In this episode John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) unpack the “expert blind spot”: why deep musical mastery can make it hard to understand beginner struggles. They explain how the skills of playing and teaching a musical instrument differ, share hiring and evaluation tips, and outline practical traits to look for in music instructors — from breaking tasks into steps and sequencing to varied communication, curiosity, patience and a growth mindset.
In this episode:
- The difference between being a good musician and a good music teacher, and why there can often be a disconnect between the two.
- How the curse of knowledge and expert blind spot can make a great musician struggle to connect with and teach students effectively.
- How to separate teaching skills from performing skills when evaluating prospective music instructors for your lesson studio.
- How the traits that make someone a great music instructor can be learned and taught.
The good news: these teaching qualities are learnable. Whether you’re developing your own teaching skills or hiring for your studio, this episode gives actionable guidance to help great musicians become great teachers.
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Episode Transcript:
(Please note: This transcript was generated by robots. There may be errors. For the best experience, please listen to the podcast episode.)
John Kozicki (00:01.015)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor Podcast. My name is Jon Kozicki.
Mandy York (00:05.74)
And I’m Mandy York.
John Kozicki (00:08.444)
and we’re talking about instructors today. This might be a little bit of, you know, maybe a little bit of hiring, a little bit of teacher training, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but Mandy, question for you. Have you ever had a teacher, and it doesn’t have to be a music teacher, but have you ever had any sort of teacher that was incredibly knowledgeable, very talented,
at a specific subject or topic, but horrible at explaining it.
Mandy York (00:46.68)
Yes. Yes. I think gosh, many of us have had teachers like this. to think of a specific example well, so when I was in college, I was barely twenty. Yeah, I don’t think I was yet twenty. I I had to take like class piano courses, for my degree. And I mean I’m a singer. I never took
John Kozicki (01:09.942)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (01:17.018)
formal lessons for very long growing up. So I wanted, I wanted to take some private lessons to help me in those class piano courses. And I I started with another student and he was like he was a great player. And he would come in and he would sit down and he’d start playing, you know, Chopin and like just his fingers
John Kozicki (01:19.818)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (01:28.042)
Okay.
Mandy York (01:45.295)
cross the keys and it was amazing. And my lessons with him did not last more than a couple months. Cause I just wasn’t it was not clicking for me. And I think that it was a mix of like not understanding where I was, what I needed, what I wanted, not being able to like give me like okay, but where do I start? Because I’m not gonna start here.
John Kozicki (01:46.795)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (01:55.508)
Okay.
John Kozicki (02:14.58)
Hmm. Okay. Okay. Right.
Mandy York (02:15.086)
You know, like Chopin A tudes, but yeah. He was super impressive but couldn’t come down to my level, I felt.
John Kozicki (02:21.035)
So.
John Kozicki (02:26.634)
Gotcha. So amazing player, but just not so great at the teaching. And that is exactly what I wanted to talk about today. So why good musicians don’t necessarily mean that they’re going to be good instructors. And as I was saying, think this can be part, this conversation can apply in part to maybe us as teachers, to
Mandy York (02:29.425)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (02:55.412)
better understand the differences between what it means to be a good player and what it means to be a good teacher. It could apply to those who are doing the hiring in their studios, if they’re hiring instructors and understanding some of those differences between good player versus good teacher. So I know I have talked a lot.
in the past, maybe not a lot, but I’ve mentioned it more than one time on the podcast about my fondness for Adam Grant’s book, Hidden Potential. And the focus in part in that book about what’s called the curse of knowledge, which is the closer you get to mastery of a specific subject or topic, the further away you get from that beginner stage.
it makes it hard to relate, right? And so I think that is when we talk about why good players might not be good teachers, good musicians might not be good music teachers. That’s one of the reasons it’s that that curse of knowledge. Doing a little bit of digging on this a little bit more research on it. This is also known as the expert blind spot. Have you heard that term before? Because that was new, new to me.
