Monday Morning Check In: How Basic Goodness Gives Life to Technique

Written by Paula E. Bird ©2013

"It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success. Only basic goodness gives life to technique." -- Dr. Stephen R. Covey (American educator and author, 1932-2012)

Dr. Stephen Covey wrote this in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. As I considered what to write about for this Monday Morning Check In, I recalled what Dr Suzuki wrote about music and character: "Beautiful tone, beautiful heart." Written in the Preface to Suzuki Violin Volume Two, Dr. Suzuki writes that "strings only sing the heart of the one who plays them. . . . because our entire personalities are revealed in the tone we produce."

"In human terms, if one lives in a self-centered, egotistical and immature way, one's life will be that of no joy and constant dissatisfaction. In other words, because of selfish needs, what one creates will be nothing but noise.

In contrast, when one lives by the principle of serving the hearts of others and learns to live for other people, one can enjoy a life of light, without discord, in harmony with others, and walk through life in pure joy. Similarly, the ultimate goal of music education, as well as the secret of violin playing is to guide others away from the world of self-centeredness to that of loving hearts in the service of others.

. . . The philosophy of violin playing is the same as that for life. Man, like the violin, can only sing the song of his own heart." -- Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998, Japanese violinist, educator, and founder of Suzuki Method of Talent Education)

It was Dr. Covey's words about basic goodness giving life to technique that spurred my memory of Dr. Suzuki's words about the violin singing the song of the human heart. I believe that both men would agree with each other. What we are inside is revealed when we play the violin, or whenever we play music.

I teach a string techniques course at the university, in which I teach music education students how to teach string techniques. I can work a few minutes with one of the university students and tell you much about that student just by how the student approaches the instrument, by the type of sound that the student produces, and by the type and amount of energy level that the student produces while playing. I am sure that the students think I am some sort of gypsy fortune teller because I am able to accurately describe the student's personality style within minutes of teaching the student. I can guess at the types of hobbies the student might pursue, the state of the student's clothes closet at home, and what sort of social life the student maintains. I can accurately guess what types of grades a student usually gets in classes and how uptight the student is.

When I listen to student recitals, I can close my eyes and envision the sort of person that is playing. I can hear whether the person is smiling inside or hurting. I can feel the student's instrument and music vibrating in the air, and I can tell whether the student is trying to communicate with me on some level or whether the student is playing "at me" or for their own inward purposes.

I know of several teachers who routinely assign special homework to their students during the week, which consists of character building exercises along the lines of doing things for others. The idea here is that if the students frequently perform acts of goodness or kindness, then the students will get into the habit of doing good or being kind. I think this is a great idea because it makes students and parents aware of the exercise. Hopefully, when one person sees another doing such good things, the person will admire the effort and will strive to imitate the gesture. The one act could exponentially grow to include many, many others.

What such an exercise will also do is help to purify and mature the heart and spirit of the person doing the exercise. We all know that "going through the motions" will not a good person make, but doing so will go a long way toward building such a person in the end. We have heard the adage "fake it until you make it," and this catch-phrase may say it all. We may have to go through the motions and build the character habit until we finally reach the point that the motions and the good strong character are instilled in us. I believe that good character is just another ability that we can develop by overlearning.

What Drs. Covey and Suzuki are both telling us here is that good character is the foundation to good everything else. For Dr. Covey, good character provides the structural framework for good attitude, good relationships, good communication, and good leadership. For Dr. Suzuki, good character will be reflected in a person's music, which is the performer's personal expression of inward emotion, attitude, and sense of beauty. Without good character, something is "off" about the person, and no amount of technique will change that. We will be dazzled by technique, but we will not be moved by it. We might admire someone for their technical skill, but we will not be persuaded to move mountains.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -- Aristotle*

This week, let us contemplate the words of both Dr. Covey and Dr. Suzuki and consider what habit of character we are building through our repeated actions. Let us strive for excellence, but more than that. Let us make the effort to repeatedly do the right things that strengthen our character. Let us reach out to the world and build connections that will uplift and encourage our society and world to grow beyond itself in a good way, in the right way.

Go forth and do good!
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*Although this quote is attributed to Aristotle, it may actually come from Will Durant and his work "The Story of Philosophy," in which Durant summed up Aristotle's thoughts.

