student faces the first stumbling block in the physiological structure of the human eye.  The eyeball is in constant motion, and even when we fix our gaze on an object, it only seems that the image is stable. The image is stabilized by our consciousness.  Once signals or impulses come into the visual cortex of the brain, they are processed and linked to each other by means of visual memory.

In order for an object to draw attention, be seen, reviewed and analyzed, it is necessary that the person can quickly identify the object, isolate it from the general influx of visual information, and fix it in his memory as a stable image.

In this way, we teach our newborn to first see big, colorful toys. We use rattles to help the child isolate objects not only by their bright colors, but also by their sound effects. Gradually the toys become smaller and more detailed.

We also consciously increase the letters of the alphabet, making them three-dimensional and tangible. Using blocks, a child can not only see but also touch these letters, hear how they sound, and even try to taste them!

When we begin to teach our children to read, we are again faced with the fact that combining letters into words requires education and training.  An equally important step in learning to read is learning to read along a line.  In early children's books, we see large fonts, a small number of lines per page, and large pictures to help children understand the meaning of what they are reading through the help of specific images.

That is why all of the written languages on this planet are linear.

The optimal point of perception of an object occurs when the individual not only “captures” the visual object, but also manages to see and explore its features. Every person draws upon his own visual training in order to perceive abstract text: some are able to quickly absorb text diagonally, while others struggle to distinguish a single unit–the letter.

Of course, all of this depends on the training as well as the individual characteristics of the person. But our goal is always to keep this in mind, and where possible, to present musical text in a format that best suits the needs of the student. Today, this is made possible by the program “Soft Way to Mozart.”

We must remember that the point of optimal perception is directly related to the structure of the eye itself. Any attempt to explain to a person's eyes, how they should work is a waste of time.  Eyes are, of course, going to see things the way they’re intended to see things. 

So the musical vision of beginners requires training—the same type of training that we provide when teaching them to read books.

To be continued...

[SoftMozart]

Part 7.

The second stumbling block, when reading musical text, is the temporal nature of musical language.

That is, the untrained eyes of a student are required to not only isolate distinct abstract objects on the staff (the notes themselves), which is already a significant challenge, but also hold in mind the duration of the object in relation to the other notes on the staff.

From the viewpoint of immediately gratifying a student’s cognitive requests, THIS approach to reading music pales in comparison not only to computer games, but also to the most difficult teaching materials used in secondary schools. 

Only the musically gifted children can cope with such a complex task: relying on their musical memory, perfect hearing and good coordination. This explains why, at the completion of music school, most children do not want to open new sheet music and "disassemble" musical works on their own.

How the “Soft Mozart” program solves the problems of visualizing notation and maintaining the tempo of music.

As I mentioned earlier, by turning the Grand Staff vertical instead of horizontal, I managed to make the keyboard long instead of wide.   I visually expanded the lines to the same width as the spaces between them because in the language of music, lines and spaces contain equally important information.

   I created special stickers and key guides, which help identify each note with the piano key.  I made music notes bigger and marked them with identifying colors and pictures.  Thus I succeeded in creating music that even the untrained eye of a beginner could use to help divide and recognize individual notes.

But even with such simplification, I was unable to help students perceive notes as well as I wanted.   There are always many different notes on a page of music, and they are not sitting on lines as words are in written language, but more like on a chess-board, all over the place.

At that moment, the idea was born to cross the Grand Staff with “a focus line” or “a visual line” to flash out the structure of the music vertically.  On this focus line, notes were not only presented as notes, but also in an animated picture.  When the correct key is found and pressed, the beginner sees a flower bud. It helps him to:

- fix his sight on the note;
- find the key, corresponding to this note; 
- press this key and see if the action was correct (the interactive animation immediately helps to understand if the note was right as well as how to correct the mistake, if the wrong key was pressed);
- hear at once the exact pitch of the note played;
- understand and remember the name of the note, get the ability to say its name and even to read it;
- analyze the position of the note in the system;
- see the flower coming out, thereby understanding each note’s duration.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/IF6i3ZlFONk&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/IF6i3ZlFONk&rel=1</a>

Such an approach helped make reading notes even easier for children than reading a book. Now even 2-year-old children can read at least from one to three notes at once. Moreover, playing in both clefs becomes a reality from the very first music lessons.

[SoftMozart]

8.

It's hard to overestimate the importance of these skills for a child’s developing intelligence. With the “Soft Mozart” program, toddlers can develop the following important skills, which can be useful in their lives:

- manual dexterity;

- the ability to select small subjects;

- the ability to read line-by-line (to refocus from one small subject to another) without a pointer;

- the ability to listen to and remember sounds and how they are related to particular notes;

- the ability to play, sing and remember the note at once;

- direct interaction with musical text;

- the development of an ear for music, memory and musical thinking.

