A matter of communication?
Reply
Author Archives: Maya Liberman
How To Make Music Practicing Fun Instead of Torment
One common concern of parents and music teachers is the daily practice students must adhere to. At first, the child is excited and enthusiastic, enjoying the new instrument and practicing every day. But life is not all fun and soon enough, the daily practices seem boring and less attractive, especially when compared with other options of activities. At that point, the music teacher usually receives a phone call (or has a face-to-face conversation with a parent) along the following lines: “The kid is not practicing much any more. What should I do? Is it worth the investment of time and money? Should I force him/her to practice? Should I be angry? Should I threaten with some punishment?”
Well, my answer, which may irritate conservative music teachers, is not unequivocal.
Let me explain why:
Music, unlike many other activities in a child’s daily schedule, demands many hours of practicing, self-discipline, and commitment. Moreover, this activity requires a high level of concentration. Based on one or two lessons a week, the child must repeat and incorporate all that he/she learned throughout the week. This is not a simple task, even for adults. Therefore, it is unlikely that a child who has just started learning music will have perfect practicing habits. He/she needs a work plan, a gradual program of becoming more committed to daily practices.
So here are a few tips to help you with the daily practicing:
1. There is nothing worse and less effective than just saying to your child “go practice your music.” It’s not much fun for them playing to themselves, with no one listening. So ask them to play you a mini-concert. You can do other house chores at the same time, but do listen and react encouragingly to their efforts.
2. Always complement the playing, even if it is not perfect. You have no idea how much it helps. It boosts your child’s self esteem and self confidence. Your child craves a positive feedback, much like they waited for you to say “”Wow!”” when they started walking.
3. Allow your child to play even in front of the TV. Even the great cellist Misha Maiski does it – I heard him tell it himself. And why not, actually? Music playing should be an part of the activities in the house, not a lonely pastime.
4. Encourage the practicing through a system of rewards. Keep count of the time they practice and reward them with a small gift or a privilege. You can keep a chart of stickers, one for every good day of practice, and decide that a certain amount stickers entitles your child to a bigger reward.
5. Kids love performing and showing off what they can do. Film your child playing and upload the clip to YouTube or social media sites. They can also watch themselves playing and perhaps improve on what they see. Knowing others are watching will spur them to improve their performances.
6. Try to be part of the lesson itself. Even if it is not always convenient, make an effort to be present in the lesson. Ask the teacher how you can help your child at home, perhaps with a system of memorization.
7. Ask your child to teach you how to play. Teaching is a great tool for learning. They can practice techniques and melodies through teaching you. This way, the usual practice can turn into a fun activity for both of you. Moreover, you will then understand the teaching method and the challenges your child faces.
Don’t forget to update me with your progress. Send me video clips of your child or student playing. I will be glad to post them in a special post on my blog. But don’t forget to share with me what’s happening during your lessons and at home, so we can all learn and improve our approaches and teaching techniques.
The best YouTube clip and explanation you post in the comments section
here will get $ 30 gift card from Amazon.
I will also publish it in a special post. Please, share this with anyone who can enjoy and learn from this post.
Good luck and pleasant playing.
Yours,
Maya
Related articles
Related articles
How To choose The Best Musical Program For Your Child
Our kids have a huge selection of after-school activities these days. As a mom, I find myself driving my kids at least ten times in one week to at least 20 different activities. The variety is endless, but time and money are limited, not to mention the toll these activities take on social interactions between kids in the afternoon.
Nevertheless, musical activities are in high demand, mostly because music helps the cognitive and emotional development of the child. There is also the added benefit of learning how to express oneself creatively in front of a large audience. Parents feel proud and excited when they attend their kid’s recital and listen to the fruit of their musical efforts.
Many parents prefer to have musical lessons at home, so that they can have one less activity to drive their kids to. It is more convenient to bring a music teacher home.
Here are some points to help you make an informed decision on whether to teach your kid music at home or send them to a formal program:
1. Formal programs, such as local conservatories, hold themselves to a high standard of teaching. As a parent, you may feel uncomfortable seeing your child putting many hours of practice before a concert and getting emotional about it, not to mention taking a test to continue to the next year. But you must remember that these factors force the teachers to make sure they teach at a high standard as well.
2. Conservatories and schools include in their programs two important parts, which may help beginners and intermediate students:
* Group interactions, such as orchestras and ensembles.
* Theoretic information through listening and learning music theory.
The social interaction during playing music helps keep the level of motivation for playing and practicing. Even for us, adults, it is hard to keep up the motivation when we do things on our own, without the feedback of others.
