On this episode of Rock School Proprietor Podcast, John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Dave Simon, known for his podcast “Music Lessons and Marketing” and innovative music programs.
In this episode:
- Explore the concept of the “practice problem,” which challenges the traditional focus on practice as the sole measure of success in music lessons for children.
- How to reframe the concept of practice in music lessons to effectively keep students engaged
- Understanding parent expectations and how to effectively guide them to success in your studio
- Dave shares insight on developing and effectively delivering licensed curriculum programs
Dive into the insights Dave shares from his extensive experience working with lesson studio owners and discover the common traits of successful music schools. Gain a new perspective on how group learning and a focus on fun can enhance the musical journey of young learners.
This episode ignites a dialogue on the importance of reframing the practice narrative to motivate students and satisfy parents, ultimately fostering a lifelong love for music.
Referenced in this episode:
- Episode 4: What “counts” as practice? Redefining practice In music lessons
- Episode 10: Prioritize Playing Over Teaching in Private Lessons
More info about Dave Simon at https://davesimonsmusic.com/
Dave and John talk more on a recent episode of Dave’s podcast Music Lessons and Marketing here: Bridging the Gap Between Rock and Classical Music Education with John Kozicki: Ep 245
Join our private Facebook group, “Performance-Based Music Programs and Rock Schools,” a community for like-minded professionals to connect and share insights.
Episode Transcript:
John Kozicki (00:01.262)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor podcast. I’m John Kozicki and co-host Mandy York is not with us today, but I have a guest, Dave Simon. Dave, how are you?
Dave Simon (00:14.048)
Doing great, thrilled to be on the show.
John Kozicki (00:16.674)
Dave, I’m pretty excited about talking with you on the podcast. And I’m gonna kind of, I’m gonna give a little bit of background as best I can for any listeners who aren’t familiar with you. Dave Simon, you’re a former music school owner, Dave Simon’s Rock School in St. Louis. You have your own marketing podcast for music school owners called Music Lessons in Marketing.
Dave Simon (00:36.373)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (00:43.766)
You develop and license curriculum like kids rock, piano jam, junior rockers, and you’re also a business development manager for ensemble music. So you’ve got quite a broad spectrum of experience in your hand in a lot of things. Am I missing anything?
Dave Simon (01:02.704)
No, other than I don’t really get to sleep much because I’m so busy. yeah, yeah, you’re covered all bases and I’m a bass player. So pun intended.
John Kozicki (01:12.238)
Well, and I want to say that this is this is kind of fun for me because I’ve been a guest on your podcast a few times. So it’s really.
Dave Simon (01:23.584)
Yeah, two or three times. And I do expect to be on your podcast at least that many. I got a spreadsheet. I’m keeping a tally.
John Kozicki (01:31.713)
Yeah, yeah. Well, so it’s going to be fun for me to kind of be on the opposite end, asking you questions and leading the discussion rather than me replying to your questions and you leading the discussion. So a little backstory. I first heard your podcast, I want to say it was maybe 2017, maybe early 2018.
I think.
Dave Simon (01:58.784)
Yeah, I launched in 18. Yeah.
John Kozicki (02:01.356)
Okay, okay, so then it would have been early 2018 when I first discovered it.
Dave Simon (02:04.744)
Yeah, yeah, January of that year.
John Kozicki (02:08.748)
Okay, all right. One thing that has always stuck in my mind and one of the reasons why I enjoyed your podcast and I connected with you and ultimately contacted you about licensing your kids rock curriculum was your philosophy on practice in music lessons. And you even had a slick name for it and you called it the practice problem. Now know it’s been a while, but
What’s the short version of the practice problem?
Dave Simon (02:42.772)
Well, the practice problem is, you know, it’s the elephant in the room. It’s the big thing that parents fear most is, okay, we’re signing up for music lessons. There’s going to be a practice expectation. Maybe the parents thinking I took music lessons when I was a child and I hated practicing. There’s this fear that it’s going to, history is going to repeat itself and practice is really quite often the number one metric that a parent
John Kozicki (03:10.85)
Right.
Dave Simon (03:11.492)
is looking towards to kind of measure success. And I really started to think about this more as quite often when a child would drop out of music lessons at my school, I’d ask them why in nine out of 10 times it was, well, my kid’s not practicing. And I realized at that point, it’s like, okay, like it’s kind of too late. You know, I mean, it’s kind of hard to persuade the parent at that point to come back, but it made me think about
the message as music school owners that we’re sending to parents. And that message comes from the fact that music lessons is probably the only after school activity, probably also the only in school activity as well that’s done one on one. And it’s the only after school activity that there is a practice expectation. So the message being broadcast to parents and to kids is that playing an instrument so hard that
John Kozicki (04:04.771)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (04:11.262)
Instead of learning it in a group, like you do everything else, you’re going to do it one-on-one, which is a very foreign environment for an eight-year-old. mean, really, the first time a child’s doing one-on-one learning with a stranger might be when they’re working with a math tutor in middle school. So that’s a foreign environment.
John Kozicki (04:32.373)
Right, which kids don’t want to have to have a tutor for math.
