In this episode, John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) talks with Levi Clay—author, transcriber and online instructor—about balancing instant access to tabs, tutorials and AI with the human skills that make music meaningful. The two explore effective teaching strategies, the importance of foundational skills like ear training, and how modern technology influences guitar learning.
In this episode:
- The significance of interest-driven learning and curriculum design
- The dangers of relying solely on tabs and AI for learning music
- Building a musical community through jam nights and social interactions
- Teaching students to develop ear training and transcribe songs
- The importance of understanding the “why” behind playing music
- Future challenges and opportunities in music education amidst AI advances
- Encouraging students to internalize instead of depend on technology
- Recommendations for instructors to help students so they can eventually “graduate” lessons
Remember: The most effective music teachers inspire curiosity, focus on foundational skills, and foster genuine musical community—both online and in-person.
Levi’s Links:
https://guidedpracticeroutines.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/LeviClay
Rock School Proprietor is a podcast for independent music school owners and lesson studio operators interested in building and growing their business. New episodes drop Wednesdays at RockSchoolProprietor.com and on all podcast streaming platforms.
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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 (00:00.984)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor podcast. My name is John Kozicki and my guest on the show today has written over 20 best selling guitar books with over 100,000 copies sold. He is the founder of Guided Practice Routines, his online guitar lesson platform combining lessons and structured play along workouts. And he’s got a YouTube channel with over 140,000 subscribers. Levi Clay. How you doing there, Levi?
Levi (00:30.904)
That was, it was a lot hearing all of that. I know it’s my career, so I should know those things, but it always feels strange hearing somebody else say it, but yeah, that is me. I am great, Thank you so much for having me on. How are you?
John Kozicki (00:34.877)
So.
John Kozicki (00:42.524)
I’m doing well. I could have cut that down actually because your list of what you’ve put out and things I could have talked about in the intro was long and impressive. So I’m excited to talk to you. we kind of had a little chat back and forth online about what we were going to talk about. And it’s not necessarily about some of the things that I gave in your intro.
but we were talking about some of these, guess more skills that I think guitar instructors can really, we’re gonna geek out on guitar is what we’re gonna do today in this conversation. We were talking about things like ear training and transcribing, which are also some of your niche skills. And just in general, how guitar instructors and instructors in general can,
really change their outlook and improve outcomes potentially for their students and how they present content. I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit about online lessons and benefits there and how we can leverage that content also in the in-person world. And you were telling me like what you like for your students to do is do some online lessons with you for a short bit and then go play with some other people. So to get it kicked off,
Levi (02:07.693)
Absolutely.
John Kozicki (02:11.071)
Your background is similar to mine in that you started teaching without any formal credentials, correct?
Levi (02:20.267)
Absolutely correct. Yeah, I got very lucky. got I was given an opportunity a young age and I ran with it I immediately fell in love with seeing you know people have light bulb moments and helping them achieve things as you know and as I’m sure everybody watching or listening knows it’s such a great feeling when you see that in a student
John Kozicki (02:38.941)
Yeah, and what do you think? Because a lot of the listeners of this podcast, some of them are like you and I, where we just kind of started teaching without any any sort of training. I literally like zero experience teaching lessons or any music school background. I just got a job teaching lessons. And I think some of the listeners are like that. But then we also have a lot of listeners who
first went to music school and then did that path and had a lot of background and understanding of how teaching is supposed to be done. But what do you think makes maybe a good teacher early on? Trying to find that balance, I guess.
Levi (03:24.853)
I think initially one of the things you said there is you’re essentially setting up two positions, having formal training and not having any formal training in education. And I think by and large in music education, 95 % of people have no formal training or education because it’s not enough to say I went to music school, therefore I’m qualified to teach music.