The theoretic lessons deepens the musical knowledge of the child and expands their cultural horizon’; a great development for every person.
3. All activities are included in the same tuition. There are no unexpected costs.
At the same time, a private music teacher offers some advantages as well:
1. The price of private lessons is often lower and easier to control than the one of a program at a local school. (You pay per lesson.)
2. The atmosphere at home or at the teacher’s house can be friendlier and the emotional connection deeper. The teacher can become part of the family and the kid may feel less threatened and freer than in a formal setting.
3. A private teacher can create a pace suitable for the kid’s personal progress, without having to answer to official standards. The kid gets full attention and there are no tests.
4. A private teacher can teach the kid different kinds of music, according to what the kid likes. There is no official program to follow. This way, the kid can have a deeper emotional and intuitive connection with the music.
5. A private teacher can start a concert in the kid’s home, a less threatening and more intimate setting.
6. At a more advanced stage, you can decide to combine the private lessons with participation in an orchestra or ensemble.
7. And let’s not forget the issue of convenience. Lessons at home or at the teacher’s house, which may be nearby, create a better chance for a consistent schedule, as well as progress.
In any case, when you choose a music teacher, the most crucial factor is the connection between your child and the teacher. I will write more about that next time.
Good luck,
And don’t forget to share your experiences with me and the other readers of the blog!
Yours,
Maya Liberman
Related articles
How to Recognize Musical Hearing
A girl playing violin in The Hague (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Friends, who are parents of toddlers, ask me many times if their child is musical. The answer is, in fact, not as simple and unequivocal as many people presume. Many parameters figure into the musicality of a person. Yet, after observing and testing hundreds of kids, I can honestly say I have never come across a child who is completely lacking any musical inclination.
Music is an integral part of our existence, from the moment we are created. By the 14th week as embryos, our hearing is developed to the point of sensing sounds, earlier than our sight, which only develops after four months out of the womb. The embryo senses his/her own heartbeats and the mother’s as well, along with other sounds which penetrate the shelter of the womb.
Moreover, both Oliver Sachs in his book Musicophilia and Shinitzi Suzuki, the renowned violin and musical teacher, conclude that every person is musical and can play an instrument. Music has a special meaning for each of us, but many of us don’t get any training which can develop our musical potential.
Sachs describes in his book several of the rare people who don’t feel anything when listening to music, but perhaps the most famous unmusical person is Zigmund Freud, who was appreciative of many art forms, such as literature and sculpture, but could not see the value and significance of music. The generations which followed him corrected this error in judgment.
Shinitzi Suzuki, one of the best violin teachers of the 20th century, claimed and proved that every child can learn to play the violin, depending mostly on the will of the child and his/her family. He showed the world that hundreds of children could play this instrument, which is considered difficult to master. Many teachers today carry on his legacy, whether by fully embracing his methods or by integrating some of his ideas into their own teaching.
This thinking conflicts with the general opinion, which claims that the violin, and all of its stringed relatives, require exceptional musical hearing for mastering them.
So is musical hearing really not necessary for playing an instrument? And if so, what is needed? My experience of teaching has shown me that students can learn to play well even without exceptional hearing. The hearing ability can be acquired and depends on the efforts of the student and his/her exposure to the materials.
A child who listens to music regularly, receives training and experiences playing on any instrument, is likely to develop a better musical hearing than a child who has not received these tools.
So here are several tools for developing musical hearing:
1. Expose your child to music as often as possible, the more the better. Listen with your child to music any chance you have. Share your critical thinking and opinions about music you like and dislike.
2. Ask your child which music he/she likes and dislikes and why. It is very important to help your child develop a musical taste.
3. If you like a certain kind of music which allows it, don’t hesitate to start dancing and let go. Enthusiasm is infectious.
4. When your child is ready, at age six or seven, let him/her try an instrument.
5. Don’t pressure your child to play, but create a natural musical environment at home, through YouTube, radio and TV channels and, of course, the music you own.
6. Take your child to a music store which has a large choice of classical music recordings and choose together the music which your child wants to listen to.
Here is a real story, to sum up:
In my work with Symphonette Raanana Orchestra, I present and play in concerts for kids in grades 1-4. I am often asked at what age I started playing. When I reply that I started my musical career at age 6 by playing a recorder, the kids are surprised. When they hear that one of us started playing the violin at age 6, they are excited. It shows that they are not aware of the possibility of playing these instruments.
Part of our role as parents is to open our kids to the experience of these instruments, which Suzuki proved every child can play and enjoy.
Our responsibility is to allow them to develop their personality and creativity through the world of music.
