Videos, interviews and public appearances

The Orlando Music Club

In October of 2012 I was invited to speak about my book, First, Learn to Practice, at a meeting of the Orlando Music Club. Most of the members of the OMC are music teachers, so I was very eager to speak with them. The book is written from the point of view of a practicer, not a teacher, and I was interested to hear from them if my ideas made sense from their perspective. This was only my second opportunity to speak in public about the book, so I am very grateful to the OMC for this chance to practice my oratorical skills at their gathering.

After playing a song ("Blue Moon") and telling a short story about how wearing a pair of Groucho Marx glasses can change your perspective, I described the book briefly. Then, with the introduction behind be, I dug into the central idea of my presentation: teaching students how to practice. My hope was that I would learn from them whether the idea was practical; whether they were already doing it; if so, then how, and if not, then would they consider doing so if they had my book to work with.

Playing "Blue Moon."

After perhaps a little too much talk about the book, I asked for questions and stories about practicing. Each teacher seemed to have his or her own approach. Many said that their students didn't practice much at all, although the age of the students was usually a factor. Most of the teachers who talked about practicing with their students drew on their own experiences as the basis for what they taught; no one mentioned having learned, in music school or in any other teacher training, how to practice or how to teach others to practice. One or two teachers told us they emphasized practicing very heavily in their lessons, combining both teaching how to practice  and motivating students to practice once they knew how.

I learned a great deal from these teachers, regarding both practicing and public speaking. They brought a great deal of experience to the subject of practicing, all of it from a completely different perspective than my own. I was very interested in what they had to say; if I have the opportunity to speak to the Orlando Music Club again, I'll plan on allowing more time for questions and stories from the audience.

Here are my speaker's notes from this presentation, in PDF format.