You went to music school, means you’ve learned a lot about music, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have any skill in explaining music to people or explaining or teaching anything to people. I did go to music school in the end, but I also have qualifications specifically in music education. And as part of that, there was a lot of study of how education works. I took so much interest when I was at music school, not necessarily from the things that I was being taught because I
I’m a hard studier, I’d learnt a lot of it. I took so much more interest in how it was being taught. So I think the thing that sets a beginner teacher and advanced anyone apart in the education space is having an interest, not just in the things that you’re teaching, but the different ways that you can present that same information so you can reach people. It’s fascinating. I still spend a lot of money every month on educational materials. My library is huge and I’m always reading through these things because occasionally…
every now and then you’ll read something where you go, huh, that’s an interesting way of putting that. It’s not the way I would usually describe that, but I’ll remember that because there may come a time where that way of presenting this to a student is going to be helpful or useful. I think as long as you’re sort of pursuing that in your education, how do I make myself a better conveyor of information? I think you’re setting yourself up for success in the teaching space because your students appreciate it.
John Kozicki (05:07.377)
Now, how do you keep that in mind for yourself when in part your work is writing content and creating courses for an audience that you don’t necessarily know who will receive that content. And in part, you also have students that you interact with. So you understand a little bit more about
Levi (05:23.726)
Hmm.
John Kozicki (05:35.015)
what they need and how they need things explained. So how do you keep that in mind when you’re essentially creating curriculum?
Levi (05:44.527)
That’s a really great question. I think you’ve nailed a problem in the online teaching thing. And your way of putting it that I’m creating content for an audience that I can’t see is always problematic because ultimately I do have lots of different ways that I can explain certain musical concepts or technique concepts or whatever it happens to be. But I always have my favorite, the way that I default to teaching things. And then the other ways that you might use is something that you pull in if the situation calls for them.
John Kozicki (05:52.158)
Mmm.
Levi (06:14.402)
And when you’re not dealing with a student one-on-one, you don’t have that option. But ultimately, I would say that I think my system and anyone that has followed my education platform will know that my teaching curriculum is very organized, very structured, very based on building incredibly incremental levels of skills. And I think that the thing I’ve managed to do from reading as many materials as I have, teaching as many people as I have, and working with as many great teachers as I have,
is sort of reducing it down to the most succinct way of explaining concepts. So I think I’m presenting things in the easiest way possible. And to be honest, sometimes people will sign up for my website or whatever, and they’ll cancel after a month or two, not because the content wasn’t for them, because it’s not progressing at the pace that they want it to. They want to rush through things and get to things. And yeah, I think that when you are creating a curriculum, don’t rush.
You do want to arm people with everything that they need to learn, but you don’t need to make the promise of, I’m going to make you, you know, 50 % faster in two weeks, or, you know, you’ll have mastered the guitar in six months. You see these massive claims from people. And as we all know from learning music, it takes time. And that’s okay. Just make sure you’re giving them the foundations, make sure you’re giving them an understanding of the why. So they’re not just copying the thing that you do. One of the things I…
John Kozicki (07:13.535)
Mm-hmm.
Levi (07:41.015)
I say all the time is that a lot of students think that they’re memorizing the guitar. That’s how they learn. They pick up the guitar and they’re remembering tab, but it’s not enough to memorize the guitar. We’re learning the guitar. We’re learning how it works. We want to arm you with the skills of the understanding of things so you can take that and apply that in concepts and places. If that makes sense.
John Kozicki (08:00.648)
Hmm. It does. And you, I’m going to put a pin in something there. You mentioned the why. And before we hit record here, you and I were just kind of generally chatting about, you know, guitar stuff, like guitar guys do. And, one of the things we’re talking about was getting students or even musicians, whatever, let’s not even call them students playing together, people playing music together and.
I’ve, I think I’ve kind of come to the realization over my tenure as a music instructor or someone owning a music school. we sometimes forget that as the instructors, we sometimes, and I even kind of started seeing that in myself as we were talking about building curriculum and like, how do we present this to students? We sometimes forget that the why, right? Is
Presumably, playing that instrument and having fun with it and doing the thing that we’re studying, we can get so caught up in how we present it that we forget that there’s a reason to do it.
