In this episode of the Rock School Proprietor Podcast, John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) dive into book recommendations that can benefit music instructors and studio owners alike.
Mandy’s Pick: Music and Mind edited by Renee Fleming, featuring an array of essays that delve into the profound connection between music, the brain, and human experience.
John’s Pick: Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, which examines the learning process and how to leverage that knowledge to be an effective teacher. Grant even dedicates a chapter to learning music, which offers insights into the learning processes of musicians and the nuances of effective practice.
Each book offers valuable perspectives for educators, providing a deeper understanding of how music enriches lives beyond the classroom.
Don’t miss our discussion on how these reads can transform your approach as a music teacher or studio owner, offering fresh insights and practical takeaways. Whether you’re looking to enhance your teaching methods or understand the broader impact of music education, this episode is packed with enlightening content. Join our conversation and consider these books for your next read!
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 (00:03.63)
In this episode of Rock School Proprietor podcast, Mandy and I share some book recommendations that we think any music instructor or studio owner might benefit from reading. Both of the books that we recommend include some information that we think could be helpful when you’re talking with instructors, parents, and even students in your school. Stay tuned for Rock School Proprietor Book Club.
Welcome to Rock School of the Bride podcast. My name is John Kozicki. And Mandy, I want to do some like thank yous to our listeners before we kind of get into it today. We are getting listeners from like a lot of listeners from like California, Arizona, Mississippi. Cool. In the UK also. Yeah. Which.
and I’m Mandi York.
Mandy York (00:53.123)
need.
kind of surprised me. Obviously we’re in Michigan so for a long time we were getting, most of our listeners were from Michigan like friends and the like, but it’s been cool to see other listeners elsewhere. So I wanted to thank those listeners and maybe nudge nudge encourage them to join our Facebook group or even send us an email.
Yeah, I love it.
John Kozicki (01:23.054)
You know, we’ve done some of those Q &A episodes that For I mean I can speak for myself. Those have been really fun Yeah, I’ve enjoyed doing those Would love to do more of those. So please Send us an email Now with that We’re gonna do book club book club today, I think our little rock school proprietor book club I
yeah, I love doing them.
John Kozicki (01:51.756)
You know, I know you’re a reader. Like you’re a manual, like old school pen and paper or paint. Like a physical, a physical book. I do a lot more audio books these days. But I figured, well, let’s talk about some of the most impactful books that we’ve read recently that relate to
I like to read.
Mandy York (02:02.892)
like a book in my head.
most
John Kozicki (02:21.25)
I guess music, also our businesses. Do you want to start with yours? Sure. So mine is going to be, well, I’ll kind of sell this in the front end. Mine’s going to be Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, which I know I’ve mentioned on the podcast before. What is your book?
My book is Music and Mind. It was edited by Renee Fleming. It just came out in 2024 last year.
I, Renee Fleming, I’m not familiar. Should I know Renee Fleming’s name?
He is a very famous American soprano. So yeah.
okay. All right. So what band was she in?
Mandy York (03:05.006)
She’s performed at the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera, all over the world. And she did write The Inner Voice. another, it’s a biography that she wrote. 10, 15 years ago, yeah. But Music in Mind, this was edited by Renee Fleming and it’s a compilation of essays by researchers, neuroscientists, writers, artists, arts administrators.
Love it.
Yes, I am so excited about this. So it’s not exactly about running the business, but this is kind of, I was telling you before, this is kind of like a why book, why music.
Like why play music? Why have music part of your life? Yeah.
A little bit. You know, we’ve talked in podcast episodes about our why, why we do what we do. This has a little, some of that in there. It’s so interesting because there are so many different topics within this book, right? So music in mind, this is about music and, and, and wellness. But for example, some of the writers in here are Francis Collins. He was the former director of the national institutes of health.
Mandy York (04:20.906)
Nina Krauss is someone I like, PhD at Northwestern University. She runs the Auditory Neuroscience Lab. And she’s a musician. Yo-Yo Ma has a piece in this book, Roseanne Cash, Ben Folds. Anne Patchett and Richard Powers might be familiar names. They’re both authors.
And patch it writes a lot of books. Tom Lake was a recent one I loved by her and Richard Powers wrote the understory. and then dancers, just a lot of different authors. So I kind of chose this because there’s a little bit, there’s something for everybody in here too. there’s different sections of this book. let me just read a couple. So they’ve grouped these essays into, how and why the medical muse health in the spotlight, creative learning music is therapy.
science, a deeper dive, and the road ahead. So this is something that I’ve picked up and you don’t have to read it from the beginning, right? You can bounce through the different essays. When I picked it up, I first I wanted to hear what Ben Folds had to say. I’m a huge Ben Fold fan.