This list can be continued on and on.  Today I have invited the teachers who use “Soft Mozart" system in different countries and with different types of students to add their ideas, too.  They will help me expand this list, to enrich it with their observations and to share their experiences with you.

To sum up, I will review an important issue:   How can we solve the problem of giving an immediate solution to a cognitive question in the “Soft Mozart” program? 

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/tUfkLt-Eh1I&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/tUfkLt-Eh1I&rel=1</a>

In my opinion, this problem is the most important one for schools in this digital century.  Luckily, the immediate feedback offered by the “Soft Mozart” system solves this problem perfectly.  Almost before the child can wonder if he is playing a note correctly, he sees the animated icon telling him he is correct.  If he isn’t correct, he immediately sees what to do differently.

Direct interaction with the Grand Staff by playing the piano keys and the ability to see at once the result of their actions—these are the instant answers to cognitive queries made by any “Soft Mozart” students. They can analyze their progress all by themselves. 

Students communicate with the music hand-to-hand and get immediate and constant support of their actions from a very patient computer program that never lets its frustration show.

Thus the students not only improve their skills, but develop self-confidence and a feeling of control over their own progress.

It's particularly important in “Soft Mozart” (as in popular computer games) that students compete with themselves.

It increases considerably the feeling of confidence and self-respect as well as the desire to continue learning.  In this system, students decide whether or not they want to receive an external grade from friends or professionals or other people around them.   

As such, it becomes a well thought out and deliberate decision.  Such interaction between a student and a teacher is more effective than just letting the student passively take in information, without really asking or getting answers to any of their important questions.


The combination of a computer and an electronic instrument has allowed us to make an accurate computation system.  It doesn't only develop and improve skills, but it makes this progress fascinating and venturesome (in the finest sense of the word).  The student's progress is counted accurately within a second and within a note.

Students get a fair evaluation of their actions; they see themselves gradually improving their rates of accuracy as they try again. This is an atomic stimulus for students.  Our system today is useful for 16-month-old children, who first discover music in their lives, when finding the first note and the key that corresponds to it.  Using our system, music school students while sight-reading can know exactly how many mistakes and rhythmical errors they have made, where they were made and how they can correct them.

Today I'm sure we have made the right steps to create a total music education. The results of using this system have shown me that we are on the right track, that we have to continue  developing in this direction.

Today is the time for all of music educators to make a crucial decision: to accept the finding of “Soft Mozart” invention and keep developing it–or to stick with traditions that clearly disregard the facts about our visual perception and physiology, facts that can’t really be avoided any longer. 

Every minute wasted on postponing the changes is resulting in wasting hours of someone’s life.  Shooting computer games are not killing just virtual “enemies” and/or the precious time of our children–they are killing our culture and the spiritual growth of new generations. 

But this plague has a vaccine–a smart and ingeniously created educational system that uses technology for raising new learners to new intellectual heights.   A computer and a digital piano connected together are two “negatives” that make an affirmative A+ for music education and the wellbeing of our children, children of the digital age. 

[SoftMozart]

Please register for How to get attention of any toddler and teach them new skills. on Jun 8, 2014 3:00 PM CDT at:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/802587772092611073

Many think that teaching a preschooler or even a toddler to seat still, focus and keep expanded attention span is incredibly difficult task.
However, if to know some little tricks and to follow some very simple rules, your young family members at home and students in school or day care will become the joy of your instructional heart.
My first webinar could be very helpful for any family or educator, who cares about early education.


After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Brought to you by GoToWebinar®
Webinars Made Easy®

[SoftMozart]

Audio and all the images for the 1st webinar had been uploaded

[SoftMozart]

We just developed a new demo for our Visual and Interactive Sheets Help TM (Gentle Piano). Follow this link to download:
http://pianolearningsoftware.com/collections/free-staff/products/free-demo-songs

It has the following piano pieces:

'Happy Birthday' by Hill sisters

'Fur Elise' by Beethoven

'Amazing Grace' by John Newton

'Fly Me To The Moon' by Bart Howard

'Hot Cross Buns' (a Nursery Rhyme)

'River Flows In You' by Yiruma

'Stairway To Heaven' by Led Zeppelin

'Counting Stars' by 'One Republic'

[SoftMozart]

Our Soft Mozart student from Gambia - Christina ( - had about 24 hours for learning 'Happy Birthday' to her daddy, She made it!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Dd8AdvFH0CQ&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Dd8AdvFH0CQ&rel=1</a>

[SoftMozart]

When I was a teacher in a state music school in Ukraine, we had a very talented student that was our school’s pride and joy. She was not my student, but I knew her very well as did all the teachers in our school. She was a winner of multiple piano competitions and nobody had a single doubt that she would be a stage performer and professional musician. I immigrated to the USA and visited Ukraine 10 years later to find out that this girl is pursuing a completely different career. She became an engineer. I asked her what happened. ‘I burned out,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to even open my piano. All I have is grief about music,’ she said.