Dave Simon (04:36.448)
Right. And it’s to like say to a kid, right, you’re eight, go into this room with this adult that you’ve never been in a room with. The room’s usually kind of small. So, you know, it’s it’s potentially intimidating and foreign environment. Oh, and by the way, kid, you’re eight and you were giving you homework. You got to practice. I practice is homework and regardless of how we try to spin it.
John Kozicki (04:45.678)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (04:56.296)
Exactly. you know,
John Kozicki (05:01.838)
Perfect, and I, two weeks ago, two weekends ago, I was at a birthday party for a family, like a child of a family friend who had been taking guitar lessons. And I think Mandy and I are going to be talking a little bit more in depth about this on a future episode, but I asked the friend, like, hey, how’s Dylan doing in the guitar lessons, which he started a few months earlier, and he says, oh yeah, he’s not doing it anymore. I was like, well, what’s going on?
Dave Simon (05:30.142)
Yeah. Yeah.
John Kozicki (05:30.286)
He’s like, I couldn’t get him to practice. And then we got into the entire discussion. I was asking the right questions like, okay, well, what other activities does he do? What was he learning in those lessons? And I even mentioned like, okay, well, yeah, the instructor’s even calling the practice homework, right? So you’re exactly right. You’re exactly right.
Dave Simon (05:53.96)
Yeah.
Well, and it’s also parents saying to a parent who’s coming into music lessons already with this idea of, okay, I want to sign my child up for music lessons. Why? Well, because other people like me are doing it. It’s a way to kind of fit in with my social group. Music lessons is one of the top after school activities that parents is going to consider. And it’s also a way for setting your child up for music lessons.
is reinforcing a parent’s voice in their head of being a good parent. Good parents sign their kids up for music lessons. And so to say to a parent, hey, look, your kids seven, we’re going to put them in Kids Rock. Already you’re going, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. That’s a group. Good parents sign their kids up and they put them in private lessons. And then when you say, and by the way, there’s no practice expectation, now you’re
you’re challenging their whole self-image of what it means to be a good parent. And in order to successfully do that, you have to create a new story for them. So if that new story could be, look, your child’s going to go into private lessons at some day, but kids rock or this group piano class, this is designed to provide an experience that can’t be replicated in the private lesson. We’re going to reposition the private lesson as a goal.
and practice, we’re going to have that practice expectation at some point, but that practice expectation’s not going to be introduced until later. Up until that point, we’re going to introduce this other idea. And whatever that other idea is that Perrin has to go, that makes so much sense.
John Kozicki (07:33.742)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (07:43.19)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so you being a bass player, I think you’ll appreciate this. I another really impactful experience for me in considering how to talk to people about practice and, you know, training musicians and raising musicians was Victor Wooten’s TED talk. Music as a language. And he’s he
Dave Simon (08:03.424)
Mmm. Yeah. Yeah.
John Kozicki (08:08.674)
And multiple, multiple videos of Victor Wooten talking about practice. I even saw one just recently about him talking about how he hated practice as a kid. He didn’t want to practice. He wanted to play. And when kids play video games, for instance, is what he said, they don’t practice video games. They play video games. And you’re saying the same thing with every other kid’s activity, sports, dance, theater, whatever. They’re doing it.
Dave Simon (08:29.994)
All
John Kozicki (08:38.376)
And so I am constantly talking to parents about when the question of practice comes up. I talk about all the other things that are beneficial in how we run our programs that have nothing to do with practice that you can’t get from just practicing or one-on-one lessons like socialization with other kids in the groups, the
Dave Simon (09:06.378)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (09:07.222)
interaction that you have and the creativity involved in playing and how you actually can learn different things in a faster way when you’re playing with other people because you’re in that situation. So you have to adapt. Those aren’t things that you learn from practicing and they cannot be replicated.
Dave Simon (09:28.352)
No, it’s so true. it makes me think, I don’t know if you’ve seen this video of Ringo Starr. For those of you who don’t know, Ringo was the drummer of a group called The Beatles out of Liverpool. And you never know. But someone, it was interviewing him and they said, oh, when you were young, did you like practice all the time? And he said, I never practiced. I hated practicing. just, it never occurred to me.
John Kozicki (09:40.974)
I love how you have to qualify that at this point.
John Kozicki (09:51.501)
Right.
Dave Simon (09:55.592)
I just always made it a point to get together with other musicians to play. And when you’re playing with other people, you’re in, it’s a little more of a high pressure environment because you got to keep up. You might come up with a new idea and you can’t tell the guitar player jamming with, let’s slow it down for a minute. I want to try this fill, which I then think from a teaching standpoint, if you know that you’re not going to be saying to the kid or
John Kozicki (10:00.59)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (10:24.768)
Or if you know the kid’s not practicing, then the lesson I think should be much more experiential and less of like, okay, I gotta like, in this lesson, we gotta have a scale exercise, we’re gonna have something from the book, and then we’re gonna do ear training. No, instead, it’s gonna be, I’m gonna blow this kid’s mind. We’re gonna like play, out of this 30 minutes, 20, 25 minutes is gonna be that kid playing in time.
John Kozicki (10:33.421)
Yes.
