S1Ep18: Fostering Musical Growth Through Theory and Therapy With Tiziana Pozzo, Music Tree London

In this episode of Heard It Through The Grooveline, host Will Bennett and guest Tiziana from Music Tree School discuss strategies for supporting children's musical education, regardless of parental musical knowledge. Tiziana shares her journey from studying in Venice to teaching in London, highlighting the importance of enjoyment in learning music, the challenges of rigid educational systems, and her personal experience with ADHD affecting her musical journey. The conversation delves into innovative teaching methods, including the significance of improvisation, creating a supportive environment at home, and the role of music therapy in understanding and addressing learners' needs. They emphasize the importance of parental involvement in their child's musical education, advocating for a nuanced approach that goes beyond traditional, exam-focused learning. The episode also touches on the value of exposing children to a variety of musical experiences to cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation of music.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction

00:42 Guest's Background and Musical Journey

01:52 Challenges and Triumphs in Musical Education

06:46 The Role of Parents in Musical Education

14:49 The Importance of Music Therapy in Learning

28:01 Innovative Approaches to Music Education

36:50 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

www.groovelinemusiceducation.com
@groovelinemusiceducation on social media!

Looking for your next move as a music educator? Perhaps you want to start a new chapter in your career, build a new lifestyle after years on the road, or you're looking for the opportunity to create your own business but don't know where to start?

We are now recruiting pilot franchisees! Not your average owner/operator children's activity franchise - we are looking for business-minded investors to build a team, create a valuable asset for their future and help make a difference to the state of primary music education un the UK.

Grooveline Music Education is on a mission to reimagine and revolutionise primary music education.

We believe that engaging with music education at an early age is a crucial part of a child’s development. It provides an extraordinary range of cognitive, emotional, and social benefits that help children to thrive in all areas of their lives.

To do this, we are on a journey to bring Grooveline Music Education to schools around the UK. In order to meet our ambitious goal we are looking for passionate, like minded individuals who want to lead the music education revolution with us.

Sound like something you want to be part of?

Click below to find our more, download a prospectus or book a chat!

www.groovelinemusiceducation.com/franchise

Transcript

Hello and welcome to another episode of Heard It Through The Grooveline. My name is Will Bennett and I'm the founder of Grooveline Music Education. I'm here to help you know how to best support the musical education of your child, even if you are not musical yourself.   Today I'm joined by Tiziana from Music Tree School in London. Good morning. How are you doing today?   Good morning. Hello. Yeah. Very good. Despite the weather.  Yeah. It's been a three weeks now, but look, you're like a proper British person now moaning about the weather straight away.  Yes.  Well, Italians do the same.

Trust me.  Oh, okay. So, so where are you from in Italy?  Northeast. So I, I've studied in the Conservatoire of Venice and, and the weather is mostly like, like in London. So it rains the whole time. And if it doesn't rain, there is a lot of sun, but it's too hot.

So, you know, it's becoming more and more complicated everywhere anyway.  I've never been there.   It's a great place. Yeah. I mean, when you study in the conservatory in Venice, you really feel you're living with Bach and Beethoven and Chopin, you know, because everything is kind of stopped.

It doesn't, it's, it's a city that evolves of course, but the architecture and the general vibe of the city is the same one from centuries and centuries. So studying classical music there really, it's, it's particular thing. It's not a jazz place.  Yeah, no, I can imagine what you're saying. I've never, as I said, I've never been, but I've seen photos of it.

And it does seem like even the architecture kind of like,  looks like it would sound like classical music, if that makes sense.  Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes, yes.  The conservatory is very good, actually, in Venice. So it was, it was a great experience.  So how did you kind of learn music? Obviously you ultimately went to the Conservatoire.

When did you first start learning music and how did that go for you?  So my mum is a musician. She's a professional pianist. And my dad is a is a music lover. So he plays many different instruments from more like a, popular music point of view.  So I grew up with both sides of music, the, the more traditional one, the more classical and the one relates to instead like just enjoying music.

And and I started very early. So when I was five years old, basically my mom already told me how to read all the notes on the staves. And then I started learning piano when I was six. But in Italy at the moment, and also for many years basically you could do your normal school. So attend primary, secondary, high school, and even university.

