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Fostering Enjoyment & Accessibility in Piano Education: Pt 2 | Your Creative Chord Podcast Ep 52 · Your Creative Chord Podcast

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  Jenny Leigh: Welcome to YourCreativeChord Podcast, where we unlock creative flow, celebrate the artist within, and find inspiration in every moment. I'm your host, Jenny Leigh Hodgins, and the voice behind YourCreativeChord, where we blend creative living with transformation. I'm here to guide you with empowering stories, insights, and practical tips to fuel your creative life.
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  Jenny Leigh: We're in this together, from overcoming stage fright, to changing obstacles into possibilities, to finding your unique voice. Let's get started.
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  Jenny Leigh: InPart 1e of our interview with Jim Johnson, founder of Grass Roots Piano. We explored his courageous path through mental illness and PTSD, his inspiring resilience and the creative drive behind his innovative and humorous approach to adult beginner, piano education. Jim shared insights into his background, his mentors and the philosophy that really underpins Grass Roots Piano. Now in Part 2, we're going to go deeper into his teaching methods, his approach to integrating enjoyment and humor in piano learning and how he continues to create engaging content that inspires and transforms his students' piano journeys. Stay tuned as we continue our conversation with Jim Johnson on YourCreativeChord, where creativity and inspiration meet transformation.
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  Jenny Leigh: Why do you feel it's important for the learners that you teach to understand music well while they're enjoying the learning process?
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  Jim: I have seen and heard, so many things on the internet, how you can learn piano in a week or just the, these crazy sayings.
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  Jim: And I know it's clickbait. But what about, wait, let's stop. This is where we are. I was just recording yesterday and I would mention a lot of learners have had this problem.
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  Jim: They might also look at it this way. So let me look at it this way and not just slowing it down, but maybe we just need a break and come back to it. I think in our society, we just want to go, go, go get it done, cross off the list, you know? And that's great, but it can be, and I met some of my Facebook group, uh, from a different country. They were doing the levels and it became almost for them, mentally stressful, like mentally crippling.
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  Jim: Where's the win in that? Where's the win on appreciating the arts, if we just get too stressed?
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  Jim: My course it's, I do bite size, but I also go into deeper thoughts and meanings just to really help out.
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  Jenny Leigh: Tell us the name of that course real quick .
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  Jim: Adults Can Learn Piano And Read Music.
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  Jenny Leigh: Okay. Thank you.
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  Jim: What I try to do is give bite size information so you can grow and have a foundation so you can go on Music Notes, and if you choose to, you can look at this piano part and print it out. I have met people, great, kind people who say, well, I'm 60 years old, and I don't have time to learn this. Then so a year goes by, they're asking questions I know they would have had the answer to if they appreciated the process.
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  Jenny Leigh: The question I had was why do you feel it's important for learners to understand music and enjoy the learning process. And like you said, they're saturated with quick fixes gimmicky things. And people judge themselves, for not being able to do something just like that at the snap of a finger. And then when you share something as an educator, knowing full well it's going to hit straight on the issues that they're having and help them make the progress to break through, they don't understand that what you're giving them literally on a platter is the effort that they have to make with a little more time, a little more focus, a little more attention to where they are and enjoying that, that is going to propel them beyond the hurdle or whatever it is that they think is blocking them. What you hit on for me is something that I've dealt with a lot where, we know as music educators, as piano educators, what learners need to know.
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  Jenny Leigh: They don't want to hear what they need to know. They want to be able to get from here to there like that. And they judge themselves harshly when they can't do that despite piano educators repeatedly showing them the way: here's what you do. But going back to the question and your approach to it is really refreshing to me with regards to especially busy adults or older adults coming back to or coming to the piano for the first time because your focus is from my perspective anyway, your focus is so much on be yourself at the piano and enjoy that process where you are and here's some things you can do where you are that make it even more enjoyable and it'll help you get from here to there as well. So, I mean, you really do it in a wonderful way where it takes the stressors away from people, Name your course again?