Monday Morning Check In: Building a Community

Community seems to be the world’s big interest right now. There are many buzzwords in use to describe it. One writer (Jeff Goins) coined the term “tribe” to describe the sensation of community. We have all heard the African proverb and title of Jane Cowen-Fletcher’s children’s book: “It Takes a Village” (1994). Other words to describe the sense of community include: social media, brotherhood, association, family, neighborhood, residents, society, turf, alliance, union, fellowship, fraternity, sorority, guild, league, order, club, clan, clique, gang, party, team, congregation, convention, band, assembly.

Well, you get the idea, there are many possible words to describe the concept of community. What is community anyway? Why does it seem so important that we have so many words to describe it? Community is shared agreement and similarity of some kind. We agree and share a common, similar purpose. It seems to be in our human nature to do so. Yes, there are some of us who prefer to spend large amounts of time thinking inwardly about our outside world, but generally most of us belong to some aspect of community.

My university students refer to themselves as a “family” within the music school community, because this term implies that my students will reap the benefits of family. The students serve as big brothers and sisters to incoming freshmen. The students urge each other to do their best, and the students absolutely bond together in the face of obstacles found within the academic community.

My studio students generally refer to themselves as a studio family, as I think of them. The concept of family thins a little as the children age, because families and teenagers begin to distance themselves from each other, which can all be part of the natural growth process. Families get busy with other children and other activities, and sometimes the studio family connection takes on a different significance and plays a role that is less important to the family.

What got me thinking about the concept of community this week is my discovery of some old newsletters I had written for my studio well over a decade ago. As I read through the newsletters and re-familiarized myself with their content, I realized that the newsletters served a purpose much like my blog does now. The newsletters provided a forum for me to express my thoughts related to a major purpose and the success of my enterprise to fulfill that purpose.

I made another important connection between my newsletters then and my studio success at the time. During the newsletters era, I recall that my studio shared a true bond of community. I saw this bond reflected in the subject matter of the newsletters. The topics I included in the newsletters helped to bring all of my studio families into a studio community, where we shared our commonalities as they related to studio teaching and teaching our children in particular. I remember that we did many things as a studio family during that period: we traveled to institutes together, we had studio picnics, parties, and pool parties; we participated in community events as a performing group; and studio families had sleepovers and other special events in arenas outside of the teaching studio.

My parents shared their experiences. New ideas about review or practice motivation were shared in the newsletters, and I acknowledged in print which parents were offering the suggestions. Parents shared poems and successes and offered to serve as mentors to parents who were new to the studio. We maintained a calendar that listed studio events, concert opportunities (symphony concerts or other recitals), and composer birthdays.

The students submitted their achievements in the studio and in practice, such as completed graduation recitals, 100 days practice club milestones (and 200, 300, 1 year and more), 500 club spots (500 repetitions), and talent show performances. I included any and all achievements. I was tuned in to possible submissions. I maintained a folder in the studio, and if a parent or student mentioned something to me, I asked them to quickly scribble it down on a newsletter submission form. Then I added these submissions to the monthly newsletter.

The difference today between my blog and my earlier studio newsletters is that I do not broadcast the names of specific students in the blog unless I am given special permission to do so. I try to keep the identities of my students and their families protected. I still write about the same general topics related to teaching and parenting as I did back in the newsletter days; what is missing though is that close connection in the studio that the newsletters provided.

This week, give some thought to how you can build a community within your studio. Going through this process of reflecting on a sense of community within your studio will help you to identify any areas of your thinking that might not be serving your community well. For example, if you are doing something for the money, this may not be a shared purpose with your studio families, and you may find a disconnect between you and the concept of a studio community.

Here are some key points that I think are important to build a sense of community:

Define your purpose. Why do you have a studio? What are you trying to accomplish? Is this a purpose that will be shared?

Share your purpose. How will you communicate your purpose to your studio? I used my newsletters at one time to share my purpose. I also used my studio policies and procedures statement to define my ongoing purpose in teaching at the studio. My introductory new parent letter is very clear about my teaching purpose. My parent course is very upfront about my teaching, studio, and studio parent expectations. This is one sense of communication, but how will you communicate within the studio on a regular basis? I have a connection provided by the http://musicteachershelper.com website that allows me to email all my parents or students at one time with the click of one button. The site also allows me to maintain a small website that provides me with a place to list announcements that are related to the studio. I think a monthly newsletter along with a monthly calendar might be an easy and small way to provide connection and communication within the studio family.