Mandy York (04:21.23)
Okay. No, I haven’t heard that. I get it though, yeah.
John Kozicki (04:23.541)
Okay, so yeah, so what that is, again, and this is where there’s been a lot of research, there’s been books written about the expert blind spot, but it’s described as a cognitive bias where someone with deep knowledge in a particular subject struggles to understand or remember the challenges that beginners face.
It’s you. That was your experience. Yeah, this really adept player. Just, you know, you couldn’t get that connection with him because you’re still at the beginner stage.
Mandy York (04:50.67)
Yes, totally. Yeah.
Mandy York (05:03.224)
Yeah. Right. They you know, he’s like, You just do it like this, right? Just just try this this measure. Take it from the top. Like, wait. Yeah.
John Kozicki (05:13.737)
Yeah, yeah. So in in music lessons, right, obviously, I think the label, well, maybe I’ll ask you, like, what do you think of when you think of a good musician? What are the things that are really impressive about you about a musician? What do you think of?
Mandy York (05:33.465)
Hmm, what makes a really good musician? Well, I think okay, I’m thinking of performer and musician, which can also be two different things, like really good performers. Really good musicians may not always be really great performers, actually, but really good musician, technically strong, right? Technically strong. a great performer connects with an audience.
John Kozicki (05:46.686)
Okay.
Let’s go with it. Let’s go with it.
John Kozicki (05:56.575)
Okay.
Mandy York (06:03.498)
interpret I think of interpretation when I think of a really good per performer or musician. you can someone that can put feeling and mood and nuance into their playing, right? Is a great musician. yeah. What about you? What’s
John Kozicki (06:20.157)
Hmm, okay.
John Kozicki (06:25.939)
Okay. Well, I mean, like, I think I lumped the two together. I think I lumped musician and performer together. But what I think in both in both of those situations, what ends up happening for the musician and the performer is, you know, we’re not like, necessarily thinking about what we’re doing. Or the great performer isn’t thinking about what they’re doing. And the great musician isn’t thinking about what they’re doing.
Mandy York (06:50.029)
sure, yeah.
John Kozicki (06:55.999)
they’re just in that flow state and they are doing, right? They are in the moment, they are being a musician, they are drawing on muscle memory and all of those things that have developed in them over years and years of playing and practicing and performing, right? But they’re not thinking about every single step that is involved in
that performance. They can’t, right? That’s like, it’s, there’s too much going on. I’ve actually talked about this with, with students in the past who guitar students who want to start singing also like singing and playing. And one of the things I’m big on when I’m teaching guitar is right hand, left hand, because you have two hands doing two different things at the same time.
Mandy York (07:27.084)
Right, sure. Mm-hmm. No.
John Kozicki (07:56.174)
And one thing I’ve noticed that students will often do is they’ll visually focus on one hand or the other. So they’ll visually focus on left hand if they’re working on chord changes. They’ll visually focus on right hand if it’s strumming or picking. But the way that the guitar’s laid out is those two hands are in different places. So you have to look back and forth. And that visual attention
at the beginner stage can sometimes slow things down for for beginners. And then. I’ve talked about those students who want to start singing while they’re playing as like one more area of focus, right? So as you start to add all these layers, it becomes more and more complex for your brain to process all these things. So you have to rely on on autopilot and muscle memory for something so.
Mandy York (08:54.638)
Mm.
John Kozicki (08:57.064)
So there you go.
Mandy York (08:57.066)
Yes. Yep. yeah, I totally agree. That’s that’s what the practice is for. So that when you are out there it is you’re not thinking about every single little thing. Yeah.
John Kozicki (09:07.605)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, so number one, the reasons why is at least for musicians is because of that, because those are not the same skills, right? The playing skills are not the same skills as the teaching skills. You’re like very much in charge of yourself and your own body and how you process everything. for also, I think for musicians, number two is
Mandy York (09:09.794)
Okay.
