Music Simply Music - Warm Fuzzies

Welcome to Music Teachers Insightful Practices (MTIPS) Newsletter!
Written and Published by Nicholas Ambrosino
www.musicsimplymusic.com
mailto:director@musicsimplymusic.com

October 5, 2001

Table of Contents:

1. MTIPS Theme
2. Welcome Notes
3. MTIPS Development
4. Notable Quotables

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1. MTIPS Theme

Welcome to Music Teachers Insightful Practices (MTIPS) Newsletter!

On October 1st, I sent out an invitation to participate in the amazing musical
phenomena that will be occurring on October 20th … the Music Simply
Music Musicathon. This event will take place over a 24 hour uninterrupted
time period, from 12:00pm October 20 through 12:00pm October 21. There
is still time for you to enroll your students in using their talents as musicians
to have a huge positive impact on the world! Simply go to
www.musicsimplymusic.com/musicathon.htm. and download the FREE kit
on how to put a Musicathon together in your community!

A warm welcome to our new subscribers! “Thank you” to all my colleagues
and friends who have passed MTIPS onto your friends and colleagues. I
consider it an honor that you find MTIPS valuable enough to pass it on.
Thanks!

Shameless Marketing Plug:
If you know someone who would benefit by subscribing to MTIPS, please
forward them this copy and if they choose, they can click on the link below
to become a monthly subscriber.

http://www.musicsimplymusic.com/newsletters.htm

MTIPS is a FREE monthly newsletter that’s goal is to provide piano teachers
(hopefully you!) with insightful practices that will make the career of sharing
music with soon-to-be-musicians a more rewarding and successful one.
Please let me know how I can be of further service to you. You may contact
me at:
mailto:nick@musicsimplymusic.com

Be sure to check our web site at:
http://www.musicsimplymusic.com
We have lots of information, and resources you can use. We’re constantly
adding and up-dating, so check it often!
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3. MTIPS Development

Sometimes bright, quick learners have it harder. For the most part, our
educational system tends to reward students for all of the correct answers
and society tends to extol great accolades upon those that come up with the
correct answers the quickest. This can be detrimental to the development of
young people who are bright, quick learners.

True learning does not mean simply being able to do something. As a
matter of fact, if you can do something on the very first attempt, you
probably aren’t learning at all; you are simply reviewing that, which on some
level, you already know. True learning constitutes a series of trials and
errors. True learning is making mistakes (the word is almost a faux pas in
our society!), coming up with solutions to overcome the mistakes and then
finding another error to fix and so on until the task is complete.

Our society tends to reward people for their successes and therefore, when
young people make mistakes on their way to learning, they assume they are
on the path to failure. Failure only becomes the sum of our experiences
when we quit. Mistakes (in the media industry they are called “miss-takes”)
are an integral part of the path to ultimate success. They are, perhaps, the
most important part, for it is through our mistakes that we forge our
character.

A student I have had for the past year discontinued her lessons. This student
is a very bright young girl of 9 years old. Life comes easy to her. Her grades
in school are at the top of her class. She excels in anything she starts. The
key word is “starts”. She does not usually continue with activities after the
“introductory period”. At the point where the yellow brick road becomes
plain old asphalt pavement, her learning patterns fail her. If the challenge is
such that she does not accomplish it after one or two attempts, she gets very
frustrated and quits. No one in her past has taught her how to overcome the
largest obstacle on the path to learning anything…frustration. This is why
she stopped her piano lessons.

We are doing our “quick learners” a disservice when we allow them to
establish the belief, early in their developmental years, that learning and
growing is always easy. The fact is that sometimes learning simply means
trying something over and over until it finally locks in. That is called
commitment. Eventually, regardless of how “talented” or “bright” a student
is, he or she will come against a challenge that will demand they tap into
their level of commitment. This is where we get to see how the student
really functions. As Wayne Dyer says, do they respond with ability
(responsibility) or do they respond from disability in their learning patterns?

Personalities and character are forged in the face of frustration. Show your
students how to overcome their learning obstacles and through their music
lessons, they will become stronger people; people with the commitment, self
confidence and self assurance that will overcome any challenge put on their
path to Oz. And you, in turn, will become their hero.
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4. Notable Quotable

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do
something. And that which I can do, by the grace of God, I will do.”
-Dwight L. Moody

Taken from “A Daily Quote form Coach U.” www.dailycast.com This
was submitted by Coach Charles Powell, MCC who can be reached at
coach@coach-charles.com

Copyright © 2000 Nicholas Ambrosino. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce, copy or distribute MTIPS so long as this cop1yright notice and full information about contacting the author is attached. The author of this article is Nicholas Ambrosino and he may be contacted at:

http://www.musicsimplymusic.com
director@musicsimplymusic.com

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