Our personal experience is the most important criteria in life. It doesn’t matter what other people think, but lack of joy in any activity is crucial in our decisions.

So… what we should keep in mind when we are making plans to start music lessons for our children?

First, investigate the approach that your potential teacher uses. They have to be current with the latest, most effective findings in music education. Many think that a teacher’s personality is the main key of success in learning. This is not quite accurate. You would not keep any company or school that used an old fashioned abacus on a daily basis.

Before your child will progress to the artistic point of playing piano he/she ought to go through learning many basic skills.

The sweetest teacher in the world that doesn’t have any knowledge about current discoveries in music education is going to be potentially harmful for your child. Time has changed – so do we and so do our children. One cannot replace the most effective tools in teaching with words and personal ‘care’. In fact, I would be cautious about how much emphasis any ‘old fashioned’ teacher is placing on the uniqueness and ‘personal’ approach.

The rule of thumb is that the best teachers in the world want to be replaceable. Deep and honest care about the student’s success in life and education is their total agenda.

Real professionals always stick with what works best for any student; they always work on finding the best for students – not the most feasible for their ‘comfort zone’.

Second. How can you understand if the approach is correct? Ask what approach your prospective teacher uses and write down the key words. After that visit You Tube and find videos that link to that approach. If the approach initiates many videos with a lot of students from early learners, children with special needs, to prodigies; your teacher is a true professional, not a self–absorbed candidate for turning your child off music education.

Teachers can cause emotional scars on your child that are sometimes worse than a doctor’s malpractice. Would you prefer to have a nice, sweet surgeon with an ax and hammer – or you would like to have a highly skilled professional with the most accurate and up to date tools?

The reason why we used to hear that the personality of the teacher was so important is because we didn’t live at the time of the now current interactive technology. The teacher’s nice personality was only a ‘sugar pill’ that eased our struggles in learning how to read music and play the piano.

Third. Be cautious. It is very common for many music educators to create their own ‘ways’. Unfortunately, this indicates a weakness rather than effectiveness of the method (unless you can find A LOT of videos on You Tube that prove otherwise). Again, please, don’t be fooled by videos of prodigies. Any prodigy can learn despite the method. This is why many methods try to prove their merits by showing a couple of prodigies. This is a common and shameless scam. A true professional is the one who can teach anybody.

Fourth. If your perspective teacher is having a unique approach and a lot of videos of DIVERSE students on You Tube, check the followers of this approach. If the successful results are shown only by this particular teacher and limited to the exclusive class only his students with no followers from other fellow teachers, it means that the system relies heavily on the teacher’s ‘unique personality’ and you are going to be covered with ‘personality issues’ if something goes wrong.

Fifth. Be aware of the words:

‘I don’t use technology in my teaching.’

‘I don’t believe that digital keyboards or pianos should be used with the students.’

‘I start with games and introduce music notation later.’

‘We will start with theory first.’

‘I don’t introduce notation before your child knows letters and numbers.’

‘Young children’s hands and fingers are not strong enough to play the piano. I wait until they are at least 7 or 8 years old.’

‘A young child under the age of 7 has an attention span too short for piano lessons.’

With the current breakthroughs in applied music education - meaning actually learning to read and play an instrument (piano being the starting instrument of choice) - and the help of interactive technology there are no limitations in the learning process. In the words of one young student who learned to play a song in just a couple minutes, “So, this is how you play the piano!”


Finally, please note: just as you can teach your child today to speak, read, write, draw pictures, and explore the world – you CAN teach him/her to play the piano and read music. It sounds fantastic, but just recall how recently we switched to smart phones, tablets, Skype and the Internet! Today any parent or school can teach children applied music and piano online. As our Soft Mozart Academy shows, such an approach works better in today’s world than then any mediocre piano teacher.

Anybody Can Play Soft Mozart

Sincerely,
Hellene Hiner, professor of Herzen University (St Petersburg, Russia) - Developer of the Course 'Additional vocational training program and Interactive network technologies'. The author of 'Soft Way to Mozart computer based curriculum for teaching music and piano.