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  Jim: Adults Can Learn Piano.
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  Jenny Leigh: Is that, that the same thing as your new rhythm course? Are they two separate?
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  Jim: No, they're separate.
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  Jim: Jim: I also brought up the rhythm course because if you ask many educators in any instrument, a lot of us struggle with rhythm.
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  Jim: I just don't think it's taught efficiently or effectively because we just want to get notes...
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  Jenny Leigh: and how to feel that beat, how to feel the pulse. Yeah,
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  Jim: and I'm a very big advocate on music literacy, and it's good to be very transparent and say, if you learn this and this, you'll be able to do this in time.
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  Jim: And I think the world we're living in, understanding delayed gratification at any age is going to be more important.
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  Jenny Leigh: It's a huge lesson, and it takes lots of time to get that lesson sometimes.
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  Jim: Yeah.
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  Jenny Leigh: Because we live in a world that's completely the opposite of that.
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  Jim: I think there's a lot of great brains on the internet, and there's a lot of people who, you know actually do want to learn why is one plus one two, you know, and at the same time, like I was recording yesterday and I was giving a lesson on sharps and flats and I did bare bones basics and I said, I could go on and geek about this, but for your stage, you need this and this, and
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  Jenny Leigh: that's huge to give people limits.
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  Jim: Yeah.
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  Jim: Jenny Leigh: Not overwhelm. Yeah.
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  Jim: If you mention that you have 10 doctorates in music theory and go on for five days on sharps and quarter tones, you've lost. That's not our goal. We want to enjoy music. We want to play that piece or song that we love. You know,
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  Jenny Leigh: Right, right. Speaking of your rhythm course, how does that course help learners have fun while improving their rhythm basics and reading music?
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  Jim: I think the fun is not there yet. But through understanding, I go over notes, I go over durations. It's, shorter sounds and longer sounds. The fun part is after lesson 10, 11, and 12, the learner can start picking these rhythms out and start seeing things.
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  Jim: One of the students mentioned that, oh, I could go back to this piece and apply both internalization better and, they're kind of like the fun is this case is more of like a musical multivitamin that if you digest
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  Jenny Leigh: I love that! A musical multivitamin!
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  Jim: Yeah, if you take the multi vitamin and digest it, you will be enjoying what you're working on. And it's kind of like I'm giving you keys to unlock doors.
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  Jenny Leigh: So the humor and the fun is there, but first you have to take the multivitamin on a regular basis and practice those little skills in small chunks and increments and then you get to the putting things together and having more expressive and more fun with it. That's your approach in that course. That's awesome. I know so many adult learners and kids too that I've taught over the years, they really struggle with rhythm. So this is a huge need for so many beginning and early intermediate piano learners.
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  Jim: My courses, I'm definitely not like super strict and dry, but I'm more how we're speaking now --I give a little humor, but
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  Jenny Leigh: I don't think anyone could ever call you super strict and dry.
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  Jim: I'm actually very reserved, but I've sent some fun videos to some of my friends. They've gotten to see some other sides of me, which they seem to love.
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  Jenny Leigh: What do you mean? More of your humorous side or what do you mean?
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  Jim: Yeah. Yeah. Just those little, YouTube skits I do because I think it's important at the end of the day, we're all human breathing the same air and might as well have some fun during it. And I had fun doing it because it was kind of therapeutic.
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  Jim: What are you talking about? Musical skits? Tell us about that. I've done like one minute musical skits where I'm a piano teacher at the keyboard and I'm wearing a suit jacket and I'm kind of snobbish. And, um, I, then I come in as the student, an adult student that wants to learn some songs and the teacher just-- because I've had these experiences-- kind of puts down the student right away and it's "too old to learn." So it's that kind of humor. I'll send you one and then maybe you wish you didn't interview me.
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  Jenny Leigh: I would love that. Yeah. Unfortunately as fun as it is, and that's a great way to turn it into fun, so many of us have had those negative experiences with teachers who weren't really well prepared as teachers and didn't do a good job with that.