Levi (09:17.302)
I think the really interesting part about what you’re saying there and this space in general in music education is there’s this massive split in why people play music and how they gain joy from playing music. I am an improvising musician. I cannot remember the last time I learned to play something that somebody else wrote. It’s
not how I do things. I learn songs in the sense that I know the harmony, the chord progression, and I can get up on stage and just play through any of these songs that I’ve heard because in my mind, I know the chord progression and it’s going to be fine because I’ll be able to improvise my way through it and my rhythm parts and everything and I’ll have fun. When you try and teach that to people, you very quickly realize that so many guitarists, to them, learning to play the guitar isn’t about that because that’s very esoteric, that’s very open-ended. To them,
John Kozicki (10:05.758)
Mm.
Levi (10:07.234)
They picked up the guitar because all they want to do is they want to be able to play the solo to comfortably numb. That’s all they want to do. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Can’t stress that enough. It’s why I picked up the guitar. Well, you mentioned punk rock when we were talking before recording. For me, it was the offspring. They were the band that kind of got me back in MX tabs day, MX tabs.net. My username on there was noodles is the king because I love noodles from the offspring. That was the driving force in those early times. And
John Kozicki (10:12.562)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (10:21.202)
Yeah, yeah.
John Kozicki (10:31.398)
Yeah.
Levi (10:38.008)
That’s all I wanted to do. Just copy things. I think it’s a really valuable thing to instill in students that that’s great. But have you considered getting up and playing with real musicians? Have you considered interacting with other people and not saying to yourself, okay, I’ve nailed the solo to comfortably numb. I can play it perfectly. I’m going to go to a jam night now and say, let’s play comfortably numb and then just use these musicians as essentially a live backing track for myself. And then I’m going to play the solo like
Again, nothing wrong with that, but have you considered what it could be to explore music, to create music, to come up with your own stuff? And when you think in that way, suddenly you turn the way you’re learning on its head. It’s not about just learning the licks that Dave Gilmore played on something. It’s the understanding of the why. And then asking yourself, I like that. How could I use that in another context? How could I use that on a different chord progression? How could I connect maybe this idea that I like and this idea I like again?
in a different tempo or a different key. I think that is what really starts to make music come alive for people when you realise that you don’t just pick up the guitar to see if you can remember that tab book that you read.
John Kozicki (11:48.078)
Mm It’s yeah, it’s it’s so interesting to figure out how I’m thinking about this in terms of two perspectives right now myself as an instructor, and how to pull that out of students or put them in that space, but also thinking about myself as, as a student when I was a student. And I
I felt like I never really had the problem connecting those two things, right? Like I desperately wanted to play music with friends. I desperately wanted to play in front of people and for friends and create that community, which is why I think I do what I do today with my music school. But so I never had that problem, but I definitely see that in students. And it makes me wonder, okay, well, why didn’t I have that problem? And then how can I?
How can I pull that student into that space? I learned in one of your niche areas of expertise is transcribing and ear training. When I learned to play guitar, there weren’t, like the internet tab did not exist, right? Like I’m that old. And so the only way that I could learn songs was either from
tabs in a guitar magazine or from my guitar instructor, or maybe if I had some money to buy a book. And absent of that, my choices were really limited. I had to maybe ask friends or I had to sit there and listen to a song and try and figure out how to play it on my guitar. And that’s how I developed my ear. And then that later translated into when I started teaching, a student would come in, I want to learn how to play this song again, we didn’t, we didn’t have
We didn’t have computers in the lesson rooms when I first started, right? So I was like, all right, well, let’s play it. I’ll listen to it. Okay, this chord, then this chord, then this chord, and then charting it out for them. So that skill, I developed out of necessity, basically.