And parallelly do all the exams for a conservatoire.  Now it's changing so you actually have to decide if you want to go for a degree in music. But before you could be an engineer and at the same time also do a degree in violin.  Oh, wow. Which made it very hard for students, of course, but it gave a lot of possibility.

But somehow it was also a way in which music was not fully recognized as a proper, you know,  career or path. Because yeah, you can do music, but we give you a possibility also to do something else. Because if you're a musician, maybe you don't earn enough, or are you really sure you want to be a musician?

Yeah. So this was a bit of a vibe in Italy, unfortunately, and that's also what the reason why I moved to England to actually decide to have a better career in music.  Oh, okay. But I started yeah, I started very early with a piano and and all the exams of the conservatoire arrived very, very early in my life. 

So I'm still paying  for that. I, I, I literally had proper traumas coming from, from that type of very strict system. So I started teaching very early with the idea that my student would never go through the same experience that I had.  Very strict and rigid and traditional and not enjoyable. Well, yeah, the thing is I am, I was very good in music.

You can imagine when you grow up in a music family, then, you know, you have, I had perfect pitch and and I could recognize the notes and my rhythm was perfect. So automatically everybody was like, yeah, just start. And when I was 10, I had the first very big exam in Italy, which is solfege.  which is a crazy exam for, for a 10 year old.

So that was the first big trauma that I had. And parallelly,  I was undiagnosed with ADHD.  So you can imagine having ADHD and having to stay in front of an instrument. For six, seven hours a day, it really is not your thing. If you need to move, if you need to express yourself in another way, you can also have an ADHD and decide to stay on the piano seven hours a day and you go in hyper focused and then you become an amazing pianist, but in my case, music meant dancing, singing, feeling music with the body.

So staying in front of a piano was very hard. And, and I discovered that I had ADHD only last summer. So my whole life, I didn't really understand why it was so hard for me to stay and practice and study. But this made me a very good piano teacher, because as soon as I see that my students are starting getting bored or having a little frustration, or they're not motivated enough.

I work around this very, very hard, because I know how hard it could be if you're not in the right path. Yeah, yeah, I understand. I don't know if it makes sense. No, it definitely makes sense, yeah, and you know, that, that is kind of a theme I think that a lot of people nowadays agree with, that that kind of traditional, very strict way of learning.

It can still work for some people, but it's probably not the best way for most people. And as we now kind of start to learn and understand more about different ways of learning and different types of brain and all the rest of it, and neurodiversity  with, you know, whether it be ADHD or something else you know, there's many different ways to, to kind of teach music.

That's, that's kind of why I talked to you as well. Cause I, you know, I had read that little story on your website. But then you've, because of it, you've kind of gone the opposite way. So how are you now teaching, I know that you've mentioned that you, you know, you're very quick to notice if people are getting bored or frustrated.

What would be some of the techniques that you would use, say, for example, in a lesson, you can see a child is getting frustrated and, impatient or whatever it may be. What are some of the things you may do in a lesson that maybe a parent listening could do with their child as well? 

Okay, well, it really depends, of course, on the type of situation. Every situation is different, so that's the first thing that you have to remember when you're teaching. Not all the students are the same, and we all learn in different ways, as you just said. So for a parent, this is very important to remember.

Your child might need a little bit more time, or maybe this is not the right path for them. Let's try something else. So potentially I would suggest parents that if they see that their children are getting bored or they don't want to go to practice, I would ask them to speak with a teacher immediately and then, and then, you know, realize if a teacher is actually getting  Is, is it getting aware of it, or if it's just going with their strict program.

So that's, that's the first thing that I suggest my parents, or I would suggest to parents. Let us know if you notice that the motivation is not exactly what you would expect, and then first discuss with a teacher. That's the first thing.  And then if a teacher is already working on this, then there are difficult, different things, of course.

For example, maybe using an alarm at home to, to reduce the amount of, of time that the child needs to practice, but, you know, setting maybe a regular practice. So instead of practicing two times a week for 45 minutes, let's do 10 minutes every day. So try to differentiate the way in which they have to practice.

And Another thing is do not expect your child to love music if you don't do any music at home. So they might need to support their kids by going to concerts or by bringing the students to a school where they can meet our students instead of having the teacher coming to their home all the time. So create also different type of environments when the children can meet our children.