John Kozicki (09:36.797)
we will often default to how we were taught. Right, that’s kind of our starting point. Like I was taught to, you know, in this way by my instructor. And so that’s how I will teach my students.
Mandy York (09:43.054)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (09:55.006)
I see a problem with that.
Mandy York (09:57.743)
We’re not all the same.
John Kozicki (09:59.857)
We’re not all the same, but also as students, for the most part, I think as instructors, we were the weird ones, right? We were not the, we were the ones who picked this stuff up quicker. We were the ones who understood these concepts. We were the ones who got this stuff like more inherently. And so our frame of reference for learning those things.
Mandy York (10:23.747)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (10:27.654)
is going to be very different from the majority of students who may not have the same struggles that we had.
Mandy York (10:35.2)
Yes. That’s a great point. Yes. And I think too, if if you’ve kind of mastered, you know, this musicianship, there may be a bit of sort of a natural talent in there too, right?
John Kozicki (10:47.942)
Yeah, we were easy to teach or maybe not easy. We were easier to teach.
Mandy York (10:50.11)
Yes. Well yes. There were some some things that came more naturally, perhaps.
John Kozicki (10:57.81)
Right, so we’re defaulting back to how we learned, well, maybe our instructors were fantastic, but they didn’t have to teach us in many different ways, you know, for us to get things, you know, like, generally speaking, think music instructors were the ones who, you know, were probably pretty decent musicians from the get go. So, you know, obviously like we…
A musician who is really great might just assume of their students like, well, why aren’t they getting this? I got it. You know, make those assumptions. All right. Number three on why this might be why a great instructor might not be a great or sorry, slipped. Switch that why a great musician might not be a great instructor. This is more of a hot take from me. But I’ve definitely seen it.
Mandy York (11:35.619)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (11:56.797)
like some music instructors, they’re kind of just there for that, you know, steady income, reliable income. They might be really great players and they realize like, I can leverage this into making a few bucks that that’s like, you know, relatively consistent. So I think in that case, they’re like, maybe not identifying
as much as a music instructor as they are as a musician who also teaches.
Mandy York (12:31.394)
Yes. Yep, I teach on the side. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, so there’s not perhaps the the same kind of motivation or priority. you can and you can kind of flip that too, to the student side where if you feel as a student that your teacher is really impressive.
John Kozicki (12:36.456)
Yeah.
Mandy York (12:58.584)
That’s really exciting. Like some you know, sometimes those teachers are really like like highly sought after because of their ability, their playing ability, but you have to kinda realize as a student too that that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re gonna be the best teacher.
John Kozicki (13:00.092)
Yes.
John Kozicki (13:05.492)
Sure. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.
John Kozicki (13:15.156)
Sure, that’s why I think so often in those instructor bios, you see their performance credentials or I’ve played with this group or this orchestra or I’ve done this and this and that, which are all very impressive credentials from the perspective of someone as a player. But again, that doesn’t necessarily speak to their ability to teach. All right, so.
That’s kind of the why, right? That’s why great players might not make the best instructors. So going over to maybe like that hiring side, right? So if we’re in our studios and we need to hire and maybe struggling with this, maybe some traits to look for in a prospective instructor that might
point to that they’ll be a good instructor.
Mandy York (14:20.172)
Yes. Yeah, this is tricky. And I think just like the student can get excited about an impressive performer. The teacher or the the studio owner can as well, whoever’s hiring. That can be very exciting. And so you’re like, Absolutely, check, check, check. We you know, we can skip this step and that step you’re in. But it is it’s important. Yeah.
John Kozicki (14:33.414)
Mm-hmm, 100%. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (14:43.23)
Yeah, because we’re musicians and we want to hang out with other good musicians. Yeah. Yeah.
Mandy York (14:49.158)
Yes, yes. but y it is important and I think I’ve seen this in my my career as, you know, hiring for music together. so y totally, yeah. Someone you know, I wouldn’t say bad, but I can think of like particularly someone that I thought was gonna be really easy and supernatural.