John Kozicki (10:47.438)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (10:55.172)
And so that they come out of that lesson going, wow, I’ve never experienced anything like that before. And there’s no reason why each week the student can’t leave the lesson feeling like, I’ve never experienced anything like that before. Because then they’re going to be inclined to try to recreate that experience at home. They’re not practicing in their mind. They’re recreating what happened. But they are practicing. it’s kind of like,
John Kozicki (11:13.815)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (11:20.312)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (11:23.476)
go, okay, this kid’s not practicing. Instead of trying to like use shame or pressure, I’m just going to give this kid a really good workout in this lesson.
John Kozicki (11:32.63)
You said, yeah, you mentioned two things in that statement that I kind of want to reply to and they might be lengthy, so apologize for this. One is, and Mandy and I did an entire episode on this where we talk about what counts as practice, right? So you’re reframing for parents and instructors because I think instructors are as guilty of perpetuating this as anyone else, but what counts as practice? And so.
Dave Simon (11:53.93)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (12:00.672)
If people want to, they can go back. That’s episode four of our podcast, What Counts as Practice. And the idea is that we’re talking about all these other things that should count as practice, which one of them is just playing music, right? Like Ringo Starr, right? He just playing music that should count as practice. It doesn’t all have to be running scales and like the monotonous stuff, right?
Now, the other thing you mentioned was about just getting in there and doing it and experiencing it and experiential practice is what you mentioned. And I know you and I have talked offline on the phone about this, but my son is neurodivergent. And when I started learning about developmental stages of kids,
Dave Simon (12:38.911)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (12:57.676)
what I really learned and applied not only to being a parent, but in my business as well, is how important it is for you as a teacher, whether that’s like your own child or in your lesson business, to find what developmental level that kid is at. And instead of trying to pull them up,
to your level or the next level that you want them to achieve, you first have to go down to their level and just play with them at that level. Because if you play with them at that level, well then you’re engaging on a level playing field and then you can slowly make these changes to teach them how to take small steps to higher developmental levels. And so,
Dave Simon (13:50.048)
you
John Kozicki (13:50.53)
That’s akin to what you were saying about getting in a lesson and spending 25 minutes of just blowing the kid’s mind playing with them, right? You can do the same thing by whatever it is you want to teach them, figure out how to play that piece of music at whatever level they’re at, right? Don’t worry about if it’s the right full chord shape or the right rhythm. Figure out where they are and just
be in that space with them. So then you can say, hey, let’s try this small thing to change it up. And it really, I mean, for me, it changed how I approach teaching. changed everything, right? And I think so often we as instructors or music lesson providers think like, okay, here’s where we want the kid to get, let me show them. Let me try and pull them up.
Dave Simon (14:27.358)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (14:48.418)
You know, now go home and practice so you get to that level. And they don’t care.
Dave Simon (14:52.65)
Well, and you know, you’re also sort of illustrating how marketing works and a lot of the common mistakes people make with marketing where they’re so focused. And I heard this one quote once. It said, give people, your, your clients what they want, but give them what they know, sell them what they want, but give them what they need. And so you have to figure out, what is it that like you’re saying, what is this child’s learning style?
so that you’re really trying to be dialed in and sensitive to how the child’s reacting and then focusing on, right, I gotta start building up a series of wins for this kid. you can’t, like that, every lesson that kid needs to walk out of there, I feel like with the feeling of I’ve never had a musical experience like this.
before in my life, even though I’ve been with this teacher for two years. And every week I walk out saying that. And I like…
John Kozicki (15:50.606)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (15:57.886)
i felt pushed today or i i felt challenged having those things happen in in in the same time and having the kid feeling successful i think as a teacher you should ask yourself how successful did this child feel walking out of the lesson i used to feel like i think this is a sign of younger teachers that they’re trying to prove to the child and prove to the parent that they’re a good teacher they do that by kind of going
John Kozicki (16:24.023)
Yes.
Dave Simon (16:27.422)
okay i’m gonna kind of over and not overwhelm them a little bit but i’m gonna show i’m gonna demonstrate how knowledgeable and how how i’m such an authority on this instead of going okay i gotta get this kid to feel really six successful more importantly i gotta get this kid to take on the identity of being a musician what do i have to do to get them there and i gotta get them to that identity sooner rather than later
John Kozicki (16:38.317)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (16:55.944)
Yes, yes. Perfect. Mandy and I talked about that as well on another episode, episode 10, prioritize playing over teaching in private lessons. And I think the whole idea of impressing the kid in the lesson is easy to do, right? Now, we talked about how common it is to say for parents to say, my kids not practicing, I’m taking them out of the lesson.
Dave Simon (17:07.145)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (17:26.23)
What, if you engage in that conversation, what is also very common to hear is, well, they love coming here for their lesson. They love it when they’re in their lesson, right? But then when they get home, they won’t practice, right? So the kid is already loving the experience. So that’s, mean, in my mind, just more reason to lean into those things that are great in that private lesson.
Dave Simon (17:41.384)
Right.
John Kozicki (17:55.286)
and just try and change that misconception or that, that common belief that it should be transactional, right? And well, my kid’s not practicing 20 minutes a day. I guess they’re not good at this. You know, I guess, I guess it’s not worth my money or, or time or whatever.
Dave Simon (18:15.08)
I used to say to parents, look, you you’re wasting your money. You’re paying me all this money to just sort of oversee a practice session with your child. I mean, I would kick them out of my school. I would kick them out, but I would try to like, you know, I’d reinforce this idea that, they’re not practicing, then it’s a waste of time. But as the educator and as the music school owner, if you simply give, if you tell parents it’s okay that they’re not practicing.