Yeah, that’s
John Kozicki (05:34.892)
I’ve seen Ben Folds live. Such a good person.
He’s a great performer and he is, he’s really on this crusade to, keep people, keep, keep the symphony alive, the symphony orchestra. So he tours and he performs with symphonies and, and he talks about that, talks about that, in his piece, in this book, music in mind. some of the things, some, some of the, articles in here, guess, or the, writings.
titles are things like musical connections, what can music do? We talk about music connecting people. humans are musical creatures, the case for music education, belonging through music, investing in our children’s future, music and mysticism, nature, culture and healing. That one Yo-Yo Ma wrote really great. Musical enjoyment and the reward circuits of the brain.
So, you know, I love all this brain stuff, you know, music for chronic pain management, healing arts, music and memory, exploring the power of music to reach those with dementia and other neurological conditions. This one, rhythm and rhyme, supporting young children and families with musical play. So that goes right along with what I do.
Yeah, well, and probably with what I do too, maybe not quite as like, depending on how the essay is structured, what age groups we’re talking about, but that’s going to speak to definitely what you do with music together and the early childhood stuff and what I do with Michigan Rock School and grade school through middle school through high school. It sounds like some of this stuff can get pretty heavy.
Mandy York (07:23.168)
Yes. Yes. And I wanted to address that. OK. I don’t want the book to be intimidating because of that. Yeah. You know, like I said, these are writings by neuroscientists, right? But it’s fascinating. You know, like we were just now learning about these connections between music and the brain and music and healing. It’s interesting. It’s not these aren’t research papers.
That’s not what this is they’re easy to read and easy to follow But some of the some of the ideas I’ve taken away and reading some of these articles is You know, they talk about what? There’s one piece in particular By a school administrator talking about what? the Investment they put into their arts programs was able to do for their K through 8
school. I mean, we’re talking about, you know, um, uh, an improvement in behavior and test scores and things like that. Right. Yeah. People like to say that all the time. Music makes you smarter. I mean, that’s really broad. I don’t live. I mean, we can talk for a long time about that. That’s not a reason to make music.
It’s interesting that you say that because I, generally will kind of, I don’t want to say rail against, but I get a little like, I don’t know, because I don’t think there has been enough research to support that statement that music makes you smarter.
And it’s such a broad statement, right? mean, there’s research that’s been done that kids in choir and band programs are performing better on standardized tests, things like that.
John Kozicki (09:16.334)
But like in those cases, I always wonder if, well, is it because that the kids who generally stay in choir and band are the kids who do better on tests? Versus the kids because, and because they understand music, they enjoy music, they feel like they’re good at music. You know, it’s causation versus correlation.
Yes, yeah, no.
Mandy York (09:39.182)
But I’m reading in here about a program they put $250,000 into arts teachers. And not specifically music, but just the arts in general. And the programmings that they developed and how their PTA meetings went from four families or four parents per meeting to a full room and getting community. We’re not talking about just making the kids smarter, right? They developed more.
community engagement. So really neat things here. How learning about how humans have been creating art as long as we’ve been here, you know.
You kind of talked about that previously about music and it’s been handed down as a folk art for centuries and longer.
So I mean, all those kind of topics are covered in this book. So like I said, it’s kind of a why book for me. When I start a new semester and get new families into my classroom, I’ve said this before on the podcast I talk about, why we’re here, what we do. This is a music immersion experience for the kids. Your participation is really important. I do my whole first week spiel, right? Yeah.
and I always mention like, and this is, you know, we’re here too, because music learning supports all learning, right? By giving your child this gift, the activities we do here and at home are going to, help with language development, social and emotional skills, all that stuff. Right. So I’m interested in these things and I like to express them to my families.
John Kozicki (11:31.79)
And that’s the stuff that it’s so hard, I think, to clearly provide like a firm statement to parents. Because it’s not just cut and dry. And this goes back to what I was saying about like, does music lead to better test scores? It’s like kind of this holistic approach. Where everything is sort of related.
And having the arts and music as part of what you do as a kid or as a family or as a human being connects you more with what it is to be human. And the idea that we sometimes present it as transactional, like kids who take music lessons do better in school. Like it’s not.