John Kozicki (15:02.676)
yeah, have you made a bad hire in that respect?
John Kozicki (15:18.291)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (15:18.572)
And I was like, okay, this is a diff this is a different thing. You’re not you’re not just performing. Yeah, you can you’re a great performer, but we need to get you teaching this group. Yeah, totally.
John Kozicki (15:31.678)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So things to look for, like if you’re in that hiring situation. Number one that I’ve written down is can they break down a simple task in multiple steps? For instance, how to tie a shoe. And I believe I got this from, I want to say this might be a Dave Simon thing that I learned like long, long ago.
You know, the tying a shoe. I mean, you have kids. Do you remember teaching them how to tie a shoe and you’re just like, my gosh, what do I do here?
Mandy York (16:06.894)
Yes. Yeah. yes. Absolutely. You know, there are songs for this now. We to teach Shu Tang. Yeah. That’s a good that that’s a good tip though. I wouldn’t I never would have thought of that. Something that we do so naturally. I would be caught off guard. well first yeah. So it’s a good practice, okay.
John Kozicki (16:27.111)
Mm-hmm.
Right? Yeah. Can you imagine? Can you imagine you’re in an interview and like the person interviewing you just hands you a shoe?
Mandy York (16:43.862)
And says, Teach me. I know, I feel like, I know this is a test. Okay. Yeah.
John Kozicki (16:45.393)
Yes.
Right, right. Yeah, but it does make sense, right? Because one, it demonstrates their ability to communicate and demonstrates how to break down this task into smaller, smaller parts, manageable parts, and which is so much of teaching, right? Communication and breaking down tasks. So yeah, can…
Can they break a simple task down? Number two, maybe trait to look for. This is, I think, probably more of a personality trait. But do they have a growth mindset? Are they personally invested in learning? And do they prioritize learning as a valuable and important part of their own development?
because I think that speaks to their commitment to the idea of teaching.
Mandy York (17:53.753)
Yeah. Yeah. I like I kinda like the word curiosity for this too, right? Because as teachers I think we need to be curious if what we’re talking about here is trying to teach someone that a skill that comes so naturally to us. We need to be curious about where this student is coming from. What are the hang ups, right? What is happening?
John Kozicki (18:00.302)
Mmm. Okay.
John Kozicki (18:20.381)
Yeah.
Mandy York (18:21.462)
Either physically or as a singer I often think mentally, you know, what is going on inside there that is causing this, you know, whatever issue and how do we tackle it together? Yeah.
John Kozicki (18:31.909)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s, I think that’s being also observant and perceptive, which is a great segue into what I identified as sort of my last segment is the good news about all of this is I think these are all teachable and learnable skills.
Mandy York (18:40.527)
yeah. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (19:01.395)
provided the person is receptive to it, right? I mean, again, I’ve certainly run into situations where musicians maybe don’t want to be told or taught how to teach. They’re not interested, right? But again, that goes back to that growth mindset. So I’ve got four qualities that I think are
Mandy York (19:05.09)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (19:16.094)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (19:31.88)
that you can develop that with the right potential or prospective instructor, you can teach them to be a better teacher. So you can have like that great musician who is also a great instructor, which obviously is like the sweet spot. And that’s what we want. And as you were saying, looking and being observant and being curious, that’s number one on my list.
is being perspective or having a perspective that you are able to identify and understanding and understand what a student doesn’t know as opposed to just showing them what to play. Right? So you were talking about being curious and I think that being curious is hmm.
This is what I want them to play. But how do I analyze and understand like, where are they? And do they have the knowledge base? And if they don’t have that knowledge base, then I have to fill in some holes so that they can better understand ultimately what we want to do that in and of itself. There’s a lot of steps there.
Mandy York (20:48.674)
Yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (20:49.757)
Right? Yeah, because this obviously is in my mind, going back to that that curse of knowledge, you get so far away from that beginner stage that you don’t even understand what that beginner is facing. So being grounded in, as you were saying, curiosity and perspective and being able to look at the student and say, hmm.