They’ll, and if they like and they trust you, they’ll go with that. And was, you know, when I first started doing kids rock, I was very nervous about telling parents that there’s no practice expectation in the program. I mean, there really can’t be, because they’re switching instruments in the class. So unless they’re going to buy a drum set and a keyboard and a guitar, there’s really no practice expectation. Parents, not only did they not push back, they were relieved and it became a strong selling point.
John Kozicki (18:56.813)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (19:12.872)
saying to the parents that there’s no practice expectation. So even with the 10-year-old coming in for lessons for the first time, by simply saying to the parent and reminding them periodically, look, practice is a goal we’re going to work towards. First and foremost, I want your child to buy into this idea that playing the guitar is fun, it’s easy, it comes naturally to them. Once we establish that belief, then we can introduce practicing. And it might take three months. It might take six months.
John Kozicki (19:12.877)
Yes.
Dave Simon (19:42.452)
And that’s okay, mom. The goal is to get your child first, to believe in playing an instrument because, and I love saying this, because our hope for all of our students is that playing an instrument is something that not only they can do now, that they can do when they’re adult after a long day at work and unwind, sit down, pick up their guitar, and just unwind on the guitar. But the only way to make that sort of dream a reality is we’ve got to get your child.
through these first few months. This is sort of the make or break moment. And parents are like, my God, I never thought about all this stuff. This is, you clearly know what you’re talking about. You’re an expert. I’m gonna take your lead on this. And I’m not gonna talk about practicing with my child. And I’m not gonna yank them out of lessons when they’re not practicing and it’s four months down the road. Now I think as the educator, the music school owner, if you’re kind of getting to that four to six month mark and…
John Kozicki (20:30.446)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (20:37.898)
practicing still doesn’t make sense, you want to be out ahead of it and talking to the parent about it. Because the parent’s always wondering, okay, when does the practicing start? So it’s important that you’re constantly communicating with parents. It’s not enough to introduce that message at the first lesson. It’s got to be reinforced.
John Kozicki (20:56.206)
Yeah. Well, and for anyone doubting what we’re saying, right, because you and I, we’re just a couple of dumb punk rock musicians, right? What do we know? Well, Dave, I don’t know if you’ve read Adam Grant’s book, Hidden Potential. Adam Grant, Hidden Potential, highly recommend. He does an entire chapter about
Dave Simon (21:08.766)
Yeah, but you got the punk rock hair at least, I know.
Dave Simon (21:18.045)
No.
John Kozicki (21:26.178)
this exact thing about musicians and practice. and he, I, I, I’m not remembering exactly the, the takeaway from the chapter, but he even refers to that concept of practice as, a slog, like a, a monotonous slog, right? So it’s, and what that is, is that’s that, that’s that drilling scales and, and like,
Dave Simon (21:27.488)
Hmm.
John Kozicki (21:56.108)
You know, the things that, yes, if you want to improve technique, if you want to improve speed, if you want to improve accuracy, yeah, you’re going to have to drill that kind of stuff. But what it does is it sucks the actual joy out of playing, right? Cause then where you are is you’re in it for the, you want to improve. You want to see those minor changes, right? That’s a very professional attitude.
and most of our students aren’t in that mind space and some of them never will get to that mind space and that’s totally fine. But so point being is like don’t take my word for it, don’t take Dave’s word for it, maybe take Adam Grant’s word for it.
Dave Simon (22:35.306)
Yeah.
Dave Simon (22:42.944)
Well, and I think it’s an important question we all should ask ourselves is, why is practice important? Like what’s the whole point of it? And I would say that the point of it is because you have the desire, you only should practice if you have a desire to take your musicianship to the next level. But until that desire is there, it’s, you know,
it’s pointless and then i also think it’s an important task or so for white don’t children practice like why and i think one of the answers to that question is they don’t even really know how to do their homework necessarily you know they’re there they’re homework is here’s a match sheet do do the match sheet and it’s pretty concrete i think kids they go home
and they’re not even necessarily sure what they’re supposed to practice, even though the teacher thinks they made it crystal clear. It’s not enough to say, do exercises one to three on page 40 and review the C minor scale. It’s not enough. So I think sometimes kids don’t know how to practice. I think they, until that desire to really grow.
John Kozicki (23:43.565)
Yeah.
Dave Simon (24:04.84)
is there, I think it’s kind of pointless. also think one of the biggest hurdles that it’s hard for us to connect with is that kids’ fingers and hands and feet, they’re not doing what the brain is telling. So the kid’s like, okay, I’m struggling making these, you know, physical movements and transitions in the lesson, but I got my teacher there kind of, you know, over me, kind of encouraging me. Now I want to go home. Now I’m at home.
John Kozicki (24:19.117)
Right.
Dave Simon (24:34.282)
Well, playing the guitar is so hard, I can’t make that chord. I don’t want to do it. So I think we’re kind of, I think that if we teach differently, kids will just naturally start going to their instruments. Danny Thompson once said, and I think it’s so true, he’s like, you know what, I bet you like eight out of 10 guitar students at your school don’t even open the guitar case. But from lesson to lesson, I’m like, wow, I never thought about that.