I don’t necessarily feel like that’s truthful because of how it’s presented because it’s like none of this stuff is transactional. It’s all like it’s a long game. It’s about how do you want your life to be? Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s deeper than that. Right. I mean, the, research is growing, right? And this is, this is a great place to start, you know, if you’re inspired by one of these articles, there’s plenty of, footnotes and references that you can need a cross, for example, her website brain volts. I think it’s just brain volts.com. She’s got tons of stuff there on music and the brain. This is a, professor at Northwestern university.
but I do like to give this stuff to my parents, right? This is, music sports, the language development and the social, emotional, and the bonding in these early ages, all of this good stuff, right? But then I explained to that, well, my training is in, is in music. Like I’m a singer. So, I also love music for music sake. Like I didn’t, I didn’t get into music to like, know,
Mandy York (13:42.754)
get better test scores or like, know, learn languages faster or whatever. Right. I just love music. Yeah. because it’s an important part of the human experience. And this book talks about that too. This isn’t just, know, the brain, it’s the deeper, maybe less unknown thing that music makes us feel and how it connects us. Right. So I like to convey that as well. And
I like to say, so I’ve told you all of these great things music can do, but I also just love music for music sake.
Yes, and that like, you know, I chuckle inside sometimes when I get on the phone with potential like families, parents, and I’ll ask if their child might be interested in playing in a band with other kids, they even without that prompting will say something like, well, you know, I don’t think they were looking for…
our child to be a professional musician or anything. I’m like, yeah, that’s fine. You don’t have to like you don’t put your kid in baseball because you want to be a professional baseball player or like any other activity. No, this is like this is
Yeah.
John Kozicki (15:06.388)
an enrichment activity. makes life better for everyone, you know? Yes. Yeah, you don’t have to go into it thinking like you’re going to be super serious. I mean, you can, but maybe don’t because like the the when you decide to get super serious about music or whatever that is, it doesn’t happen at the beginning. Yeah, it happens, you know, far along in the journey.
Yeah. Yes, exactly. Yep. And I’ve been saying that line in my spiel for a long time, know, music for music sake. Yeah. But in this, in this book, Music and Mind, Deborah Rutter is now, she’s now the former director of the Kennedy Center in DC. In her essay in here, she writes music for life’s sake. And was like, I think I need to change.
Yeah.
what I say, not just for music sake, but for music for life’s sake. I love that. Yeah. So I, there’s something for everybody in here. I think I, if you can’t tell, I’m excited about it. I think it’s, it’s exciting to learn, you know, dig a little deeper in the different areas of music because there’s so, there are so many different areas. and this, I didn’t say this reminds me going back. everyone that comes into my classroom has a different motivation.
Right some really do want to read all the literature that I give them. They want to know if this activity You know Helps with the language development that I want to do more of these things, you know, I just want to know what’s going on in the Great. That’s awesome some Need to get out of the house on a Wednesday morning sure they just have you know what I mean? Yeah, and from
Mandy York (16:58.668)
for whatever reason, we just sign up for something every single morning of the week and that’s what we do. I’ve had lots of moms that dealing with postpartum and this is a way to cope and deal and all different motivations. I’ve had some that don’t really seem like they really want to be in the room actually, but knowing
But I know all these things, right? So it really doesn’t matter what brought you into this space, what your motivation was, you’re getting it all. You’re getting all this good stuff. doesn’t, same with your older kids too, right? My mom says I need to do something. I need to pick something. I need to do an activity. Doesn’t matter what got them in the door. All of this research and all of this good stuff is there and we’re
We’re providing it for them.
I think it’s, what’s nice, I’m looking at the book, it’s very thick. What’s nice about what you’re saying is that it seems like the book is offering support, evidence that there are so many different reasons to do music and there’s not necessarily one correct one or one incorrect one.
It was bad.
John Kozicki (18:25.234)
vast, vast reasons. And then individually, people can choose why, and it validates every single one of them. Whether that’s because you want your kid to get better test scores, or maybe you just love music and maybe you’re horrible at playing it, but you just want to feel more connected to it and understand it more and study it more. There’s like tons of reasons and not a single one.
is wrong. And I think that’s super valuable for instructors to understand because I think I’ve seen it with my instructors. I know I’ve done it too, where I felt like I have to provide value and I can’t read minds. Any given student is going to perceive value in their own way and it doesn’t necessarily have to align with what I’m
Viewing is valuable.
Right exactly. Yeah, that’s awesome. Yep. Yeah, don’t be intimidated either Like I said, it’s not a beginning to end you don’t have to start on page one and go you want to read I mean Johnny Cash’s daughter’s got a piece in here. Yeah, cool I want to read, you know, there’s a name you recognize and you want to read what that person has to say
Very cool. book is Music in Mind.
Mandy York (19:48.418)
Music and Mind. It’s edited by Renee Fleming.