John Kozicki (14:04.409)
And students now do not have that, like they don’t have that situation. If they want to learn something, it’s there, it’s online. There’s tutorials and videos and tabs. I just dumped a lot on you, but is that creating, is that creating a crutch, you know? And how do we put students in that, in that like,
Levi (14:22.479)
No, no, I’m following.
Levi (14:27.213)
Yes.
John Kozicki (14:31.035)
That existence where they’re so passionate about this idea of making music that it isn’t just about playing a video game essentially. Like I put my fingers here and there you go, I’m playing it.
Levi (14:40.367)
Yeah, it’s a really cool area. Well, a concerning area to talk about because I think everything that you’ve said there is true. We provide everything that a student could need in order for them to be able to play music without having to put in that work. And that’s at its core is an accessibility thing. I’m all about accessibility. I posted a viral Bach transcription on YouTube just last week. It’s done like quarter of a million views in a couple of weeks and
John Kozicki (15:01.981)
Mm-hmm.
Levi (15:09.357)
When I post videos like that, have Tablature under them. And the amount of Bach people that are like, you can’t play Bach’s music from Tablature, you have to have notation. If you can’t read, you’re not allowed to play Bach. And I’m like, who are you to say that a guy in his 50s who has a wife and two kids and half an hour to play the guitar every week loves Bach but can’t read has no right to play Bach’s music unless he can spend years of his life, wasting years of his life learning to read?
John Kozicki (15:17.085)
You
You
Levi (15:36.368)
I think that accessibility is really, really important. And I think that having access to tabs is a helpful tool to speed things along. But there’s a difference between having access to something and having a reliance on something. I think that because it’s so easy to find tabs of things, well, it’s probably worth noting that the reason I transcribe professionally and make good money doing it is because I’m very accurate. And if you’re good at something, don’t do it for free. So generally speaking, when you find free tabs on the internet, they’re often very wrong.
So there’s that as well, but, you know, the student doesn’t have the ear to spot that they’re wrong, but at its core, yeah, by having that reliance on that, you’ll never develop that skill. And when you think of all of the musicians that you grew up listening to and why they were as good as they were, it’s because they had to do the stuff that you’re talking about there. And my real concern, I think we’ve already lost the tab battle or the online tab type thing, because getting people to do the work is really hard. The hard part about teaching and we’ve
John Kozicki (16:06.247)
Right, right.
John Kozicki (16:10.695)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (16:24.541)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (16:29.287)
Sure, yeah, yeah.
Levi (16:34.991)
I said this in the before recording, but the hard part for me isn’t necessarily teaching the student the thing, it’s teaching them or convincing them that they’re capable of doing the thing. The amount of progress I see in students in their ear training, their ability to listen to something on the radio and work it out is astonishing. They’re all capable of it. They just don’t believe they are. They need to overcome that. But unfortunately, the real kicker for me in this space right now is AI. So loads and loads of videos on YouTube. And when people see a thing,
John Kozicki (16:44.733)
Hmm.
Levi (17:04.011)
on the internet now that they can’t do. They just assume that somebody can’t possibly have the skill that I’m looking at because you can’t develop that. Therefore, this must be AI. And that’s a problem because students now are turning to services like ChatGPT and they’re trying to use it as a learning tool. And I don’t know if you’ve experimented with AI and what its knowledge of music theory is like. I’m telling you it’s awful. It’s astonishingly bad.
John Kozicki (17:14.813)
Mm.
John Kozicki (17:30.813)
We’ve done a couple episodes on that.
Levi (17:32.194)
And AI never presents an answer as, you know, here’s an opinion or it might be this or you should fact check this. It presents everything with confidence. And when you’re a learner, you rely on confidence. You want your teacher to present you with confident answers. And when AI is giving you incorrect information, but presenting it as though it’s fact, you are in a very dangerous place. And I don’t know how we explain this to music students because all they see is, now I can learn music for free. I don’t even need a teacher anymore. I can have AI teach me badly, but…
John Kozicki (17:43.666)
Yeah.