And share the passion, the common passion for music, because music is amazing when it's done all together is also amazing when it's done, you know, by yourself, but at the same time, if it can be a very good idea to motivate the student by creating a community or bringing the student inside the community, otherwise play, play an instrument can be quite solitary because there's a lot of practice  and and it's not easy to overcome the frustration sometimes.

Yeah, I, I, that's a really good point actually. I mean, it is obviously very solitary and eat no matter how kind of social you make it, there's going to be an aspect of solidarity there because as you said, you do have to practice and quite often that's many hours spent on your own, you know And that can be a great thing, and it's kind of good, you know, especially if you're like an adolescent teenager kind of person to have that time and focus and a goal and all the benefits that we all know about music.

That's great. But I love what you said there. You can't expect a child to love music just by magic. You know, you need to actually kind of create an environment in which they could love it. You know, obviously some kids, they just love music. They're obsessed with music. Almost it seems out of nowhere.

But more, more often it'll be because at home music seems cool or, you know, the parents have made music fun or they talk about and listen to music. And so in this child's world, music is something very celebrated and very cool. And it's unlikely that without that, they're going to just suddenly become obsessed with music for no reason.

It can happen, but it's not  happened the most often. Well, another thing that I've noticed specifically in this country is that some parents approach music education only because they want their kids to do some grades so they can enter secondary school with a better score. I don't know exactly how it works but  if you think that music is only that. 

then bring them to play chess, you know, because  music is so much more and it's so complicated that you were starting a path that you think can be very fun and can also bring something positive, which is definitely true. But if you do not support the fun, then it just becomes very hard.  And, and then kids do grade one, grade two, maybe they got to grade three and then they stop. 

So what happened to in my school mostly is that we have parents that are coming to us saying, you know, I've done up to grade four, but then I started hating what I was doing, but I would like to give my, my child a different experience. So most of the parents that are coming to us, because potentially on our website there is  You know, we value motivation, value creativity.

We get those types of clients  and which makes our life easier. I have to say, because if we had only parents that want exams, exams, exams, potentially we wouldn't be the right. people the right school. I think you're right. We do also that. We do also that. We support the children that want, and also I think that sometimes exams are very useful to motivate the students, but it's a, it's a subtle line that you have to understand as a teacher.

So exam, it cannot be the goal in my opinion. Yeah, I agree. I think an exam can be used as a tool for motivation and You know some kind of measurement at some point, but I really think no one in real life Even to get into university doesn't necessarily, a lot of universities don't even actually ask you to have that grade They just want you to be That's a standard equivalent to that kind of grade and really in the audition is when they'll find out if that's true or not  No one's ever, you know, in real life asked me to see my degree or to see my grades or anything like that.

You know, before booking a gig with me or before, or whatever it might be.  You know, even like now with teachers, obviously we want them to have a music degree. But ultimately we want them to be good at music and know about music. And if someone didn't have a music degree, but they did know about music and they did love music and they had experienced teaching that, you know, we would probably still offer them a job. 

You know, it's not all about grades. I think, especially when they're children, you know, maybe grade 8 for some universities might be required. Some traditional universities, maybe. But you don't need to have grade 6, in order to take grade 8 either, necessarily. No! No, absolutely.  It's good to have a bit of motivation.

Some kids respond really well to it and they enjoy it. So it's worth doing. But I think as you said, if your only goal or more to the point, if a parent's only goal is to try and get their kid to  tick boxes of certain grades, but then not necessarily have all the other benefits and really the whole point of music is everything except for the grade is really the point of music.

And as you said, you may as well teach them, get them to do something else that's. Purely based on achievements and ticking, you know, climbing higher and higher up a ladder of whether it be,  like you said, chess tournaments or whatever, you know, something you want them to do is goal orientated.

Music is not, you know, there's, there is goals in music, but there's so much non tangible benefit.  Yeah. So I really  agree with what you said there.  Yeah, well, you know, for me, it was, it was very clear how much it was, I suffered during the conservatoire basically, but it was also clear all the benefits that I got from music because  even if my ADHD was not diagnosed, I definitely knew that I was learning how to be patient, that I was learning how to stay focused, that I was learning how to work with other people, that I was learning how to listen to other people.