Yours,
Maya
Related articles
Six Ways to Develop Musical Awareness in Your Child
Today I meant to write to you on how to help your kids love music. The truth is that if you read my life story in the earlier posts in my blog, you could quickly gather that the process for me started through the unmediated exposure to music through all media. The radio that was always open and accessible, as well as the records with their various styles, “opened” my ears. These, along with the natural curiosity of a child, are the first stepping-stones in the development of the love for music.
We are living in an amazing time, technologically speaking. If once we had to go to musical libraries or buy a vinyl album to listen to any song or classical work, the digital media of these days has offered us countless accessible possibilities of exposure. Push a button and you have an endless line of songs, classical works, different versions and information.
Indeed, very often when parents of kids who play music ask me how they can expand the musical knowledge of their kids, as well as their own, my answer is very simple and, you’d be surprised, often very cheap.
Here are six ways to develop musical awareness in every person:
1. Turn on the radio or any other medium which broadcasts music: TV, YouTube or the radio channels through the smartphones. That’s all!
2. Let the music go with you everywhere – at home, in the car, on cable TV. (On cable TV, you can even find some other wonderful channels of classical music. Most are audio, but one has video and is called Mezzo.) The advantage of some of the radio stations is that it is very accessible. The editors usually choose canonical works, so it is very easy to learn with its help all the important and famous works, and most importantly, the news are broadcast every few hours. (Thank God!)
3. Choose several classical works that are accompanied by a narration. The story behind the music, whether it is biographical of the composer or describes the music itself, allows the kids to identify emotionally with the music.
4. Try to listen consciously and ask yourselves and your kids what you are hearing: which instrument, what ensemble, what kind of music, what it awakes within you? Sing the familiar tunes even when you are not listening to the music. This way you will slowly engrave the music on your mind.
5. Look up the composers and works on Wikipedia and YouTube or other sites. Try to find different recordings of the same work and read about the composers and the works themselves. This will allow the kids to receive richer information and listen with greater awareness.
6. Take your kids to as many concerts as you can. I’m sure you can find concerts for kids in many places. Even if your kid insists on leaving before the end of the concert, it is still a great experience for the long run. You will see that as their love for music develops, so will their patience and they will sit through the entire concert, captured by the sounds.
I can tell you that this is exactly what I do with my kids and both love many different kinds of music. They have no problem listening to the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and The Magic Flute of Mozart or to Keith Jarrett, the wonderful pianist. They hum more popular tunes they hear at school and enjoy a rich musical world.
We have the option and the obligation to expose our kids to wonderful, deep, rich content. We just need to turn on the radio on the right wavelength.
I’d love to hear about your experiences and those of your kids and friends.
So good luck and enjoy listening.
Yours,
Maya
Related articles
From the Bottom to the Top- the Birth of my Musical Personality
Although I experienced many unsuccessful trials of playing the piano, I insisted in pursuing my eagerness to be involved in making music. At the age of eleven, I took my mom by the hand and dragged her to the Music Conservatory School. I met the principal, who tested my musical ear. My musical hearing ability was not so bad, therefore, he recommended that I play a “serious” instrument such as the violin or cello. Because I had a good friend in school who played the violin and I did not want to compete with her, I picked the cello.
Just like that.
English: Study of a three-quarter size cello. Français : Étude d’un violoncelle taille trois-quarts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Maybe not just like that.
A few weeks before this, a symphonic orchestra visited my school. The variety of instruments showcased, exposed me to the high multitude of symphonic texture. During the concert, I noticed an especially large instrument called the double bass. The double bass is larger than a cello and caught my attention so much that I decided that I wanted to play such an instrument. Through this childhood experience, as an adult, I realized that early exposure to a musical instrument can give widely to the amount of children who play musical instruments.
Back to my music test….
As a result of the excellent outcome of my meeting with the principal at the Music Conservatory School, my mother decided to use reverse psychology on me. She strongly declared to the principal that she was not interested in buying me a musical instrument. (This was completely opposite from how she behaved with my sister when she strictly enforced the importance of playing piano every day.)
It worked!
My mother never insisted that I practice and play the cello. Sometimes she would sit next to me while I played to show her encouragement. She recognized the difficulties that I had in devoting so much of myself to the cello so she did not push me over the edge. Until today, she humorously reminds me of the times when she lovingly asked me to play one more minute…five more minutes.
But don’t get me wrong, I wanted to play more than she wanted me to play for all of those minutes. I just didn’t have enough self-discipline to make the it come to fruition.