If we connect these three dots, then they’re going to understand how to play this thing.
Mandy York (21:28.248)
Yep. And that to me too takes it back to like breaking down a task, right? That’s step one, right?
John Kozicki (21:36.047)
Yep, yep, that’s on my list too. That’s all right, well let’s jump to that one. I labeled that one as sequencing. breaking, yeah, breaking a skill down into a series of small steps rather than just correcting errors when they come up. That is like, and that, man, I’ve seen that one, right? Where it’s like instructor, okay, here’s.
Mandy York (21:38.678)
got it.
Mandy York (21:45.367)
Okay, yeah.
Mandy York (21:53.848)
Yes. Yeah.
John Kozicki (22:05.299)
Here’s what you do, here’s how you play this. Go ahead and play it. And the instructor sits back. Nope, that’s wrong, you gotta fix that. Nope, you’re doing this wrong. You’re putting your finger in the wrong place. You know, you’re doing this wrong. So it’s less about just, because it’s easy to react and it’s easy to, hate to use the word, but be a critic. And it’s much harder.
to again, show someone all those steps in tying a shoe.
So sequencing.
varied communication, again, going back to the idea of explaining, practicing, or how to practice to explain the same skill, like a scale or a chord in at least three different ways. I mean, just kind of throwing that out there is maybe three is a good number. But I feel like so often
how we communicate these things and the ways in which we need to communicate them for our students becomes important. I know you’ve talked about, yeah, you’ve talked about what kind of learners that you have in your class.
Mandy York (23:24.782)
Mm-hmm. I like this one.
Mandy York (23:31.158)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, this this point kinesthetic. Yes. Yeah, definitely. That’s and this makes me think of flexibility. I think flexibility is a really important part of being a teacher. Flexibility in being able to approach the the
John Kozicki (23:34.951)
visual, kinesthetic, auditory, right?
Mandy York (23:55.769)
What do I want to say? I don’t want to say problem. The the task from different angles, right? and I love the idea of explaining this, you know, explaining a task in multiple different ways. I I think like to me as a singer, so much of singing is kind of a head game. And we we d we can’t just put our our fingers on keys or strings, right? We have to, you know, it’s in our head and
John Kozicki (24:23.11)
Mmm, yeah.
Mandy York (24:25.976)
How do we you know, work on on pitch tonality? Where do we place the voice in the mask? Things like that. So for singers I think this is a big thing.
John Kozicki (24:33.425)
Yeah.
All things you can’t, yeah, all things you can’t see as an instructor from the outside.
Mandy York (24:43.498)
Yes. So I mean I play a lot with imagine this or try moving like this while you sing that. So different than guitar, but I mean that’s how I would translate it. Because one way is gonna speak to the student and another way is not.
John Kozicki (24:48.178)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (25:01.796)
Exactly. And I think the reason why one way is going to speak to them and another way is not is because if you understand their learning style, it’s like understanding the communication style, right? So you can communicate in the language that they are going to understand, right? So that, again, that is that’s teachable. That’s learnable for an instructor if they want to. They want to understand how does this student learn? Are they visual?
Are they auditory? Are they kinesthetic? Whatever. And then be able to speak that language. And that’s where that connection comes from. All right, last one. Number four, patience and repetition.
John Kozicki (25:51.933)
being okay with that, like developing and growing your patience so that constant over and over over over over again, you’re okay with for one. But also I think this equates to a little bit of empathy and in being able to comfort students because
Mandy York (25:55.544)
Yeah.
Mandy York (26:00.888)
Mm.
John Kozicki (26:21.232)
you know, that repetition can get frustrating from their perspective. So letting them know that doing something wrong doesn’t equate to failure, right, is just part of this process. And I think there’s a lot of developing patients involved in that.