So I could understand all the benefits that I was getting from music. And as a music teacher, at some point I was, I think I need more. I think I need to study more about this. And then I went into music therapy because  I really wanted to understand what was happening in my brain and what happened in the brain of my students potentially when I was teaching them.

Also because as a piano,  as a piano teacher, as a music teacher,  you can really see Sometimes things in our students that our teachers cannot,  and this is because music involves the brain 360 degrees. So from, from a visual point of view, to an auditory point of view, to a psychomotor point of view, from an emotional point of view as well.

So  when we have  a student, we see the whole person, we see the whole brain working around.  that specific instrument. And sometimes we have kids that cannot do something or it takes them longer time. So we can really see, for example, neurodiversity or, you know, learning disabilities when, when we are teaching an instrument.

And and as soon as I started teaching, I started having kids that, you know, presented this type of learning disabilities or, you know, diversities. And I was like,  What do I do? I don't know how to deal with it. I was also very young because I started teaching piano when I was 17. So at 22, I was like, okay, now I need to do music therapy.

And I had already taught a few years, met a lot of students, found difficult situations that I didn't know really how to overcome. So I started music therapy.  But music therapy itself, it's a total research. We're still at the first level. beginning of music therapy, you know, so I entered a world that I realized was  I continue investigation and neuroscience was not yet something so big at that time.

So it's been an amazing thing for me to have a support of neuroscience, neuromusic, psychology to really understand how to support the students in the process of studying and and overcoming difficulties. So yeah, I, for me, for me, it was natural thing.  So what would be some of the things that you've learned there that, you know, with your kind of music therapy hat on that, you know, maybe parents could take on board and use as techniques or any bits of learnings.

that you could share with us today?  Well, I think that the best lesson that music therapy can teach you is that to connect with somebody that has a disability, you need to mirror that person. So you need to observe a lot that person, then you need to mirror. Somehow  the emotion, the expectation, or even the movements, definitely the interests of that person.

And then on that, you can add something else.  On that you can guide the patient in another place. Okay. This is kind of like a child led approach education as well. So you look at your student and you, you observe your student a lot, and then you take inspiration from what that student is telling you. So basically I learned how to listen,  how to really listen to the person that I have in front of me without judgment. 

Understanding the needs of that person or understanding the emotional requests of that person as well. So I think that for a parent, that is a very good lesson that they can practice as well during practice a music piece, for example. So what is my son telling me if it's seated in front of a piano and is crying because he cannot understand the notes?

What's going on there? So I think that listening to, to your children is very important through a path.  Of learning music because the journey is very long.  So it changes a lot through the years and as the children change and mature and get into adolescent, you know, all of those stages are very fundamental for the parents to, to follow with, with a lot of love and care because music can accompany the development of their children in an amazing way.

Just listen to what they need. Do they need to do an exam? Let's go to an exam. Do they need more time to practice? Maybe I can sit there and support them. I remember when I was 17, I was preparing this exam  of piano. That is very hard in Italy, very, very hard. And I was practicing four hours a day, more or less at that time, maybe not a few more, six hours a day, minimum.

And at some point I was going mental because I had to do a piece by heart. And it was a like a 20 minutes piece and I and I couldn't remember I was making lots of mistakes and my dad just sat on the sofa  and literally stayed with me through the practice because the frustration was so hard for me in that moment that by myself I couldn't do it.

So I needed a person to stay with me and say, okay, let's try to do it correctly seven times.  And if you cannot do it seven times, we're just going to restart, but I'm going to be here with you. And maybe between the You know, we can stand up a little bit. We can move our, our arms. We can stretch, we can just forget, you know, things like this.

Were very helpful for me, having, having really the support of my parents. And I don't believe that only because you're bringing your students, your child to music, that is their stuff. And they're going to learn by themselves. It's far from reality. And another thing that I wanted to add before, but when we were speaking, is that because in my school, we teach music to babies up to, elderly people.

So we really see all the ages. I see parents being very involved when students are students, where children and babies are a few months old, everything is a surprise. And then as the children grow, they start detaching from the learning path of students. And so when, when kids start to come into our sessions without their parents,  I have parents that don't ask anymore, what's, what's going on in the class.