In the meantime, I became a very serious cello star in my school. I played cello and sang in the choir during every school ceremony. Finally, I felt that it was worth it to come to school because I was highly appreciated for my musical abilities and status. I was considered special by my peers and teachers.
Dealing with music gave me deep intellectual, emotional and psychological skills. The advanced standards for achievement, self-discipline and artistic responsibility that I implemented help me in all aspects of my life. These tools are universal and do not have to be necessarily connected to music. They can improve your creative abilities and day-to-day life.
Have you met something in your childhood which influenced your career?
Did you play an instrument as a child? Did it influence your life?
What was the prominent gift that music gave you?
Yours,
Maya
Related articles
Get Into the Groove?!
When I started to write about talent, geniuses and musicality, I was amazed to discover how much these subjects attract people. However, on the contrary, it is not so surprising because almost every one of us has tried or would like to try a musical instrument. The reason is not coincidental. There are a lot of researchers that connect the strong relationship between children‘s cognitive abilities and their musical experiences.
One of the most famous books on this subject is “Mozart Effect” by Don Kemble. Although almost every serious musicologist tried to criticize Kemble, for the first time in history the public understood and learned about the connection between music, creativity and therapy through. This approach became widespread and the book became a best seller. Soon enough Kemble’s theory was adapted the commercial market, and “Baby Einstein” was born. As a result of watching the videos, every family with children under 12, like me, can recognize the famous music by Mozart, Vivaldi and Beethoven.
Back to my story… I didn’t tell you, and in fact I didn’t intend to tell you in the beginning of writing this blog, that as a seven-year old girl I had a learning disability. Do you know the children who daydream in the class, talk to trees, look at the sky and don’t write anything in their notebooks? Today these children are defined as ADD and they are given pills. I was one of them. I couldn’t write until I was 8 years old, so my mother asked my teacher to write my homework. It was not a bad arrangement when I think of it… I was enjoying school so much that I was absent it five out of the six days per week. Eventually, I visited school only on Friday (the shortest day of the week in my country) after my mother begged me to go to school.
Although formal education in elementary school did not captivate my mind, I found myself listening and playing music constantly.
Ask “Why?”
Maybe because music was one of the few things in my life at the time that had significant and meaning to me and made me stand out as a unique child. When I played my music, I was proving something special; I was different from other children. Also, when I played together with my peers in recorder groups developed my strength of being part of a team.
I still remember climbing up the little hill happily after school to go to my recorder group lessons and. I also played (not practiced of course) at home.
When I think about my disability and how I handled it, another famous example comes into my mind.
Do you know this guy?
Michael phelps with house speaker Busch….. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
While reading Michael Phelps biography is quite interesting, his ADHD is only mentioned in one sentence, while his phenomenal records span over more than 30 long paragraphs.
So, how can you explain his success?
What is the secret that will lead us to significant amount of success stories like Phelps in sports and others in music?
Can you tell me about a musical hero or a personal role model who has a similar story like Phelps?
Let’s stop here for a moment after reading my educational history. What do you think is the outcome of my academic track record?
Looking forward to your comments, insights and interesting links.
Yours,
Maya
Related articles
Hypersmash.com
//
//
Can’t You be Born a Musician??!!
In one of my first posts, I raised the question, “Can a person be born a musician?” Through my personal story, I tried to exemplify that you do not necessarily need be born into a musical family or to have exclusive genes to become a musician or musical personality. I asked my colleagues to respond to this query and I received hundreds of comments, (most of them form Linked-In groups) where people shared their musical biographies and insights. I would like to quote some of the comments and respond to them.
I can sum up the majority of the musicians’ opinions with Shirley Kirsten’s words. She seemed shocked by my declaration that people can be born a musician. “Born a musician? I think you become a musician through devotion and hard work, although there are genetic gifts that jump-start the creative process and give it an edge.”
Even though there are some musicians that were exposed to music in a relatively late age (about 12 years old) or by their own eagerness, they still had a profound musical education and experience. Through the comments I received, I understood that to be a musician you need not only to hear music as part of your environment, but also actually play an instrument. This became obvious through the story of Mary Jane Jones, which was only one of many similar stories. “My musical “talent” began as the result of living in a home where classical music was the only music played. Records and radio. No TV in the home. My mother was a professional pianist/organist and my dad loved music. Although he was not trained a musician, he was very musical. He was the lead tenor in our church choir and my mom was the church organist. I was taught to sing and play the piano at the early age of four.
If you study the biographies of Mozart, Bach, Rubinstein, Horowitz, Casals and DuPre, you will discover that these musical icons “certainly undeniably acquired skill through practiced diligence and superior, considerate teachers,” states Leonardo Helton.