This letter was written with the help of Karla Hastings.

Karla Hastings is a piano teacher with over 4 decades of experience. In the late1980‘s she set up a successful nation-wide pre-school piano program for a major piano company using her own curriculum, Anybody Can Play. Always using technology to benefit students, she is now working together with Hellene Hiner, Soft Mozart, to bring the joy of learning to play the piano to greater numbers of young children (ages 2 to 102!) in the Anybody Can Play Soft Mozart program. She also has an iPad App: EZPianoNotes available in the Apple Store. Her new website:www.anybodycanplaysoftmozart.com should be up and running by August 1, 2014.

The entire message is placed here: http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=7b127a834ee94feee883eeb10&id=1315a4ab26&e=c9ed776228

[SoftMozart]

Singapore, Musikal Gen Soft Mozart Open House was provided today with great success! 22 Kim Keat Road
Toa Payoh, Singapore 328839 +65 9768 0367
[email protected]
Attention: 1 hr and 40mins left to become a Pioneer member of Soft Mazart in Singapore and Asia. If you have decided to join us, please send a private message on FB or SMS to: 97680367 before 12mn.

A huge thank you to everyone who signed up today! We wish you a successful and happy musical journey ahead with us!

[SoftMozart]

The 6 Important Facts About Interactive Music Programs and Ipad Apps That Everybody Should Know

The mind of your child is a vessel that is getting ready for a lifetime journey of discovery. As I am writing these words, every second of your life the invisible, but ferocious battle is going on for the attention of your child. Most of us have no idea, how crucial this is. “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world,” we say. Sometimes we think that we have control over the cradle, but technology has something extra for our children, and this process is sometimes beyond our control. This is especially important to keep in mind when we give our children interactive technology to try out. I am talking about video and computer games and apps for smart phones and tablets.

The awareness (hopefully, the knowledge) about how interactive technology is affecting our children’s upbringing is very important these days. The skills that our children are getting are taking place in their “vessels” and will affect their entire life journeys.

As a music educator, musicologist, a creator of “Soft Way to Mozart” system, and as a developer of Elementary and Interactive Grand staff, I am also fighting for a place in minds of your children. My ultimate goal is to create a very special music experience in classrooms and households. My system promotes quality time for adults and children to team together, working on musical projects that stimulate their brains and souls.

I realize very well that the role of parents and educators in sorting through information is increasing every day. Only those who care and have professional education and skills can help children filter the information flow – visual, audio and tactile. The ability to differentiate valuable teaching tools and prevent any trash from getting in the minds of our children is a crucial task in education and upbringing today

Adults – parents and teachers – sometimes underestimate this necessity. Many mistakenly think that we have nothing to worry about: the companies that create such bright, colorful and fun interactive toys definitely know what they are doing; they are skilled professionals and won’t let anything harmful happen to our children. But the absence of hazardous parts that may cause physical harm to our children can’t guarantee safety to them.

We have to keep in mind that apps, video and computer games are usually created by teams of financial, technological and educational experts. What is more, the most important component – educational – is not the most powerful in such projects. More often you can see the fruits of the financial group: you find and are able to buy or download the products with the most attractive packaging and the most professional marketing and advertisements. We are absolutely sure that if big $$$ endorse the project, it is equal to the quality and effectiveness of the product. But artificially flavored drinks with the taste of strawberries are also professionally wrapped by highly paid designers!

The goal of any venture capital is immediate profit because money has to make more money. It is very hard to find an investor that would be interested in a long time partnership to promote the quality of our children’s education. It is especially difficult to find such an investor in the field of music education. It is no secret that music (for example, playing the piano) requires special knowledge and music educational background. For the majority of investors, music pedagogy--unlike reading, math or science--is not common knowledge. This is exactly why music games and interactive apps are created with immediate profit in mind and have little to do with real problems in music education.

Being a music educator for life, I worked on developing my system for more than 30 years. It took me 17 years to receive my music education and 9 years of learning about the most effective teaching tools in music. A computerized component of my teaching system was added in 2012 году after decades of refining all the components of piano and music classes, taught individually and in groups. My system had only one investment: its own merit. Today we show the world thousands of successful learners – people who grew up with my invention and achieved a real, well-balanced and effective music education. We are proud to present the world and piano competition winners – and properly developed children with special needs. I think, we achieved such results due to the fact that music educators – not financial institutions or programmer firms-- are running the company. Unfortunately, this is not the common practice for the industry.