Right. Okay. And I'm like, this is a very tricky moment, you know, inside the class. I'm with your child, we have, we have our 10 children,  other adults are not there. And there's a lot going on inside there. How come so you're not asking me what's, what's happening because your child has not finished developing only because you're not accompanying to music classes and stay inside the class. 

And the same is, is for the practice at home. When your child starts learning an instrument, it's not like when you're bringing them to dance or to football.  They need support at home to, to go through all the stages of, of practicing and learning. You are correct so much. Yeah. And I, I really can see that.

And that's kind of why. Decided to make this podcast in the first place as well. Cause a lot of times parents either will not realize quite how involved they need to be, such as you've just explained, you know, even just being there and just offering general support and general interest, even just that, which is a reasonably low level, you know, has such a big impact and had such a big impact on you.

And, you know, if parents can then take it a step further and help with a little bit of music, understand a little bit of theory, whatever it may be, that's even better, you know, but. It is something, especially with children, that they're not just going to be able to do completely on their own. But even as they get older, and they are independent 15, 16, 17 year olds, you know, who are pretty good now and they're pretty independent, they're still going to require some kind of support along that and some kind of encouragement.

And exactly as you said, it's not like other hobbies. If, you know, if your child is learning music, you can't treat that the same as if your child is going to you know, netball or whatever it may be. You know, it's a whole different thing that really requires.  Unless, unless they're doing it.

professionally. So I think that the difference is like, if you're going into dance and you're starting competing, or if you're getting very, very good at football and you get into, you know big football teams, then the, the, the, then parents are very involved. But with music, that type of involvement needs to be there from the very beginning, because playing an instrument is much more complicated. 

So I don't know how it was for you, but for me, school, for example, was super easy because compared to how difficult it was music, going to school, it was, you know,  a walk in the park. I agree completely. No, yeah, that's the same. Yeah, we say that in English as well, a walk in the park. Yeah, no, yeah, I agree.

I mean, school for me was, was easy in terms of academically. Not so much socially, I guess, but in terms of academically easy. Not socially, absolutely not. Yeah.  But yeah, music is hard and, you know, there's nothing else that requires you, well, in my life, apart from running a business now, that's also very hard.

You know, there's nothing else that I've ever done that requires, requires you to put so much energy, time, effort, Sacrifice in exchange for getting good at it. And, you know, I think that's a great thing and a great life lesson for kids to learn as early as possible. And, you know,  you know, about working hard to get results, nothing's given to you.

Everything relies on you. And that's a great.  You know yeah, yeah. Because ultimately that that's true, isn't it? And then I always think there is another thing in life that is as hard and it is to become a parent. Oh, I don't know about that one yet.  Exactly. I could tell. I could tell I have a three year old, so I'm not, I'm not, I haven't been a parent for a very long time, but.

I can tell that having a child is the most difficult thing that I have ever done in my life. More complicated than conservatoire, more difficult than running a school in, in London. So having a child is In that case, I'm not, I'm not doing it in that case.  No, exactly.  So, you know, I now have gained a completely different perspective when I speak with parents and I really understand that sometimes they don't have the energies, they don't have the time, unfortunately, to support their children.

But  I think that in the whole thing, what I, what I meant, what I mean is more like,  It's just not simple. So just don't treat music as the, as the other activities. And don't expect that your child will go through the same path easily. So, you know, if you don't have time, if you don't have the energies or the knowledge to support your child, at least leave them the possibility to live music in the way they want. 

You know, don't, don't stress them for exams or don't stress them because they don't practice, find out why it's not happening, but at the same time, let them enjoy, because really life is hard. And music can be a wonderful thing in, in, in life. If you learn how to have it as a, as a passion or an outlet as a tool. 

For sure, yeah. I mean, I am, obviously, I'm quite aware that I'm not a parent. That's why I try with this podcast, not, I'm not trying to give parenting advice because I, it's not something I know about, obviously. I'm trying to be careful about how I present it and it's kind of advice to do with music education specifically.

And I, I don't know. Try not to tell anyone how to parent. Cause I don't, I don't know cause I've never done it. So it's kind of good to hear it from your perspective as a parent spoke to, and you know, some of the other people that have been on our, our parents as well is your child music yet? Have you, have you gotten to the music school?