Levi (18:02.147)
Let’s remember that most of the things that AI are going to tell you are things that it read from random people on Reddit who maybe don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s a scary space. I don’t know how we overcome it.
John Kozicki (18:14.818)
I’m gonna take a shot at it, how we overcome it. We’ve done a couple episodes on AI and guitar learning specifically, and even an episode where a friend of mine, Sam Reddy, who is in the tech space, he was experimenting with ChatGPT and ChatGPT could recognize what chord shape.
Levi (18:17.62)
God.
John Kozicki (18:43.6)
he had his fingers on with the camera activated, right? So then we went on a rabbit trail, because this was probably a year ago. And we went down a rabbit trail theorizing like, well, what is this going to do for guitar learning? And you mentioned access. So I think there is an argument to be made for it does provide a little bit more access for maybe someone who can’t afford private lessons or can’t afford a course like your own or something like that.
But where I think this is drawing a chasm, and I’m just kind of theorizing now, this is just my own personal beliefs, but in the online space, we see people calling out AI all the time now as a negative, right? it’s AI, that’s AI. And as these things progress, one argument is that AI is gonna get better, it’s gonna be harder to spot, okay, but also,
inherently, I feel like we’re just going to want human interaction, because there’s not going to be a question. Right? We’re not we’re not going to be with a friend and think like, that person is AI. Not yet. I mean, who knows what the future holds. But I think what that does is it increases the value of these personal interactions. It means it means that playing music with other people
becomes more valuable and the idea of perfection maybe isn’t necessarily the goal anymore, like the messiness of humanity becomes like something more desirable. I don’t know.
Levi (20:29.528)
I think I agree with you. It’s just, I think in that world, that hypothetical world that you’re talking about, you’re talking about a space where people will crave that, but they don’t necessarily have the skillset in order to do it anymore. You know, because they’ve relied on AI to tell them what notes to play. They’ve relied on AI for the tab of how to play it. They’ve relied on AI for the, maybe even composition using something like Suno to write your music for you. And then they have to play it. And I fear a future where
John Kozicki (20:41.596)
Mmm. Good point.
Levi (20:58.596)
people are annoyed that they can’t just get a computer to play the thing for them as well. It seems that’s the only part that they want to do. They just want to put their fingers on the frets where they’re supposed to. And if they could remove that, they’d do that too.
John Kozicki (21:03.355)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (21:11.566)
It’s a yeah, that’s a it’s an existential question at that point, you know, because then it’s like, well, what is what’s the point of music then? Right? Because if if if it’s being created by AI, and then someone is learning it on AI, and it sucks any sort of like humanity out of the art form, which really, don’t know, maybe I’m maybe I’m the preacher preaching to the choir at this point, I’m not sure.
Levi (21:14.659)
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Levi (21:37.509)
Yeah, I have some like quite controversial opinions when it comes to education. I’m very old fashioned. I’m very pragmatic in my approach to teaching despite learning in a very theoretical way, classically trained essentially. I abandoned a lot of that for what I think is results driven. Like I’m a big hater of metronomes. I take the Jeff Berlin School of Thought when it comes to metronomes because I look back on all these great records and I can’t think of a single record across any style you take like.
appetite for destruction or kind of blue or Fleetwood Macs rumours like whatever it happens to be. None of them were recorded with a click track. None of the musicians that played them practiced with metronomes and yet the music is great and it wouldn’t be better if we suddenly time stretched it so it was in time. And why is that? Well, because music is a human thing and it’s like the heart, you know, when music is exciting, we speed up just a little bit, maybe a lot.