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  Jenny Leigh: So what a great way to make it more fun for people because it's very relatable to people who've had those experiences.
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  Jenny Leigh Hodgins, YourCreativeChord Host: Just a quick break to share some exciting news. On my birthday, July 16, I'll be launching the revised paperback edition of my book, Start Piano: What You Need for Successful Learning.. This book is your trusted guide to unlocking the secrets of a successful piano learning foundation with strategies, tips for finding the right teacher and method, and setting up effective piano practice routines.
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  Jenny Leigh Hodgins, YourCreativeChord Host: It's also a perfect resource for piano educators to gift or recommend to students. Plus right now, you can get a sneak peek with our free Unlock Your Piano Potential ebook. You can download that today at YourCreativeChord. com./pianostrategies Stay tuned for exciting updates, exclusive bonuses, straight from my book and everything you need to keep making beautiful piano music.
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  Jenny Leigh Hodgins, YourCreativeChord Host: Until book launch day, July 16, my birthday, keep nurturing your creativity and listen each Tuesday for a deeper dive into making confident piano progress. Let's get back to the show.
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  Jenny Leigh: From your music educator's perspective, what is one of the biggest hurdles for music and piano students?
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  Jim: We're dancing with it. The hurdle is we don't want to do the work.
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  Jim: You know, if I was the best pianist in the world and I was giving some amazing advice, but you're not going to do the work and discipline, those efforts, it won't mean anything. And then it goes even deeper. I wrote a question, my Facebook group, I mentioned something about what are some of your long term goals. And I got something like, well, to be honest, I'm just doing this for just for fun. And I love that phrase. But soon after they're asking a lot of questions that they would have learned the answer to if they went through a method book.
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  Jenny Leigh: Right.
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  Jim: I'm like, well, did you count out loud and slow it down? No, that's boring.
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  Jenny Leigh: It's all the basic musical principles that good educators know is the formula is the way that we're teaching in, in our own unique ways in, in you and in your case, through your videos, through your courses, through your group.
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  Jenny Leigh: It's all the elements that anybody that wants to play music has to master. And they're skirting around that by saying, I just want to do this for fun. But they, like you said, I love your phrase, but they don't want to do the work. That's, I mean, that's what I talk about a lot in my approach and my course coming out, my book coming out on starting piano and my Facebook group is based on really that mindset; you have to have the mindset, otherwise you won't succeed at the piano and the mindset is what you just said. You got to do some work. You got to apply yourself to things on a consistent basis and you've got to use these strategies that are being very well mapped out for you by educators like yourself to get there.
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  Jenny Leigh: At the beginning of this conversation we were talking about how we're in a world, where we're bombarded by quick fix and information, making you think you can do it really quickly, but the reality that you're showing not just through your philosophy, but through your teaching strategies I see, and even through your group, because I'm in your group and I see, and you're in my group, and I see some of the things that you say, you're showing people, okay, you got that problem.
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  Jenny Leigh: Here's how you address that problem. It's in my course. Here's the way, here's the advice. And then I'm going back to repeating my statement, reiterating people don't want to hear the things that really have to be done, the steps that have to be taken in terms of learning piano.
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  Jenny Leigh: That's why I'm saying the mindset to learn music has to be there. I think you touch on that with, making it more fun and making it more approachable. And you're also doing a little bit of, yeah, it is fun, it is approachable and I'm breaking it down for you so it's accessible and manageable for you.
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  Jenny Leigh: So that becomes more fun. But you're also telling them straight: you still have to do the work, dude, right.
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  Jim: That's all right. And I think that the biggest hurdle is, I've noticed with--in any kind of discipline, there needs to be focuses that are micro and macro.
