Grey's Anatomy & Piano Learning Software...

One of my all-time favorite T.V. shows is Grey's Anatomy! If you haven't seen it, well, you're missing out! It's a medical drama about the lives of surgical interns and residents as they evolve into seasoned doctors. One of the main characters, Dr. Cristina Yang,

is known for her competitiveness, ambition, and intelligence. In one of the episodes, Dr. Yang has an encounter with an older surgeon who made a mistake during a surgery weeks earlier. Dr. Yang's ego gets the better of her and she tries to oust this surgeon by reporting her. Later, Dr. Yang gets to scrub in with the same doctor who asks her how she would perform a particular procedure. Dr. Yang answers confidently about what she would do, to which the surgeon responds with the question, "how would you perform that same procedure if the power went out...or if you had to operate in a hospital that couldn't afford the equipment you have here? Do you think just because there's a machine that can do it for them that children shouldn't have to learn simple arithmetic?"

How does that episode of Grey's Anatomy relate to MUSIC? Well, as I've spent more and more time doing research, I've come across all kinds of music software and YouTube

videos that claim to teach you how to "play the piano", but a lot of them -- and I dare to say most of them, actually only teach you to play specific songs by having you imitate what they are doing on the keyboard. There may be all sorts of fancy features such as keys lighting up on the computer screen (or even an actual person sitting at a piano) that shows you exactly what keys to press next when learning a particular song.

There's nothing necessarily bad or wrong with these videos and software if you want to be limited to just learning to play a few songs. I actually had an adult student who took lessons for a summer and he had already purchased one of these types of software.

When he tried to show me how it worked, he would poke at the right keys (kinda like watching somebody who has never officially learned to type). He had no sense of even what fingers to use or how to get from one place on the keyboard to the next and his hands quickly started to resemble a game of Twister! (Did you even know they had FINGER Twister?!)

This was a classic example of the DIFFERENCE between LEARNING to play the piano and TRYING to learn a few songs on the piano. Unfortunately, my time with him was very short and we didn't get very far. A few months later, I was sad to learn that he was selling his keyboard and giving up his dream of learning to play the piano. :( What a bummer, right! That's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about helping my students learn foundational tools & concepts of music and piano playing. Wouldn’t you rather learn to “fly solo” without someone holding your hand through every step -- rather every note -- of the next song?

“Flying solo” reminds me of another Grey’s Anatomy moment… the biggest accomplishment for a surgical resident is to be awarded their first “solo surgery”… a chance to stand on the foundation of their study and training and PERFORM! So, if you're interested in being able to "fly solo" on the piano someday, I'd love to help you with that!

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