R. Leonardo Helton and Steven Beely both mentioned Malcom Gladwell in their answers. Maybe Malcolm Gladwell started to answer this question in his book Outliers. Gladwell exclaims that to become a very successful person, one needs to invest 10,000 hours in developing their own talent.
He further explains that putting in time is not the only criterion for success. A supportive and educated family; being raised in a cultural and developed center; and being born in a period of prosperity are also key factors in flourishing into any type of gifted person.
So what is the recipe for being a musician?
Do you have an exact formula for casting 10, 000 hours of musical training?
How do I know that my 10,000 hours of musical practice methods are efficient and effective?
Can I transfer this approach to other non-musical fields?
What do you think? Let me know in the comments section below.
Yours,
Maya
Related articles
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘UA-32241983-1’]);
_gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’]);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
(function(d,s,i) {
if (d.getElementById(i)){return;}
var n = d.createElement(s),e = document.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
n.id=i;n.src = ‘//js.hubspot.com/analytics/179858.js’;
e.parentNode.insertBefore(n, e);
})(document, “script”, “hs-analytics”);
Listen to the Sounds of Your Heart
(Photo: Doron Letzter)
As you can see the treasury and the assets you have in your home and family can be an effective boost for your talent development. In my case it was music, but it can be anything.
As you will see, the music in my mind didn’t stop at that point. When I went to first grade, I played the recorder. I remember this instrument very well. It was a cheap plastic tube with 12 holes, which made a lot of strange strong whistles all around the house. My sister liked the sound so much that she took my recorder from me and put it on the refrigerator where I couldn’t reach it. Her behavior can be understood as the last stage before becoming totally insane because of the unbearable noise. Nevertheless, nothing helped. I never stop playing, I just shut the door and continued to play in my room. My friends in the recorder class were still stuck with the first pages of the recorder book while I was running fast and learning the first, second and the third book of recorder playing by myself.
My years as a famous recorder player were short. My conservative mother decided that the recorded wasn’t a good enough instrument for her talented daughter. So she decided to send me to piano lessons, like my sister.
When I was 7 years old, a prominent event that influenced my decision to become a musician was the famous movie “Amadeus” by Milõs Forman.
I went to this movie 7 times!!!!! The first few times I saw to this movie with one of my family members. After all my family members went with me, I decided to go and see the movie by myself. My poor dad waited for me for hours outside of the cinema. Every time Mozart died in the movie, my tears fell down my cheeks grieving for his early death. Because I was so passionate about this tragedy and the way the music, story, and Mozart’s lively personality all blended together into a deep spiritual experience. My parents bought me the soundtrack of the movie so I was able to listen to Mozart’s music as much as I wanted in my home.
My passion for Mozart’s music was so intense that one day I was testing the vinyl record‘s resistance by scratching the album deeply. I had no patience to wait for someone to change the side of the record’s.
Cover via Amazon
After a few weeks, I knew the double album so well that I used to sing all the famous opera aries from the “Magic Flute“, the piano concertos and Mozart’s well-known symphonies. All of this beautiful music flowed from my mouth and my limbs. I danced and sang around the room for hours. The music penetrated into my heart and soul each time the needle hit the vinyl. Finally, my mother understood that I had a very serious virus, which was called a musical virus. But my mother still didn’t know how to handle my so-called “illness”.
What do you think? Can someone predict a musical genius, or even musical success?
What does it mean to be “a musical success” at all?
Did this video excite you? What did you feel when you saw this?
I would like you to share your stories and thoughts about your early musical experiences and education.
I am sure that I can learn a lot from you!
Yours,
Maya
Related articles
My Blog is Moving to a New Address
Dear Readers,
My blog “My Musical Talent” has moved to a new URL:
Please press here to read my new posts about musical talent.
You will find there all my latest posts.
I invite you to write your comments, insights and thought and share it with your friend by using on of the “share buttons” at the bottom of the post.
Wishing you a musical inspired day,
Maya
Music Education by Intuition
In my post “Can you be born a musician?“, I wrote about the first exposure of my musical experience of listening to the radio all the time. But my early musical experience was not limited only to the radio, since we had an endangered species that you can barely find today called an LP record player.
This odd machine was big and cumbersome, although it didn’t have a handle like the gramophone. The records were made from vinyl and tended to have scratches. Because of its unique character, it wasn’t made for curious children like me.
In my LP library you could have found African music as well as “The Golden Trumpet” or Mozart‘s 40th symphony.
Here is a beautiful photo of an album that I used to listen to with my father many times.
I guess these albums weren’t special and you could have found them in almost every house in those days.