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  Jim: I've always seen more people interested in shortcuts in music than certain other disciplines and that's frustrating because what I'll see is like, oh, they're going to mention, in a year from now, "I still, you know, I can't read notes.Why can't I read notes," you know, and it's just interesting to me because I love learning. I like making mistakes. I want to know why I made that mistake. But if you don't want to take the efforts for me, I would lose interest right away cause then there's no beauty, you know?
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  Jenny Leigh: Right. Right.
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  Jim: Some members in my Facebook group and subscribers on my YouTube channel-- I've become good friends and I've asked them, can you look at this course? What do you think through your 50-whatever years old, through your eyes, is it making sense for you?
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  Jim: And that is very important because if I get feedback, whether it's good or not, I'm excited because I want to know how their brain is lining up and how they understand.
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  Jenny Leigh: Yes. You are such a true creator. I literally just did a series on basically how do you nurture creativity?
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  Jenny Leigh: How do you tap your creative flow? And you are such a great example of the process. Being creative requires being able to accept failures or mistakes, as part of the process, and how you deal with failures as a successful creator is exactly what you do: You use your curiosity to figure out, okay, why didn't this hit the mark?
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  Jenny Leigh: And you ask other people for their feedback on how did they perceive it, which is huge, you know, for honing your teaching methods to better address those needs of those students, and then you reiterate things. You go in and you ask questions and you change it around a little bit to make it better.
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  Jenny Leigh: And I've seen you do that. I've known you I think for a couple of years now and I've seen that process with you. You're constantly tweaking things and making it better and improving it based on feedback, and based on your ability to be humble and ask, why didn't this work? What can I do to make it better?
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  Jenny Leigh: And I'm sure you use that a lot with just creating the videos and editing the videos and the process of making that better. So what a great example of that.
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  Jim: It's kind of me modeling because it's really the same kind of mindset as far as learning a scale or an etude or a song. I like the process. I like learning about the technology. I like learning how to build a progress bar.
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  Jim: Um, and I also, Jenny Leigh: You're a creator at heart. I mean, you just enjoy the process itself, but it is exhaustive and extensive. I hear you. Yeah.
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  Jim: Yeah.
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  Jenny Leigh: Tell us a little bit about your new adult online piano course and what listeners could find. through your website, whether it's for piano practice or for basic chord progression playing or your rhythm skills and tell us about the course coming out.
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  Jim: Well, a lot of my audience, they can read music okay. This course is about starting from the beginning, and it's really important for me to have that on my website.
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  Jim: It's important for someone who wants to play piano and learn music in bite sized chunks. But, lots of exercises, lots of PDFs. During each session I say, there's 10 things we could focus on, but let's look at our checklist. Let's just look at X, Y, and Z. And I'm lucky because of different students have had, and my wife's an educator.
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  Jim: She's been a music educator for decades and she's the piano goddess. I talked to her about how people are learning and where's the motivation. I wrote all the melodies out so they're not little kid oriented.
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  Jim: So I have kind of two different worlds going in a little bit. So I have my YouTube right as of late arpeggio stuff and rhythm patterns, which I create some colorful things. And
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  Jenny Leigh: what's that called? YouTube channel.
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  Jim: Uh, that is also Grass Roots Piano.
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  Jenny Leigh: Got it. Okay.
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  Jenny Leigh: Jim: And my course is more, "let's start from the foundation", and I'm still building it. So it's getting pretty big.
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  Jim: You can learn something and make it sound cool. But my method is, that you can learn piano in a few months, you can enjoy music for the rest of your life and enjoy the journey, There's always another method book.
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  Jim: There's always another song.
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  Jenny Leigh: That's exactly why that resonates with me because my approach is about the mindset you must have to succeed at the piano is that it's a lifelong adventure. It's not a one and done quick, I'm done in two weeks or 10 days. Yeah, it's a lifelong thing. So I love that you're approaching it that way.
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  Jenny Leigh: So as we're wrapping up, tell listeners where they can find you specifically. I'll drop it all in the show notes, but tell everybody what your offerings are and where they can find you if they want to learn more about, getting into some of your offerings and content for them as piano learners.