Mandy York (26:44.034)
Yeah. I mean, come on. Teaching and patience. Those two words definitely belong together, no matter what you’re teaching. yeah, for sure. yeah, I l Mm.
John Kozicki (26:51.963)
Right? Right?
But again, that’s a learned skill, right? You’re not just born with patience. It’s something that you develop over time, and it can be developed. So, yeah.
Mandy York (27:02.84)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Mandy York (27:08.195)
Yes.
Mandy York (27:11.884)
Yeah, I like that one. And we learn through repetition, like understanding that as a teacher, like just knowing and accepting that, like this is this is how we learn. And I mean, you can as a teacher, you can be more creative with that. Like if you’re working on repetitions, play with tempo. Do it while you’re standing. Do it, you know, sing it, play it, right?
John Kozicki (27:18.886)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (27:39.314)
Ooh, yeah, yeah.
Mandy York (27:40.962)
Like you can be creative with how you’re knocking out these repetitions and and practicing something.
John Kozicki (27:47.922)
That’s a great quality to be added to the list that I hadn’t thought of. yeah, creativity, is, it’s interestingly though.
Mandy York (27:53.603)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (27:58.886)
Man, I don’t want to call anyone out, have you ever, you know, have you ever encountered instructors or musicians who just like, my gosh, amazing player. They’re not very creative. It’s like they’re two different skills.
Mandy York (28:13.88)
Yeah. It it can be, I think. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I maybe that maybe that goes into your what did Adam Grant call it? What were you saying? Not the the curse of knowledge, right? Maybe it’s just like this they’re getting too focused and they’ve they’ve like mastered this skill and
John Kozicki (28:18.159)
Yes, it’s it. I’ve seen it. Yeah, it can be.
John Kozicki (28:30.587)
Though the curse of knowledge.
Mandy York (28:43.136)
It is what it is and this is how I do it and I do it really wonderfully. And so there’s not as much room for creativity. I don’t know.
John Kozicki (28:52.561)
Yeah, think we’re, man, now I’m deviating, but I’m questioning, like, is creativity, is that a learnable skill? I mean, because then, like, where this makes me think, what this makes me think of is the E-myth and in entrepreneurship, the different hats, right? Are you a technician or are you a manager?
Mandy York (28:56.398)
No
John Kozicki (29:20.377)
or are you a visionary, are you the entrepreneur? And the technician can be really skilled at what they’re doing, but lack creativity, right? Whereas the entrepreneur can be wildly creative, but like not technically proficient. yeah, maybe we’re going in the wrong direction with that one. But hey, if a prospective instructor,
Mandy York (29:33.506)
Yeah, yeah.
Mandy York (29:45.75)
It’s an interesting question. I like it.
John Kozicki (29:50.231)
is creative, I’d say that’s a positive.
Mandy York (29:52.792)
Yes. Totally.
John Kozicki (29:55.706)
All right, well, let’s wrap this one up then. Great musicians, not always the best instructors, but again, good news is I think that they can be if provided they’re open to it.
Mandy York (30:11.552)
Absolutely. Yeah. I think this is great information for people hiring instructors. These are really good things to remind ourselves about.
John Kozicki (30:20.805)
Personal reflection too, you know, think as instructors, we can look at these things and say,
John Kozicki (30:30.053)
What can I improve on? Like, where can I practice? Where can I get better? Because if you’re dedicated and you want to be the best instructor as you can be for your students, then personal growth.
Mandy York (30:43.788)
Yes. Yeah, I think it’s very good to remind ourselves about this stuff. I mean, I I can see how I’ve changed over the last decade or so from where I started kind of as a performer in my classroom to doing more of these things, having perspective and more flexibility and creativity with how I was approaching different different kinds of students. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (30:51.675)
Mm-hmm. yeah.
John Kozicki (31:07.791)
Yeah, love it. All right, cool. We’ll wrap this one up and we’ll see you next time.
Mandy York (31:13.795)
Sounds good. Thanks, John.