She's coming to my music classes. She's coming to my music classes. Yes, of course. She's only three. So for me at the moment is, is learn, teaching her, of course, guiding her into music, but mostly she's free to, to just explore music in the way she prefers. My partner also is a, is a music product doctor.

 Writer. He does music production. We have a lot of instruments at home. So she's exposed to music the whole time, but I will be very careful on how I will approach the instrument with her. So I will definitely not go, I will, I will definitely not start from books, but I will start from improvisation and composition to then go, that's interesting. 

It's interesting.  Just three days ago, I spoke to someone else, actually, and she said the exact same thing. That's quite interesting, because she said, you know, starting with improvisation is the way to do it, and she does a lot of sound painting, if you've heard of that. Aha, yeah, I know, sound painting.

I've studied sound painting, yes, yes. Well, that's interesting, because I'd never heard of it before, and now I've spoken to two people. In a week who both have said the same thing about starting off with improvisation and sound painting That's really interesting. So is that something you do at your school then? 

Yeah. Yeah, I use some painting here But I use it also to conduct groups of adults facilitate music for for group of adults And I've, I've used it a lot with children with disabilities because, you know, as a music therapist, I worked with deaf children with autistic children and and it works very well because you, you just bypass language basically and go to music directly.

So it's super fun.  It's very, very fun. Sound painting. Yeah. But also in Italy, we have this approach that is called music learning theory, which is the one that I follow here in my school, and which was developed by a jazz musician. And he was also a psychologist. So he ran, not only psychologist, but a professor in the university in one of the university in in the States.

And he started basically how children learn music naturally without imposition. And then he developed this amazing approach, which is not a method, there is a difference between approach and method. In the method, you have some steps that you need to follow to reach a goal. In the approach, you choose the steps that you want to act to reach the same goal.

So there is much more freedom in the cooperation with a student.  And and he basically speaks exactly about this. So before reading music and before writing music, we need to have a very rich background of what music is, and we need to understand music, but it doesn't mean that we understand how to write and read it, but we need to understand it with our brain and with our body.

We need to be able to feel where there is a dominant, where there is a tonic, where there is a relaxation, and when there is a suspension, like a moment of tension.  Exactly. So it's all about this and it makes the parallel with language. So before going to school and learn how to read and write, we need to be able to speak.

And create a sentence, which is exactly what it is. Improvisation, improvisation in music, basically.  So it's, it's a very interesting approach and yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think that's something I wish I, I mean, as a child, my music education was.  You know, not,  you know, it was fine, but I didn't, you know, nowadays, keep what the things that kids have available to them in terms of music education, the different choices parents have as to where to take, you know, they might just go to your school for a certain approach or a different school for another approach or online for a different blah, blah, blah.

You know, I didn't really have any of that. And I do think that I wish  that I had a bit more.  I don't know if the education is the word, but a bit more of an exposure and a bit more of a understanding of the kind of emotional side of music rather than trying to think of everything logically and being like, is it chord number five?

And academically, I therefore know that the next logical chord could be either X, Y, or Z, you know, and, and kind of seeing me a bit too mathematically. And I guess in a way my brain works, it's a kind of, it's some aspects of music I've found very easy. Because my brain understood patterns and things like that.

But  if I look at someone like my brother, who's got a different type of brain to me, and he, he kind of understands the emotions of music a lot more than I do. And, you know, he would feel something. And whereas I would be like analyzing it from a technical point of view, he would say, Yeah, but it has this, this chord, this dominant three has the same feeling as this you know, my, whatever. 

And it's because if from a theoretical point of view, as you get older, you can then explain why it feels the same. It's it's the parallel from blah, blah, blah. You know, and you can explain it from a theoretical point of view, but. He always understood that from a very young age, and it was later, later he learns the theory behind it, but he always understood Yeah, I know that because I can feel that, that makes me feel the same way as this does, those two different things, whereas I would learn it theoretically first and to then be able to implement it.

just because that's, I guess that's the way my brain naturally works, but also I think just the way I was exposed to it. I do, that's a weakness of mine now and a strength of my brother's and I kind of wish that I had done it before improvisation and that everything you just described is a painting.