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  Jim: Well, you can reach out a few different ways. One, if you have questions, you can find me if you put in J Johnson Grass Roots Piano on Facebook, you can type in on Chrome Grass Roots Piano, my website will pop up, my YouTube channel will pop up. You can email me that way.
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  Jim: And these courses are also open ended where I'm adding stuff. I , just have one pricing and I have sales.
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  Jim: I'm still building it. There's a lot done, but I'm doing that because I want to engage with the learners. I send them messages. How are you doing with this? Do you have questions? Yeah. Why is my finger still doing this?
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  Jim: You know? And I'm like, use that, you know, um, and, and
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  Jenny Leigh: engaging with your learners as you're building, it helps you serve them better with content that is tailored to where they are and what they need.
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  Jenny Leigh: Okay. So that's great.
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  Jenny Leigh: I want to say thank you so much for that really fun conversation, Jim. And thank you for taking time to be with me and share your creative perspectives and give us insight into Grass Roots Piano and the driving force behind that and your YouTube channel and your new adult piano course out there and your rhythm mini courses .
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  Jenny Leigh: These are all wonderful ways to serve adults and even younger, new or returning piano learners. And your commitment to helping music learners to really ignite their passion and their enjoyment with music shines through everything you do in all of your work That's why i'm so happy to have you as a guest and for listeners who are interested in connecting with Jim Johnson, don't worry, it's all going to be in the show notes so it'll be easy for you to just click and find him and as he mentioned he does have a sale right now So hopefully, you know when this airs it's still happening or maybe he'll revisit it at that point.
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  Jenny Leigh: I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much Jim.
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  Jim: Well, thank you, Jenny.
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  Jim: Thank you for your kindness. It really matters.
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  Jim: Yeah.
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  Jenny Leigh: Wow. What a fun and deep conversation with Jim Johnson. He is such a creative force behind Grass Roots Piano and his YouTube things and his adult piano class coming out and all of that's in the show notes below so please check it out.
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  Jenny Leigh: If you're at all interested in what he does as a piano educator, he is really great. That's why I featured him today. It reminded me as we were talking of how the power of our passion and our sense of fun can be hugely motivational for our lifelong music learning trek. If you're a piano learner or learning music in any way, you really need some fun and enjoyment to get you through because it is, as we mentioned in today's episode, it takes a mindset to do the work.
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  Jenny Leigh: So I'm really so appreciative of Jim's dedication to making piano learning enjoyable. Also through his kindness and his sense of humor. You'll see a lot more of that as you explore his content. And he's also helping students hone specific music skills that help them boost their enjoyment of their piano learning and music expression.
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  Jenny Leigh: So listeners, I really hope you've enjoyed this conversation today with Jim Johnson and that you found inspiration in his teaching philosophy and relatable approach to music education. Remember whether you're just starting out or returning to the piano after a gap or looking to refine your musical skills, bringing joy, fun, and humor to your music to your music practice can keep you motivated and inspired to keep learning. Motivation in this way can really make a strong impact on your progress and your creative flow.
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  Jenny Leigh Hodgins, YourCreativeChord Host: Thanks for watching. Remember on my birthday, July 16, my new book, Start Piano: What You Need for Successful Learning., launches in paperback on Amazon. Mark your calendars. And thank you for making this launch so special. In the meantime, don't miss out on the free 'Unlock Your Piano Potential' ebook available right now at YourCreativeChord.com/pianostrategies
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  Jenny Leigh Hodgins, YourCreativeChord Host: It's packed with valuable insights to kickstart your piano momentum. To learn about the paperback and purchase from July 16, visit yourcreativechord.com/books
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  Jenny Leigh: Thank you for joining us on YourCreativeChord, where creativity and inspiration meet transformation. If you enjoy today's episode, please leave us a review and share your thoughts. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue bringing you inspiring content. Stay inspired with YourCreativeChord .
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  Jenny Leigh: Talk with you soon.
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  Jenny Leigh: .