When I see a new music toy on the market that has been developed by musically illiterate people, I take it with great concern. Many think that such toys can’t cause any harm – in the best case scenario, they may stir an interest in the child to make music. The problem is that the majority of people who download the software or apps have an ultimate desire to play the instrument and be able to read the music score. People want to have the freedom to choose any piano piece or song and play and sing it. The reality is that after working with ineffective teaching tools, they hit a brick wall and lose their self-confidence for good. They say to themselves: “It is impossible for me to learn how to play the piano and read music.” And they lose themselves. This loss is priceless, and no money can repair such damage!

The question is how to determine the real teaching tools from the gimmicks? I always start my teacher training with the same phrase: “All effective approaches are similar and are built on common sense. Each ineffective approach is different.” Here is the list of how you can differentiate the merits of several different teaching apps:
The look of the product can say a lot about the effectiveness. Here some hints for you to consider:

1.   Pictures. Start your analysis from the advertisement pictures. Take a close look: if you see smiley faces of children and adults at the piano happily looking at you, this product is most likely a fake. I have nothing against the bright and wide smiles in advertisements of dental products. But my experience as a music educator tells me that people who are involved in making music don’t smile at photographers – they are simply busy having the best musical experience they can possibly have. The staged pictures are the first red flag.

2.   Authors. Find the time to investigate who are the key players of the company. A lot of websites have such information about the developers. Who developed the app? If the authors are financial groups and/or programmers, ask yourself: would you trust the future of your children to people that have no idea how to teach them? You won’t trust a car technician with your child’s health, would you? Why should you be so quick to trust your children’s educational wellbeing to people who aren’t educators?

3.   Concrete results. Glory to You Tube! As never before, we can type the company’s name in a search engine. If most of the video materials are commercial, it means only one thing: the company has great financial backing. Good for them! What does it mean to you and your children? Nothing. Learning is an experience. If the result of the experience is a well-made commercial video, you are dealing with gimmicks: the educational products should be thoroughly tested. Otherwise they are potentially harmful for your children. Can you afford to allow such a tool in your children’s vessels? I don’t think so.

What is the essence of the quality of the teaching tool? The secret is simple: you have to see the concrete results in the people who use the product. It is not enough for me to see beginners that press a couple of keys on the piano with a computer orchestra accompanying the effort. I have to see how that interactivity brings any beginner to intermediate or even professional/advanced levels.

There are important rules that we have to consider in investigating any effective approach. One ought to rely on the past experience of any individual, develop current skills and plant the seeds for future knowledge and skills.

1.   If you see on the screen of your smart phone, iPad or computer any program that offers the traditional Grand Staff to a beginner, the picture has nothing to do with the person’s personal collected experience. All the written languages on Earth are linear, and we learn to read in any language by dealing with one line of text at a time. It is not an accident: our eye sight works this way. Five lines of music text require completely different rules of the game. The skills needed to follow all these tracks of information simultaneously are not given to us by nature and should be developed gradually.

2.   The app that has all the notes and piano keys color coded in individual colors leads to a dead end and has no link to the future. The essence of music sight-reading is dealing with the lines and spaces of the Grand Staff. If coded individually, the notes can be placed in one line and recognized accordingly. This is the dead-end approach. It solves the immediate problem: to receive your money from your wallet. And no matter how much you spent, you wasted every penny. The high price of such an “investment” is lost. Instead, believe that you CAN make music with your own hands.

3.   Observe whether or not the app/program has just an entertainment agenda in mind. Of course, the creators assure you that your children will get positive vibes, and this will promote their musical education. Be careful! Do not fall for that! Smart education ought to be involved in the process of the creating, developing and improving certain skills. The lack of these features turns our children into blind consumers, who are unable to create anything. The assurance that the entertainment is only fun is not a proper understanding of what fun actually is. We ought to educate our children about what the true definition of FUN IS. The ability to influence the world around them by using their creative energy will help them in the long run. But it takes an extra mile to achieve such a goal. Genuine education and upbringing should be gradual and should progress coherently: from the simple to the advanced, from the concrete to the abstract and from the general to the detailed. This was described by the greatest teacher – John Amos Comenius in the 17th century. Nothing has been changed since!

Look closely at your children: if they are involved in any activity, what do they get? The fish or a net to get one? Will the activity help build the future? Will it enhance their lives? Take a more active role in selecting what your child is doing. This is not just a form of play – this is the information to put into his vessel, which is supposed to serve his needs for his entire life!

If we are so worried about the nutrients in our children’s food, why shouldn’t we take care of the nutrients of their education? You are the one that is responsible for what your children will find in their vessels during their journeys: something that will be useful for the rest of their lives? Or needless trash that will do nothing for them?

Don’t let big companies with a lot of money rule your life!

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