I remember myself asking my mom or dad to put a record on the LP for me. Sometimes I listened to my favorite children’s record, “The Sound of Music” or something else like ‘Ipi Tombi‘, a popular band at that time.
Unfortunately I didn’t manage to find the original video with the song I liked so much. I will be thankful if you can find it and send it to me.
This popular musical based on African musical fragments was also broadcasted on an Israeli night.
.
I am wondering what happened to all these happy nice people who were dancing and singing so beautifully on my T.V and LP player….
Sometimes in those days, when the LP record player was working, I used to repeatedly hear the same musical phrase again and again for 1000 times, because it had a scratch on the vinyl and the music was stuck on the same phrase. Eventually someone understood that there was a problem and moved the needle to another place in the record so we could continue to hear rest of the music.
Here is a beautiful artistic interpretation of this phenomenon.
Maybe in my future posts I will tell you the interesting story behind this piece…
Amongst of all the LP collection that we had in our library, I found an abandoned dusty green box that had been there for many years without attracting my attention. This old box contained an anthology of classical music records, which was inherited from an anonymous uncle that I never saw. The music that was in the box had a very ancient smell, like the antique black and white photos of my unknown family members that I have never met and could never meet. It took me some time to discover this box, but as soon as I found it, it became very special to me.
The turning point of my musical development was when my sister who was eight years older than me started to play the piano. From her first sloppy sounds on the keyboard until she could play the canonic pieces by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, I was her first admirer (maybe even before my mom and dad).. Since she was very self disciplined and she had a very demanding mother, she played for 2 or more hours a day. For thousands of times, I listened to the pieces over and over again. I was very happy and fortunate because I had free ear-training for years without any complaints about doing homework. The music seeped into my body and soul because I was listening all the time. I remember myself listening to her playing every day and looking for her improvement and for the different musical styles which I didn’t know how to identify at that time. My dream was to be able to play like my sister. She was the representative for me for Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy and many other musical friends.
Have you ever noticed the phenomenon of children having the same experience again and again without it becoming tedious or monotonous – be it music, games or stories?
Why do you think it is happening?
What is the meaning of having the same experience over and over again?
Can you imagine other fields were the same phenomenon is happening?
Do you have any stories that can reinforce the idea a reoccurring pattern?
What are your insights about this phenomenon?
I would also love to read your questions, ideas and tips from you that have to deal with the issue at hand.
Yours,
Maya Liberman
Related articles
- Dig this, old vinyl turns to gold (thehindu.com)
(function(d,s,i) {
if (d.getElementById(i)){return;}
var n = d.createElement(s),e = document.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
n.id=i;n.src = ‘//js.hubspot.com/analytics/179858.js’;
e.parentNode.insertBefore(n, e);
})(document, “script”, “hs-analytics”);
var __hs_fm = {portal: 179858, host: ‘hubapi.com’, blog: false};
(function(){
var fm = document.createElement(‘script’);
fm.type = ‘text/javascript’; fm.async = true;
fm.src = ‘//static.hubspot.com/js/fm.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(fm, s);
})();
Is the Genius in Your Genes? Your Comments
The question about musical talent being derived from genetics versus skilled musical talent and other intellectual or physical fields is raising a never ending discussion. What came first? – The inborn ability or the skilled one. – The chicken or the egg?
Stories like those of Mozart in music or Lionel Messi in football can make us confused. The two masters burst into the world, fascinating all the people around them from very early stages of their lives.
Mozart was only three years old when his extraordinary musical ability was recognized. At the age of five he began to write his early compositions, and also played violin and harpsichord. During his life term, he composed more the 600 works, which most of them are famous and distinguished by their musical qualities.
Although Messi is only 24 years old, he is considered one of the best football/soccer players of all times. At the age of four Messi demonstrated an unusual ability to guide the ball. Soon enough he was also acknowledged by his coaches. In the age of twelve he was accepted to Barcelona, one of the most distinguished football teams. Messi’s list of accolades is almost never ending. His future looks very bright.
But these stories are in a way the end of the story. What happened in the beginning?
Do you think that these masters were born geniuses?
One of my colleagues in the Bach (Johan Sebastian Bach) Linked-In group, referred to the Henkjan Honing lecture from Ted Talks in Amsterdam.
Honing explains about inborn musical abilities. He claims that almost all human beings are musical. Starting from an early stage, three month old babies develop special intonation abilities according to their mother tongue language.
In addition to the ability to distinguish different intonation, he mentioned his special research with newborn babies. He discovered that these newborns react physically to syncopations (non-regular rhythmic patterns). Honing acclaimed that the sense of beat is a common denominator to human beings and animals.