But speeding up is okay. When music is laid back, you might slow down a little bit. And again, that’s natural. We do things like that without thinking about it. We move as a unit when we’re playing music. And I can’t fathom this idea of like, you know, practicing with a metronome, getting to the point where your time feel is bulletproof. You could have a click in your ear, but muted. Have it muted for a hundred bars, keep playing. And then the click comes back on and you’re still perfectly in time with that click. Great skill to have. But if you’re playing with a drummer and the drummer speeds up,
you look over him and say, dude, actually, I’m going to stay in time. If you’re speeding up, that’s up to you, but you should really follow me. It’s not how music works. And I think that that very observable human aspect of music, the flexibility of time is another reason for us to maybe consider the human interaction side of learning music, playing music is important and should be celebrated. I would so much rather you got together with your friends and wrote a song with two chords than
John Kozicki (23:08.881)
Yeah
Levi (23:33.294)
got a tab from AI or got a tab from me. Don’t pay me to make a transcription for you. Like go and write a two chord song with your friends, play some music. If you both play guitar, one of you get a bass guitar. See how it feels. Like those are the magic moments.
John Kozicki (23:39.556)
Yeah, yeah.
John Kozicki (23:46.564)
Yeah, so I see both sides, right? Like, I see the future that I’m presenting and I see the fear of the future that you’re potentially presenting. Maybe I’m an optimist, right? But I’m gonna pose this. Now, Levi, I know you’re younger than I am. The first time you ever recorded something, did you record on a dock?
Levi (24:09.744)
I was just before them. I had a Boss BR-800 digital recorder thing. So it wasn’t quite a door. We were almost there. But yeah, that was my experience. You’re going to tell me that you’re an old school tape guy.
John Kozicki (24:18.202)
Yeah, okay.
John Kozicki (24:24.291)
Okay, this, well, this might blow my theory, right? Because what I was going to say is like, yes, the first time I recorded, yes, was on a cassette four track, right? And the first time I recorded an actual studio was on, the big fat two inch tape analog. So my theory was, well, you being younger than I am, I can see where I’m like the older guy saying, I fear for this future, but you’re younger than I am. So now you’re fearing for the future.
Levi (24:28.592)
You
Levi (24:32.89)
Yeah.
Levi (24:37.669)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (24:54.031)
I guess where I was going with it was maybe if you started in that digital era and you’re still pining for the days of bands not recording to a click track, then there’s still hope. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s an existential question, man.
Levi (25:09.968)
I still think what you’re going for is 100 % correct. We as humans, there might be some of us who are really enlightened, who don’t worry about the future of the youth. But by and large, we can look through history and every generation throughout hundreds of years of recorded history, all say that the next generation is terrible. It’s human nature to do that. And I think that just gets amplified when you’re like me, where most of the music I listen to is from the 70s or before.
John Kozicki (25:28.923)
Right.
Levi (25:39.202)
So like I’m going to hear modern music and I don’t dislike it. I play a fair amount of it and I’ve had to transcribe a lot of it and I have to work with a lot of it, but like really realistically, I’m less likely to put a record on that was made in the last five years when I can put on, you know, a Stevie Wonder record.
John Kozicki (25:58.118)
So with my students at my music school, obviously we have the rock band program and that’s where we try and push everyone into, know, this is what this is about. This is about getting in a room together and banging through this song and then going on stage and playing it for your friends. That’s what it’s about. You having a different perspective, you had mentioned before we hit record, you…
don’t want your students to be with you more than about 18 months because you want them to go out and do the thing. And I guess for the purposes of the podcast and our listeners, what advice might you have for instructors to encourage students more to essentially quit lessons? Yeah.
Levi (26:48.58)
Yeah, I know it is a controversial position to hold. I’m also kind of a believer in more of a union approach to education. think us teachers should communicate with each other a lot more. Same with gigging musicians. We should all know what we’re charging for gigs. We shouldn’t be undercutting each other. We should be supporting each other. And if I have a student that comes to me and they want to learn about a specific subject and it’s not my area of expertise, I want to be confident enough in my teaching not to pretend that I can teach them that thing.
but point them in the direction of a teacher that’s more suitable for them. I think that you will be successful as a teacher if you have that level of integrity with students. So yes, I don’t want my students to be with me for more than 18 months. And in the long run, I believe that Word will get around about that, you know, and it appears to the outside world that, this guy has a lot of integrity. He’s not gonna teach me to learn to sight read because that will take five years, a skill that I won’t use.