John Kozicki (24:39.0)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (24:58.701)
Right.
Dave Simon (25:02.56)
You’re right, you can kind of tell you open the case and next week I’ll make up. Everything is the same here as it was a week before.
John Kozicki (25:07.214)
So I’m going to push back a little bit on one of the things you said. You said you don’t need to practice until you’re ready to take musicianship to another level. this is what I’m pushing back on is really representative of like how complicated this conversation can be surrounding practice. Right. Because I am to the point now where
Like I would rather say, again, what counts as practice? Because I think just picking up the guitar and playing a song that you like, that counts, right? You’re sharpening your skills. You’re keeping, you know, your… Because what you’ll find is like, maybe you played it, if you measure backwards, maybe you played it at a certain level a month ago, and now you’re playing it at a different level, you know?
just because of the repetition of playing that piece of music that you enjoy. That counts as practice, right? So there’s got to be a distinction between
Dave Simon (26:08.852)
you
John Kozicki (26:15.03)
what your goal is with that specific practice and what should also count as practice.
Dave Simon (26:22.228)
I also think to me practicing means that you’re not doing something. You’re getting ready to do something. You’re practicing. So for example, let’s say you have a piece of music and there’s a tough transition from one measure to the next. So you start practicing that transition. You’re not playing the song. You’re practicing a barricade or barrier in the song. When you’re running scales up and down, you’re not
John Kozicki (26:39.981)
You
Dave Simon (26:52.244)
You’re playing, I mean, it’s music, but you’re practicing it. You’re practicing it, you know, to maybe see the patterns on the neck. You’re practicing to build your finger strength. You’re not sort of in that meditative state of, am now playing music and I feel elevated. So I think practicing is preparing yourself to do something. And I think, I think sell the kid.
John Kozicki (27:13.197)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dave Simon (27:17.17)
So, like, I think what kids want, number one, out of music lessons is they’re looking for social equity. They’re looking for little musical nuggets that they can show off with. They want to show grandma, when she comes over for Thanksgiving, that they can play four measures of music over and over. And they want to go, when they go to their friend’s house, they see that their friend’s got a piano there. They’re thinking, ooh, I want to, like, I’ve got four little musical motifs.
that i can show off on so the more you can kind of build up these little musical motifs that kids can kinda take around to build status bill credibility maybe played a school talent show you know those are the kind of those are the winds that i’m talking about but once again like i’ll never forget when i was a kid my babysitter taught me how to play that introduction of come sail away you know that sticks on it’s got this kinda like you know baroque signing piano intro
John Kozicki (27:58.892)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (28:07.554)
Yep.
Dave Simon (28:12.616)
All I could play was like eight measures of it. And I really wanted to learn more. But that desire that I had, if someone said to me, well, if you want to learn the whole song, you’re going to have to put in about like 18 hours of practice, I would have been like, sign me up. Because I really want that.
John Kozicki (28:15.182)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (28:30.988)
You know, I’m gonna riff on that a little bit because you mentioned that’s what kids want. I would argue that that’s actually what parents want too, because when parents put their kids in music lessons.
Dave Simon (28:40.094)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (28:45.516)
They don’t think about like, this is going to be great. I can’t wait to listen to my kid practice every week. What they have in their head is maybe it’s the holidays and they have family over and the kid sits down at the piano and plays a song and the entire family enjoys it. That’s what parents picture. Or maybe it’s…
Dave Simon (29:12.949)
Right.
John Kozicki (29:13.516)
You know, they’re camping in the summer and they grab a guitar and they’re strumming along around the campfire and people start to sing. Those are the things that I think parents envision in their heads when they get their kids involved in music lessons. So again, the more that we can kind of pull them away from that idea that if your kid is not practicing 20 minutes a day, then they’re failing.
you know, push them in that other direction. Like, remember what you want. You you want them to play. Well, let’s get them to play.
Dave Simon (29:51.686)
Right. You know, makes me think Tim Topham. You know Tim?
John Kozicki (29:54.222)
Not personally, but yes, I know Tim.
Dave Simon (29:56.714)
But you know, yeah, so he’s got a book, No Book Beginners. And it’s this whole idea of like, don’t introduce that book. The minute you introduce that method book, now fun and easy has shifted from challenging and hard and maybe even seemingly impossible. it’s sort of, and I think Victor Wootten talks about this. It’s like, the kids to, get a child to express themselves musically first. Get them,
John Kozicki (30:15.587)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (30:26.292)
to communicate musically, allow them to experience what it’s like to sort of take all of their emotions and funnel them through music and then introduce how to read. It’s like same with, we’re not taught how to read until what? Like we’re four or five. We’re introduced. So we’ve got a good three years. We’ve got a solid year of listening to speech and then.
John Kozicki (30:45.709)
Right.
Dave Simon (30:53.79)
we start speaking a little words but usually by the time we’re like two we can really express ourselves pretty well but we can’t even read the ABC’s and I think that’s a great approach to take to music is let kids experience the thrill and the joy of playing an instrument first and then bring in the Howe Leonard.