Okay. All right. Music in mind, Renee Fleming. okay. So my, book that I am going to recommend is hidden potential by Adam Grant. I do think we’ve talked about this a couple of times. And specifically, I’m going to jump around a little bit, but to, kind of drive it home for our audience, chapter four in hidden potential is
I’m gonna do it, yeah.
John Kozicki (20:22.718)
specifically about musicians and how they learn. And this chapter was incredibly eye-opening for me when it came to understanding the concept of practice and like why we practice and how we practice and the importance of having a sense of enjoyment in what you’re doing versus just drilling and drilling and drilling.
to improve your skill. And that goes for anything. But what I loved is that chapter four was specifically about music and they spoke with musicians. In particular, Dame Evelyn Glennie, who I wasn’t familiar with her until I read the book, or actually I listened to the audio book. She’s a percussionist.
I should have taken better notes. Deaf. Yeah, she’s deaf. Yeah, she’s deaf and experienced a ton of roadblocks like no, you’re never going to be able to be a musician. And you know, one of those great stories. There’s a quote from the book. She says, worthwhile practice is where progress is made. And it’s it’s about quality, not quantity.
So that’s the idea of like kind of being invested in, but it also is contrary to what we often do in music lessons, which is we do quantify it. We’re like, well, you need to practice for 20 minutes because we tell parents that because they want some sort of metric. And so there’s this like, it’s like a game of telephone though, right? So if the instructor says that and they tell that to the parent, then the parents like, 20 minutes.
And the parents are reinforcing that with the kid and the kids like, all right, 20 minutes, I could just do whatever to get through this because it feels like homework. And by the time it’s only three steps, but oftentimes by the time the kid gets to it, they’re just like, all right, 20 minutes. And then I can go back to playing video games. So there’s not necessarily any quality involved in it. It’s literally just, I have to check this off my list because it’s a chore.
John Kozicki (22:51.978)
So, yeah, chapter four is fantastic. And again, I’ve talked about that on previous episodes, but there’s also stuff in here about how, how we learn and how we, how we operate. chapter one, I think it’s titled instant gratification monkey, which I love that title. And Mandy, I was telling you it’s
A lot of it is about procrastination. And I mentioned procrastination to you, and you were like, oh yeah.
I’m good at that. I’m good at procrastinating.
I never like I’ll be honest until I read this I never really thought about my procrastination What but when I was reading this to you you were like, yeah. Yeah, I know that about myself but the the the light bulb moment for me was when I read this And I think I’m paraphrasing here. It says but in my notes this is procrastination is not about laziness and it’s not about time management which I’ve always thought like
I just don’t feel like doing this. Right. To me, I thought that, that’s just me being lazy. but it’s about an emotional management prog problem. Like I don’t want to do this because I, I don’t feel comfortable with it. I feel like I’m not good at it or I just like there’s something about it that like doesn’t feel good. so you’re avoiding the uncomfortable feelings.
John Kozicki (24:30.602)
and the task brings them up. So that’s the thing with procrastination.
Let’s see what else am I my notes. comparing learning music to learning a new language. OK, so as an example, most parents could relate to taking a foreign language in school. Every day they go to class, they study the language, but how many can actually speak the language now? Right. So that’s one that that kind of hit me. And I thought like that is so relatable to the parents who don’t play music.
And again, they may think like when it comes to their kids taking music lessons, well, they’ve got to go to the lessons and they’ve got to practice.
that’s not going to necessarily guarantee or lead to them being able to take this instrument and be able to play with someone else, right? Or be able to pick it up for fun and play a song that they enjoy. Or if they’re camping in the summer, like bring people together. And so for what I do, that’s, that’s how I approach it with parents now is I talk about like, okay, yes.
there’s this transfer of knowledge. However, when someone, the best way to learn a language, and again, this is how I relate it to them, the best way for anyone to learn a language is to immerse yourself in that language and to be in that culture and speak the language with other people who do speak the language. And music is really the same way. If you are with people who play, then you’re going to be able to play too, because that’s the language.
Mandy York (26:20.502)
Yeah. I think the rock band, the group lessons, the rock band program is a great way to immerse yourself in the music, right?
Yeah. And again, for me, right. And for me, it’s always important to have these parallels to kind of give these examples so that the parents understand how this is going to benefit them. And for anyone who has that preconceived notion, and I hear this all the time, well, I really think before my kid gets involved in your band program, maybe they should
get some skills under their belt first, right? Maybe they should do some private lessons. And again, for the certain kid, maybe so. but let’s talk about this other thing, you know, and I can use that, that example as, as like languages. again, this is from the book about languages. So language experts, they say that the most common problem with language learners, is
the belief that studying the language is all about acquiring knowledge. And it’s actually not. Learning a new language is about building a communication skill. And in that chapter, they speak with like, you know, people who speak 26 languages. Yeah, they speak with a couple of those, a couple of those people, right? And how they managed to
Yeah, crazy.