I think it, It sounds really brilliant. I've never heard of soundpainting before this week, but I've talked about it twice now. That's something I'm gonna  research into and see, because I think you make a really, you make a great point about your approach to that with young children. I think it's something that maybe I should you know, think about for my own company as well. 

Yeah, well, I will definitely suggest it is amazing. I mean, it changed my life as a music teacher as well, because,  well, just to give you an example, maybe I'll go a bit too musical here, but we don't sing to kids, to babies in major and minor only, but we sing in all the modes of the world. jazz. So we're seeing in Dorian, in Phrygian, in Locrian.

So they are exposed to the whole complexity of music. And for them, there's no reason, there's no difference. The brain is picking up everything,  you know, they will be able to feel what is a Dorian. And then when they are ready to recognize the difference between a major and minor, we tell them, okay, we call it major because it sounds like that.

And the notes in the, in the scale are these, but only when they can already understand the difference between major and minor. You know, so it's, it's a completely different type of approach. And as a musician, it's super fun. I'm singing in, in four, in three, in five, eight, in 12, eight. I'm singing in all, in all the type of modes.

And also we don't speak during the classes until children are two and a half. So there is only space for music and silence and movement. So it's a real flow where kids are just moving around, understanding, and of course the games change because cognitively they change. So you need to give them the right challenges to keep them engaged.

But  parents are like, wow, this is something completely different from what I've seen. And this was developed in the States, in Italy, there are thousands of teachers teaching like that. And in the UK at the moment. We are the only school based on music learning theory and I have trained all my teachers and other teachers of London that are working with with MLT in other parts of London.

So hopefully this will take more energies little by little, because it's, it's really a different way of doing music. Yeah, absolutely. It sounds, sounds like it makes a lot of sense the way you've described it. Yeah. Thank you for that. That's a, that's great. So if maybe a parent's listening and they're interested in that, maybe they want to find out how they could implement a little bit of that at home with some basic games or, or anything like that.

Is there some resources that you could point them to or how could they kind of learn about that? Well, they can, they can try to find our school for first, which is called music tree.  some courses online and some like, yeah, courses for families online, really, because during the pandemic, we've developed that because the kids couldn't come to our sessions.

So we developed some courses online, but also on Instagram, they can start looking for music learning theory of Gordon. Gordon was very researcher. So some, a lot of stuff come out. There are CDs that are made CDs, I mean, albums that are made for kids with that intention. So like songs in all modes with particular lengths and durations of, of music.

So the brain can catch. You know, the whole music, no lyrics. So the brain is not thinking about the meaning of a song, but it's thinking, it's listening to the melody and the rhythm and the harmony.  So these are the,  but in general, my, my suggestion is to simply listen to a lot of different types of music and and again, get involved.

So try to listen to different music for yourself. And then you will see how your, your children will naturally start listening to more music or, you know, will, and that really helps, that's, that's enough. And it's not about the Mozart effect, you know, it's not about listening only to Mozart so the brain becomes smarter, it's not that.

The point is, give variety to the brain of your students, of your children, so they will be able to understand music better when they are older.  That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Thank you for that. I mean, you've really said so many great points today. And I think  it'd be really interesting, especially towards the second half of the conversation there to really delve deep into kind of the different approaches to music and why they're beneficial.

And, and, you know, As, as it's clear to see from, from just this episode, but also all the other ones, there's so many different ways to do music and that's why it's always, you know, rather than me always just talking on this podcast, it's good to like listen to other experts and people who have different perspectives and, you know, your perspective with the whole therapy and psychological side of it as well is you know, perspective.

I don't, I'm not an expert on that side of things, so it's great to kind of hear. So thank you for, for sharing everything with us today.  That's a pleasure. Absolutely. Very nice for me. I love to speak about this.  Great stuff. And if, you know, people can check out Music Tree School on the internet, on social media,  and then check out any of the things you've touched on today.

And I'll put all those links in the show notes as well.  Thank you. Thanks so much. so much. Speak to you soon. Bye. Bye. Bye.

  Thank you for listening to another episode of Heard It Through The Groove Line, the podcast that helps parents like you best support your children's musical education, even if you are not musical yourself.  To find out more, you can follow us on social media, and don't forget to hit like and subscribe.