John Kozicki (31:15.566)
How much of that thought process influenced your development of your Kids Rock program? And for anyone listening who’s not familiar with Kids Rock, and that’s a program that I licensed from you and utilize in my studio also, it’s for kids four to seven years old, learning the basics of drums, piano, guitar, and singing in a band.
How much of that thought process influenced your creation of that program?
Dave Simon (31:47.53)
Well, it took me a while to have the comp. I had to develop the confidence and be willing to challenge parents ideas of what a music lesson is supposed to look like. Because even kids rock’s challenging that. It’s, you know, the question if you get a parent calling you and say, hey, I got a five year old, do you guys take guitar students that young to say, well, actually we don’t, but we can put your six year old and five year old in a rock band.
John Kozicki (31:58.051)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (32:12.056)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (32:16.487)
That is a real like, well, wait a minute. What the hell are you talking about? Like, how’s that even possible? So it’s a really ambitious statement, but it it kids rocks really came about for me looking at my own son who was like three. And I’m like, you know, he can kind of keep time. He understands that that pulse. And there are certain musical things that they can do. But there are a lot of
John Kozicki (32:40.568)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (32:46.33)
musical challenges that this age group has. in terms of like ability to focus, fine motor skills are really still developing. So I figured, and I think you can apply this to teaching at any age, what skills, what musical abilities come naturally to a child of this age. I’m really gonna like turn the volume up on those. And then the challenges that they face, I’m gonna like really try to minimize them.
John Kozicki (32:54.957)
Yeah.
Dave Simon (33:15.098)
And I could see you doing that even with like a brand new 11 year old coming in asking yourself realistically like what instant results can I potentially create for this child and keep just doing that week after week. So yeah, Kids Rock’s all about it. And I’ve noticed with Kids Rock is saying to parents, this is what Kids Rock is not. So don’t think that Kids Rock’s gonna be in a…
an environment where your child’s going to be learning the fundamentals of reading and kind of building that foundation where they can then begin to fine tune their skills. That’s not what Kids Rock is. Kids Rock is about creating an opportunity for your child to develop a love of playing an instrument. You’re kind of defining a whole new kind of step in the child’s journey. So I found that parents were much more receptive to controversial ideas when I was able to present it.
in a way that made sense to them.
John Kozicki (34:13.654)
prior to developing Kids Rock.
Did you offer any other licensed curriculum in your music school or did you even consider offering other licensed curriculum in your music school?
Dave Simon (34:29.702)
No, because I mean, kids rock really was, it came about out of necessity. was the recession had hit maybe in 08 and I had a woman at my school, she was licensed or she was renting space for me to do music together and the recession had hit.
John Kozicki (34:47.278)
We’re intimately familiar with that on this show because that’s Mandy’s entire studio is music together.
Dave Simon (34:50.89)
Alright.
Right, so I was like, I’m like sitting there, I’m like, wow, look at all these like young families, young kids coming in, this is great, the recession hits, and I start purging teenagers. Like I was losing teenagers left and right, meanwhile I’m turning down phone calls from, I was very firm about my age requirements. Like I’m not taking anybody in private lessons unless they’re seven. So I’m turning, it’s the recession, I’m losing students, meanwhile I’m turning away students, and it was like, maybe there’s something that I can do.
John Kozicki (35:02.712)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (35:14.84)
Yeah.
Dave Simon (35:23.786)
with this age group. it was really an experiment that kind of went well. And it wasn’t until one of my competitors reached out to me and said, hey, what’s this kids rock thing? Could we offer that at our school? I’m like, huh, how do I do that? I went to my lawyer and he’s like, license it to them. And then it of went from there.
John Kozicki (35:34.819)
Mm-hmm.
Wow.
John Kozicki (35:43.33)
Mm-hmm.
So now in your position as the license or of Kids Rock and Piano Jam and Junior Rockers, have you observed any with your licensees? Are there any traits or any any hints that you see when you talk to potential licensees that
Dave Simon (36:04.928)
Mm.
John Kozicki (36:10.498)
they’re going to be either successful with your programs or maybe like, don’t know, they don’t necessarily have the right mindset. So having done this for, mean, you’ve been licensing, well, I’ve been licensing Kids Rock from you since 2018. So that’s at least seven years. So for as long as you’ve been licensing these programs, have you noticed anything from other studio owners?
Dave Simon (36:27.368)
Yeah.
Dave Simon (36:34.942)
That’s a great, wow, great question. Yeah. So I think a part, one thing I’m looking for is what type of questions are they asking of me? That the questions that people ask is always revealing what they’re thinking about, what they’re worried about. But also if I, and I think this is so true, and Zig Ziglar said this, that, you know, sales is a transference of feelings.
John Kozicki (36:44.408)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (37:05.012)
that when I’m talking to a prospective licensee and they sound excited about the program and they really seem to get it, and one thing I’ll ask them is, you know, what about Kids Rock do you feel the families in your school would appreciate or the families in your community would appreciate? How they answer that question reveals to me how much they get it because the more excited they are and the more passionate they are about whatever program it is that they want to promote, the better they’re going to do.