John Kozicki (27:59.318)
to learn those languages. And they all pretty much say like, well, you just go and you live in that place and you learn the language or you somehow immerse yourself in the language. again, going back to like what we do with music, it’s not like you can study it and that might work, but you’ve got to
do it, you’ve got to use the language.
Yeah, it’s so similar. I mean, and we can all just immerse ourselves in music and we can make music, right? Immerse yourself in a language and you can communicate. Maybe you can’t write like, you know, an academic essay after just work, you know, kind of immersing in yourself in a language and being able to communicate.
Right.
You can compare that to music too, right? You can immerse yourself in music. You’ll be able to play music. You’ll get satisfaction and all the great benefits of music. You know, maybe you won’t be, you’ll need more technical and deeper education in music to get to a certain level, but it, but it is so similar to language learning. just immerse yourself.
John Kozicki (29:17.996)
Yeah. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who knows a ton about music, but they don’t play? Right? Yeah. Same thing. They, you know, they listen to music, they enjoy music, they take it in. Yeah, it’s refreshing to talk with those people because they don’t know the nuts and bolts of it, but they’re passionate about it. I love that. love that. All right. My final takeaway from
Yeah.
Mandy York (29:33.196)
I love those people, actually.
John Kozicki (29:48.27)
hidden potential is more related to or beneficial, think to us as teachers or studio owners. And they call it the curse of knowledge. this was they referenced a study at I think it was Northwestern University collecting data on freshmen who could relate to their instructors or not relate to their instructor.
and the idea was that
The more expertise that a teacher has on a subject, the further away they get from the beginner learner. Right? So the curse of knowledge, right? You know so much about it that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a beginner learner. that’s kind of like the bottom line. The more you know, the harder it is to fathom what you don’t know.
So the further you progress towards mastery of any any particular skill or or something, the less consciously aware you are. sorry, the the less conscious awareness you have of the fundamentals. So in the study, they said, well, yeah, the people who are like super experts on the on the subject. The beginners had a harder time understanding.
class versus versus those who like, you know, yeah, they they are able to teach this class. Maybe they don’t have the knowledge of the like, the PhD level. Right. So those learn those those instructors or student instructors got better ratings from the the freshmen in the classes because they were more relatable because they still understood
John Kozicki (31:50.21)
what it was like to be a beginner learner. And for us as music instructors, I’ve seen it. I think we fall into that.
That’s really interesting. Yeah. I haven’t thought about that before, but it makes so much sense. And the, mean, I guess the natural inclination is to study with the best of the best, right?
Well, that’s yeah, that’s you. You assume, OK, I want or from a parent’s perspective that I want to have the best. I want to have this. I want to have this PhD level like symphony expert teach my seven year old.
the exit.
Mandy York (32:29.432)
Yeah, yeah. Right. But the gap is too wide. And they would do, they would be better off with a, perhaps younger instructor.
Obviously it’s not hard and fast, but yeah, relatability with the instructor and like their skill set and then the instructor also being able to relate to a student. Super, super important.
but it makes sense.
Mandy York (32:54.136)
That’s great information to be able to relay when you’re talking to parents. Cause I think that that happens sometimes when they don’t, well, we were really hoping that we could get in with so-and-so.
Well-meaning. Yeah, well. Like, you know, it’s. That doesn’t necessarily mean there’s going to be success there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As an aside, I mean, I’ve been having a lot more success in my studio with.
Absolutely.
Mandy York (33:16.012)
Huh, very cool.
John Kozicki (33:26.38)
with having younger instructors too. And I think that’s exactly why. Because of their ability to relate to the kids at that early learning stage. So Hidden Potential, Adam Grant. I read this last year, so it’s still a relatively new book. I definitely recommend that. An honorable mention, and I don’t think I’m going to get into it just because I think I’d go on and on about it.
But Start With Why by Simon Sinek is also a huge, huge favorite of mine. And we’ve talked about, well, you talked about it with your book recommendation, like the importance of your why. And that’s exactly what Start With Why is about, understanding your why you do something. But I think it’s also helpful in what we’re talking about, understanding from your client’s perspective.
why they’re doing music.
yeah, that’s important.
Mandy York (34:41.07)
Please. would love that.
Mandy York (34:57.305)
Thanks, John.