Another Bach Linked-In group member also indicated the importance of the fundamental rhythmic senses. She states that the heart beat and breathing are part of basic essence of human beings and the experience of life.
Honing himself conduct another controversial experiment with his audience. In this experiment, the audience was requested to reconstruct a given tune by showing them the video of the song. He picked one volunteer to answer the question. The identification was perfect. The volunteer recognized the tune precisely by pitch and tempo.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find research about perfect pitch in newborn babies. The reason can be technical because they are very young subjects and their reactions are limited. Maybe newborns can’t have perfect pitch ability yet.
I would be glad to have your information about this kind of research that I couldn’t find.
In any case, although the experiment is very interesting and sparks a discussion about the definition of perfect pitch or absolute pitch, (which I promise to discuss deeply in one of my future posts), it has nothing to do with inborn musical abilities. It determines that these qualities are definitely skilled ones.
Searching the subject of inborn versus learned skills led me to an interesting source. In an article written by Hilary Coon and Gregory Carey, the differentiation between the musical skills of twins was tested. The unambiguous results show that although twins have almost similar genetic origin, the environmental influence is much more dominant than their genetic make-up.
If this is the case, then our job as musical educators, parents and leaders is much more significant than we think and admit. In one of my next posts , I will refer to this wide-spread opinion of my colleagues in the music field.
Finally, in the past few weeks, I received a significant amount of responses in reaction to my blog. I read every comment and I am still arranging them it into different topics, which I will discuss in the future. In order to give you credit and quote your comments properly; especially if you are group member or wrote a comment in the blog itself, please indicate your e-mail and professional website with your comments.
If you are not interested in any of your information being published, please write to me specifically.
I want to acknowledge my colleagues and friends that contributed their significant information to this post and my next posts:
Agnes Mauer, Simone Baroni, Mary Anne Finnemore, John Kiberd, Diana Kirkpatrick, Pauli Maher, Amitavo Roy, Mary Jane Jones, Minnie Villanueva, Karim Elmahmoudi, Shirley Kirsten, Philip Shapiro, Sandy Holland, Ruth Brons, R. Leonardo Helton, Cynthia Morro-Hattal. Michael Gold, Opher Brayer, Davie Chamberlain, Dianah Romig Mellin, Amit Shtriker, Michelle, Leon Van Dyke, Lloyd Masel, Hagit Rosmarin, Samer Hatoum, Ron Floisand, James R. Stewart Jr., Kent Cohea.
Others who were quoted in my present post or in my future posts will be quoted without being mentioned , are invited to send me their permission and I will add their details.
Yours,
Maya
Related articles
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘UA-32241983-1’]);
_gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’]);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
(function(d,s,i) {
if (d.getElementById(i)){return;}
var n = d.createElement(s),e = document.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
n.id=i;n.src = ‘//js.hubspot.com/analytics/179858.js’;
e.parentNode.insertBefore(n, e);
})(document, “script”, “hs-analytics”);
Musicofilia – Natured and Nurtured Love of Music
In the last few days after I published my first two posts of “My Musical Talent” blog, I received more than 2000′ visitors and more than 50 comments.
This serious amount of reaction reinforced my deep thoughts and feelings that music has a powerful meaning for each one of us.
More than that, reading all the comments also strengthen my opinion that music appreciation, practice and understanding should be much more accessible to people.
As Oliver Sacks declares in his book “Musicofilia“, the number of non musical creatures on Earth is quite rare.
I agree with him completely. Most of us have musicality in our genes. So if I understand Sacks correctly (and also Darwin, who was mention in my introduction to the blog), music is one of our basic mental needs of survival.
Soon I am going to go over all the comments I have received for my blog in the last two weeks and will publish a special post containing the main part of the discussion my post raised.
As for now, all the comments can be divided into two main groups. The first group consists of musicians who were born into a musical family and who had a distinct musical education from infancy by passive and active exposure. The second group of people did not specifically have roots in music, but had a revelation with music from a certain experience or an influential person. Much like in the movie “Music of the Heart” which is based on a true story about Roberta Guaspari, a charismatic violin teacher, who inspired a group of inner city children from Harlem.
The message of all of the comments shared a common denominator. No matter whether you have an in born or learned musicality, in order to integrate music into your body, mind and soul, you need to invest time, effort, devotion and energy into it.
I invite you to continue to read, write, discuss, comment and share your insights with all the curious people around.
Thank you for devoting your attention to the musical world.
Dear Readers,
My blog “My Musical Talent” has moved to a new URL:
Please press here to read my new posts about musical talent.