I mean, I can’t even, I would sell kids rock classes waiting in line at Starbucks. Like talking, like there’s like, I remember one time there was a mom behind me with her kid and we just started chatting. I’m like, what school is your son go? And then I’m telling her about kids rock. Why? Because I like, I felt like, if more kids, if more parents knew about this, they would want to do it. So when I hear an owner who’s sounding excited and seems to really get the program,
John Kozicki (37:34.828)
You
Dave Simon (38:04.49)
they’re that much more likely to just talk about it to their families. Because quite often, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, John, but when kids rock was a big part of my school, I’d have parents in my school for like a year or two and they had a, they’re taking their eight year old to piano lessons. They bring their five year old in every week and they don’t even know what kids rock is despite all of my marketing efforts, posters and emails and they still wouldn’t know. So I realized, no, I gotta just be talking about it.
John Kozicki (38:29.646)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (38:34.83)
Yeah.
Dave Simon (38:35.59)
And so those kind of more, those business owners that really understand the importance of just being confident and talking about it, that’s sort of the key to success with any program in their school.
John Kozicki (38:50.626)
Mm hmm. Yes, I have noticed what you mentioned. And my belief is that, you know, we’re we’re all like, we’re all bombarded with information, right? And there’s so much information out there. And parents are all just kind of doing the best they can in any given moment. Right. And usually that’s not at their peak ability because of how chaotic parenting is.
Dave Simon (39:12.116)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (39:19.234)
But when it comes to music lessons, the default thought process when a parent thinks about music lessons or their kid is showing an interest in music is private lessons, right? My kid seems to be musical. They seem to be interested in music. I should look into getting them some private lessons simply because that’s just what they know. That’s like,
Dave Simon (39:45.813)
Great.
John Kozicki (39:46.69)
Baseline, that’s what everyone else and everyone knows is available. And there, yeah, there are all these other programs that might approach music differently, but they just don’t know about them. So as the studio owners who are doing things differently, as the studio owners who are offering a program like Kids Rock, or in my case, rock band programs also, it’s so important.
to not just accept that when someone calls and says, hey, I’m looking for private lessons for my kid, that that’s actually what they’re looking for. Yeah.
Dave Simon (40:23.22)
But they, right, they’re looking for an outcome and they believe private lessons is the natural vehicle to take them there.
John Kozicki (40:32.32)
Yeah, yeah. that, but that’s like, mean, I know it took me a long time to figure that out because people would call me and say, I’m looking for private lessons. And I’d say, cool. What days and times work for you? You know? And that’s just, there’s so much more that you can do to help someone in that situation. Because now I go into those, those phone calls and those scenarios, assuming that, okay, this parent’s looking for private lessons.
Do they know what else is available? Do they know why they wanna get their kid involved in music? What is it that they’re looking for? Do they just assume that private lessons are the only thing that’s available? So I always look at that situation now as an opportunity to try and figure out, what is it they want? And is that something that I can help them with?
Dave Simon (41:27.802)
Well, and I think from a sales standpoint to even say to them first or try to reveal or discover, well, what is it that you want, Mom? What is, I like to say, what is, what would music success, what would music lesson success look like to you?
John Kozicki (41:41.698)
which we talked about, music success for most parents is that situation where the whole family’s together and the kid jumps on the piano and there you go. Yeah.
Dave Simon (41:49.64)
So once they define that and you go, that’s now, that’s something for you to tuck away in your brain because then when you present your group, whether it’s Group Piano or Kids Rock, the parents go, well, I called here for private lessons. I told my wife that I’m calling here for private lessons. I told my son that I’m calling here for private lessons. And I even told my mom that I’m gonna call a music school for private lessons for her grandchild.
you’re now trying to tell me about this group thing, means I’m going to have to tell my child, my wife, and my mom that I didn’t sign Billy up for private lessons. I sign him up for a rock band. And you got to like, so that’s a huge, you know, so you, you want the parent to have the language that they can take back to the people that they care about. But during that phone conversation, kind of going, look, the image of your
John Kozicki (42:26.605)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Dave Simon (42:46.96)
son playing the piano at Thanksgiving in four months. Do you see how our group class is likely to get your son there quicker than the private lesson? And you have to present that alternative option in a way where it’s kind of like, yeah, I get it. I see it. But I still have internal conflict because I got to tell my wife I didn’t sign him up for a private lesson. So there’s a…
John Kozicki (43:13.72)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (43:14.952)
None of us know the back story that’s going on in any given parent’s mind in terms of what led them to that phone call.
John Kozicki (43:22.03)
Right. Now here’s in my mind why it’s so worth it to have that conversation, to address the elephant in the room. Is it private lessons that you’re looking for? Is it really something else? And we’re to frame this around kids rock. I’ve also framed this around music together when I’ve talked with Mandy, because music together is very much about making music. Kids rock is very much about making music and exploring those instruments so that
Dave Simon (43:33.781)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (43:51.054)
as that kid progresses, they’re able to make a more informed decision on what instrument they might be interested in playing, right? Now, why it’s so important to have this conversation is because if you start that conversation with a parent about their kid at four years old and they start to see the benefits,
Dave Simon (43:59.688)
John Kozicki (44:17.642)
of the kid just playing music, right? Maybe not reading and writing and, you know, that aspect of it yet. At that age, when they see that benefit, that’s going to stick with them. So then if you’re in a situation like myself, where we have interactive band programs from four years old, all the way through adults,
It becomes way easier over time to populate your student or your studio with families that believe in the importance of playing music versus practicing music.