Build connections. How will you connect your community members with each other? How will your studio families stay in touch with each other? Can you build a contact list? Can you provide a lesson calendar that all families can access? Can you provide a gathering place for families during group classes and suggest possible parent activities during these times? I am working on a studio T-shirt idea, and I plan to provide each of my students with one. I may carry this idea over to the university arena as well.

Encourage involvement. Enlist your studio family members to be a part of the studio. Can you enlist the assistance of your studio family members to arrange performance opportunities, such as local nursing or retirement homes, community venues (libraries or schools), or special events? What special skills, talents, or abilities do your studio members represent? One of my studio parents is helping me to design some awesome T-shirts, and I have another who is designing a special music coloring book for children that is related to the mother’s special art field. This mother’s daughter helps us to come up with some pretty cool phrases for T-shirts. At the last spring recital, I listed short biographies for each performing student in the recital program.

Provide shared challenges. Do you have goals to suggest? Are there some challenges that could be joined studio-wide, such as practice challenges on a weekly or monthly basis or as part of some other time frame (31 days of Halloween scales, 12 days of Christmas Twinkles, Thanksgiving Turkey Twinkles)? Scheduling a performance event can provide a shared challenge, as students in the studio will be working together to be ready for the event.

Acknowledge achievement. Do you have a place to feature students who have achieved a milestone? We have a practice chart in the studio, but we also have places to hang children’s artwork, children’s pictures, completed practice incentive charts, certificates, ribbons, etc. Whenever I award a special certificate of accomplishment or achievement to a child, I offer the child the option of taking the certificate home or hanging it in the studio. Very seldom does a student opt to take the certificate home.

Be open and vulnerable. Most important in my opinion is learning how to be open and vulnerable to your community. Sometimes teachers and parents get caught up in the “being strong” mode, and we forget that this mien actually erodes the sense of community. Community is about shared agreement and similarity. If one person is always strong and never in need of anyone else’s help, then there is no sharing or connection here. Like other things, being open and vulnerable is something that can be learned and practiced until it is an ability. Learn how to ask for help. Learn how to share your concerns appropriately.

This blog has been a new community for me. I still have the same purpose as a teacher that I had decades ago. Now, instead of limiting myself to my teaching studio, I have opened up the possibility of building a world-wide community that shares the same purpose of teaching our children to be better human beings and using music as the vehicle to accomplish that. Along this journey, we are also learning how to be better parents and teachers so that we can be more effective in working to achieve our purpose.

This blog is about to turn two years old. I started it at first as a self-discipline exercise. I like to write and have always done so since I was a child. However, life and profession pull me in different directions frequently. I started the blog as an exercise in consistency. Also, I wanted to write down some of the things that I taught so that I could use them as reference materials for my students and their parents. My first post was October 27, 2010. Since that time, I have reached readers from over 103 countries. About 7,000 viewers visit each month as of this writing. Along the way I have met many other teachers and parents all over the world who have wrestled with the same teaching issues that I have, and we enjoy sharing our experiences, our struggles, and our solutions with each other. I hope that this community grows and grows over the next year, because I think our noble purpose is exactly what our world needs to share more of today.

Join the community. Join the discussion.

Change the world -- one child, one student at a time.

Monday Morning Check In: Hidden Messages

"What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We communicate in many different ways. At one time we communicated verbally and in writing through letters and books. With our current state of technological advancement, however, we can now communicate instantly through electronic communication. I can chat with friends in Italy or Oregon at the same moment I email someone in my home town, talk on the phone with family in another state, and gesture to a family member in the same room. I can video chat, send instant photos, and electronically share documents with anyone anywhere in the world at any hour.

Despite this "advance" in communication ability, we humans still communicate basically and most powerfully in two ways: verbally and behaviorally. We may have many different methods of transmitting our communication, but we can still boil down the enterprise into two basic forms of communication. The problem is that we tend to forget the power of the behavioral communication; we forget the hidden messages we send to others through our actions and instead focus on the verbal communication.