You will find there all my latest posts.
I invite you to write your comments, insights and thought and share it with your friend by using on of the “share buttons” at the bottom of the post.
Wishing you a musical inspired day,
Maya
Can you be born a musician?
My name is Maya and I am a classical musician in my profession. I can say that I have dealt with music since as long as I remember. Many people think that classical music is dying today, but I think that anybody who says that doesn’t really know what they are talking about. So I have decided to share my insights. First, I need to tell you how I became a musician and how it enhanced the quality of my life. Maybe my little story can represent the potential of almost every child that has some curiosity and motivation. Also I think that my choice with playing a musical instrument is not necessarily the case but only an example of the seeds that we plant that will eventually grow into a big tree in our lives.
I was born into a typical middle class family. My mother was a teacher and my father was an accountant – nothing extraordinary. Like most of the people in the 70’s and 80’s, in our normal house we heard music from the radio. What you heard on the radio is what you got. No one in our family either played an instrument or had a musical education. The only thing was that the radio was on almost 24 hours a day. My mom told me that I used to go to sleep with the radio on as well wake up with it. And since I was a very happy baby, I used to dance in my bed until my parents held me in their hands.
What would you think about this baby if you had seen one like me in my infancy?
I guess you would say: “She is so musical! She is so talented!”
Was I really so talented and musical? Did I have an inborn talent, or did the exposure to a musical environment make this talent grow?
How can you forecast the future of a baby?
What do you think about this?
I would be happy to have your own stories and comments about the beginning of your musical talent and experiences.
I am going to collect all of your stories and deeply analyze them in order to create new insights about our artistic and musical development.
Basically, I am looking to develop a refined and more accurate methodology for our musical personal development as well as for our children.
Dear Readers,
My blog “My Musical Talent” has moved to a new URL:
Please press here to read my new posts about musical talent.
You will find there all my latest posts.
I invite you to write your comments, insights and thought and share it with your friend by using on of the “share buttons” at the bottom of the post.
Wishing you a musical inspired day,
Yours,
Maya Liberman
Music as the Voice of our Greatness
“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”
Although Charles Darwin’s quotation was written more than 100 years before our time, it can be claimed that inside his words you can find the essence and the purpose of many musicians and music scholars of today.
As you can read the quotation, Darwin himself fully understood the importance of being emotionally developed by exposing himself to the refined arts like music and poetry.
More than that, even though he was one of the most brilliant naturalists in history, he deeply understood the need for expanding the realm of his soul in order to keep himself from damaging his brain and morality.
For him, music wasn’t only an entertainment, but an instrument that can be used to optimize one’s mental wellness.
But in my opinion, the most important word in that quotation is the word “IF”. This two letter long word expresses the dominant attitude of our generation regarding music. We are surrounded by music all the time, but we almost never stop to listen to it deeply. Today, hardly anybody searches for unique and different types of music besides what is being heard on the radio, on the web or in the dance clubs. And I am sure, for example, only in random times somebody analyzes the structure of the music with lyrics. The music just goes in one ear and out the other, stimulating the senses, but not the intellect.
Nevertheless, I am sure that the reason for this is not our indifference to music (actually I have never met someone in my life that was not a musical person), but our overwhelming exposure to the amount of categorized information we receive in our daily routine. When I was a young girl, I knew for sure which composers I should know in order to have a proper musical education. These times are gone forever now, but I can say that although we don’t have the canon for musical pieces anymore, we have the richness of information, which is priceless. Even though with one push of a button on the computer we can access any style, era or performance of music we want, people don’t know what to ask for.
In this chaotic intellectual world, the purpose of my blog is give to you the first entrance of the magnificent world of music. My plan is to take you on an exciting step by step tour of the existing, but untouchable world of music. Through this journey, I will introduce you to the world of music comprehension. Although my musical educational roots are planted from classical music, I will reveal diverse styles of music, from the early stages until the latest innovations.
I will begin my musical voyage from the beginning of my own musical private biography. In the course of my writing, I will investigate subjects such as: musical mental development; musical intelligence; music appreciation; and implications of music practice on the abilities to concentrate, creating self-esteem, and gaining knowledge.
Writing a blog rather than a book, enables free information transformation. By having your comments, insights and your suggestions, I will be able to deepen my investigation as well as improve and expand the subjects that will be discussed.
Feel free to write to me whatever comes into your head, and together we will have the opportunity to discover the marvelous world of music.
Wishing you a pleasant experience of making music, reading music and thinking about music.
Yours,
Maya Liberman
My Musical Talent 