Dave Simon (45:00.12)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And they also value the time at the studio longer, that they understand that, no, I know he’s not practicing that much at home. He’s not even picking the guitar up that much. But that 30 minutes or that hour at John’s music school, he’s making… Parents are looking for progress. They’re looking for progress in terms of musically.
John Kozicki (45:26.06)
Yes.
Dave Simon (45:28.818)
and as well as you know in terms of the child’s overall well-being if that’s at the parent can see it here musical progress the parent go my kids been here for four months only is ever picked up his guitar at home but he’s progressing and he loves it and john has told me it’s okay that he’s not practicing you’ve you know you’ve given them permission then
John Kozicki (45:48.61)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (45:55.136)
you’re less likely to get the call, we’re dropping out, my kid’s just not practicing.
John Kozicki (45:59.842)
Right, and let’s draw the quick parallel to sports, right? A kid who loves to play sports, even if they’re not good at it, even if they’re not the star player on the team, parents don’t care. The kid is enjoying the activity, the kid’s making friends, the kid is having social interactions, he seems to enjoy it. Why would they disrupt that? Just because the kid’s not the star player. That would be a.
That would be a jerk move on the parent’s part, right?
Dave Simon (46:30.88)
But can you imagine setting your kid up for, let’s say, you know, little league softball and the coach pulls you aside and says, look, John, your, your son’s not practicing his, his batting at home. I really need him to at least pick up the bat, you know, five, 10 minutes a day and just work on his swing. You’re going to be like, dude, like what? Like, no, I just want him to have fun. I want him to learn about teamwork and I want him to learn about competition and the
John Kozicki (46:36.686)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (46:43.917)
Right.
Dave Simon (46:57.78)
the thrill of winning, but also what it’s like to lose and how to pick yourself back up. It’s very clear to you, it’s very clear to all of us of the life lessons that a child’s gonna learn on the team sport. It’s not clear to parents what exactly are these kids learning in these music lessons in terms of life skills. They just know that like, hey, if my kid…
John Kozicki (47:19.896)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Simon (47:23.21)
does well in music. My friends are going to be impressed. They’re going to think he’s smart, he’s gifted, he’s talented. It is a huge boost in a child’s social status as well as the parents if the child is perceived as musically talented. So there’s a lot of social status associated with this for both the child and the parent. But we just have to reframe in the parent’s mind what exactly music lessons are going to do for the child.
John Kozicki (47:38.274)
Yes.
Dave Simon (47:53.236)
that if a certain metric such as practice isn’t really applicable to letting them know, well, there’s another metric we can look at.
John Kozicki (48:01.236)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that’s that’s a for any listeners that’s gonna be my challenge for all of them is is if you find yourself falling into that that conversation about practice and It feels transactional you got to figure out a different way to talk about it You know if you feel like saying yeah, they really should practice 20 minutes a day You got to find a different way of talking about that experience
Dave Simon (48:30.738)
One thing I’d like to share really quick with your listeners that to kind of, I think, offset that parental disappointment is I would have my, parents come in at the end of every lesson and I would perform with the child. And it was the very first lesson too. And I would do it in a way that maybe the parent,
their ears couldn’t figure out what was me and what was their child. So let’s say, for example, it’s the kid’s first lesson and all I’m having them on their high E string, I guess it’s the first E string to play little three note, like a little three note melody. I would then come up with some like arpeggiated guitar part where my playing is kind of interacting with the child’s melody. And then I’d say, mom, make a
22nd video of this and the mom makes a video say hey mom be sure to share this on social media so your friends and family can see what a great job Billy did in his first lesson. Mom’s collecting these videos up over time. Those videos are proof of progress. I know he’s not practicing but I’ve got 12 videos here. In video 12 compared to video 1 is dramatically different and dramatically
John Kozicki (49:25.506)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (49:39.052)
Yes.
Dave Simon (49:51.85)
better so moms holding in her hands sort of the proof but as the teacher accompanying the child you can make what the child’s playing sound a lot more elaborate in you know in dynamic than than it really is because you’re accompanying the child but you’re company in the child in a way that really this is kind of blending in with what they’re doing
John Kozicki (50:13.59)
I love it. I love it. So Dave, I think we’re going to bring this home. But I always, you know, I mean, we’ve had these conversations like not recorded and I always love them. I appreciate your support of this podcast too. And kind of providing the inspiration for it from your early days of your podcast. And you provide so much valuable information and resources to other studio owners.
Dave, you’re fantastic. I think if anyone wants to find your programs, kids rock, piano jam, junior rockers, they can find them at davesimonmusic.com. Is that correct?
Dave Simon (50:57.344)
So Dave Simons, music.com.
John Kozicki (51:00.418)
Dave Simon’s music, we’ll link to that in the show notes. Dave, as always, it’s a pleasure, thanks.
Dave Simon (51:07.326)
Yeah, John, thanks so much for having me on. Really was a pleasure.
John Kozicki (51:10.838)
Of course, we’ll schedule the next three or four once we get off here.
Dave Simon (51:13.628)
Right, we got some catching up to do. You got three appearances on mine. I got two more to do.
John Kozicki (51:19.083)
Alright, sounds good Dave, thanks.
Dave Simon (51:20.832)
Thanks.