As the Emerson quote above suggests, everything we do communicates more powerfully than anything we say, whether we say it verbally or in writing. Our behavior shows people who we are. We run into communication difficulties when we forget this basic premise. Let me give you seven behavior scenarios and what I think the hidden messages are for each one. Please let me reassure you that these examples do not come from any of my current studio parents; I have compiled them from stories that I have heard or read from other studio teachers or websites or situations from the past.

Behavior: The parent brings the student to the lesson late or frequently misses group class.

Hidden Message: The student's activities are not important enough for the parent to arrange to be punctual or even participate.

Behavior: The parent forgets to bring the student to the lesson or group class. (Yes, this does happen!)

Hidden Message: The student's activity (and possibly the student) is not a high enough priority to the parent in order for the parent to make the effort to remember the lesson or group class time.

Behavior: The parent forgets to bring the student's instrument or lesson materials.

Hidden Message: Again, the student's activity is not on the parent's radar enough for the  parent to remember. After all, if the parent were really interested and engaged in what the student was learning and accomplishing, wouldn't the parent remember to bring the violin or the lesson book?

Behavior: The parent does not complete the teacher's practice assignment or else the parent practices something else entirely than that assigned by the teacher.

Hidden Message: It is not important to do the homework assigned by the teacher. Another message might be that it is okay not to obey authority figures (this would translate to include future teachers and employers), or that it is alright to ignore rules and assignments and make special exceptions. Be careful about this message! Unless a parent just does not understand the homework assignment and is unable to contact the teacher to obtain clarity, then this is the message that the student learns. This is the parent who later laments that the child will not do homework. Hm, where did the child learn that it was alright not to do assigned homework?

Behavior: The parent argues with the teacher about what needs to be accomplished in the lesson.

Hidden Message: The teacher is not worthy of respect, and it is okay to argue or question authority figures. Ooh, does the parent really want to go there? This is just a step removed from the parent's permission to the child to disrespect and question the parent's authority. I do not recommend that the parent go to the dark side here.

Behavior: The parent cancels lessons frequently because of schedule conflicts, either for another child or for some other reason.

Hidden Message: The student's activity ranks lower in priority than the other child's schedule or the other activity.

Behavior: The parent complains during the lesson that the child fights the parent's help and will not practice. Or, the parent complains about something the child does, such as nail biting or some other "misbehavior."

Hidden Message: The parent is trying to embarrass the student, even if the student is really young! The parent is taking the easy way out: rather than working to figure out a solution to the problem, the parent is looking elsewhere for a quick fix. This equates to the message that the parent does not consider the child or the parent's relationship with the child to be important enough to find a workable solution or identify the root cause of the problem. What I think is really sad about this scenario is that the parent is eroding the relationship with the child. When the parent talks about the child in the child's presence in this manner, the parent is sending the hidden message that:

• The child is invisible (i.e., not important enough for the parent to engage or involve in the discussion).

• The parent has more power than the child. This attitude and behavior may work until the child reaches the teen years. It will never work with a strong-willed choleric child, who will definitely lose respect for the parent immediately.

As you can see, there are many "hidden" messages. Every behavior has a message, and most of our behaviors have hidden messages that may surprise us once we reflect upon them. It is important that we take the time to consider our behavior (the things we do) and the message that we consequently convey (the things we think). It is not easy to climb inside our own heads and expose the root of our thinking, but if we are going to establish a good relationship with our children and students, we must do just that. We must figure out what we are really thinking and analyze our behavior to see what message we are in actuality conveying to our children and to the world around us.

This week, and today especially, stand back and look objectively at everything you do. Consider your behavior and the "hidden" messages you send to others around you. If you do not like some of the things you discover, make a list of those particular behaviors and some things that you can do instead to convey a different message. For every message there is an opposite message possibility.

Your assignment this week is to consider how to convey the opposite message. If you are showing arrogance, then consider how you might convey humility. If you lean toward  indifference, think of ways to show interest and concern. If you have cultivated the ability to be irresponsible in scheduling and prioritizing, then enlist the help of someone or some tool to assist you to organize your thoughts and activities.

Happy Week!