John Kozicki (27:36.837)
Mm-hmm.
Levi (27:46.225)
He wants to get me in the door, teach me everything I need to know, and then make himself redundant. I think that’s a very appealing marketing thing for students to see, that I’m not going to be with you for the next 10 years. I will be if you really want me to, but after that 18 month period, we need to start addressing where the weaknesses are, because you should know most of the things that you need to know. And there is a caveat to that, of course. I don’t teach beginners.
That’s obviously not true if you’re teaching beginners. And it’s not that I don’t teach beginners because I have such a big platform and international recognition. People come to me because of who I am and my approach to teaching. it’s, it’s intermediate and advanced players. So people like that need less education, but if you are in that space, yeah, for me, I think that having that integrity, being able to being confident to send your student to somebody who’s more qualified for whatever it happens to be. If you want to learn to alternate pick like
250 BPM and you come to me, I’m going to say, here’s my friend Martin Miller, go and go and take some lessons of him. He’s he’s really good at that. And likewise, there’s things where sometimes a student would come to me and say, your friend Martin Miller suggested I come to you for this specific thing. Can we book some lessons? I think that’s better for the overall community. That’s my views on that.
John Kozicki (28:59.119)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (29:04.741)
That’s what you’re saying to me is the theme is self-awareness and purpose and you understanding what you are good at and what you can offer students and what you can’t offer students. And really you mentioned it again earlier in the conversation, the why, like why you exist as an instructor, but also imparting that on your students.
and them understanding what their why is, what their purpose is, understanding how they can be self-aware to figure out, why am I doing this in the first place? Why am I learning this in the first place? That’s a tough one because that’s so wrapped up in our own psychology. And then in my situation, when I’m, I’m teaching kids, know, kids are coming to my music school. The kids aren’t self-aware yet.
So then we have the parents involved in that, in that situation too. And like, well, what is, what are the parents goals for that, that individual student who are also footing the bill for the lessons? it’s yeah, it’s, it’s really interesting. So I think for instructors, some of the best things that we can do is think about these lessons. Yes, we want to educate our students. We want to teach them the skills that they need. We want to talk about music and technique.
Levi (30:03.537)
you
John Kozicki (30:31.044)
But we also want to include a little bit of conversation in the lessons. Why are we doing this? Hey, what makes you excited about music? What gets you really fired up about this band or this band or this guitar player or this artist? And having those conversations is how we’re going to draw that information out of the students and then being able to share that with their parents. So it’s more than just put your fingers here and do these things.
Levi (31:00.719)
I’ve met a lot of students over the years where I always ask the same question in the first lesson. say, so let’s pretend I’m a genie in a bottle. You find the lamp and you rub it I’m the worst genie known to man. I have power, but not very much. I can grant you three wishes, but it’s, can only make you play like three of your favorite guitar players. It’s a great set of wishes to give someone. Usually people can answer that, but I meet some people where they’re like, I don’t really know. And I’m like, why are you here?
John Kozicki (31:29.946)
8.
Levi (31:30.598)
Surely you’re here because we love music. when you talk about conversation, it’s not every lesson, but I like to where possible finish a lesson with not here’s music I love, you should love this music. So here’s something that I’ve been listening to this week. Go home and listen to it, see what you think. And when you come back, show me something that you found that you think is cool, because we can talk about it. And I think that I do believe like a huge part of…
John Kozicki (31:51.852)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Levi (31:57.222)
development in music is having a wide and varied musical diet. I think the reason I my ear is as good as it is because I transcribed professionally, which means I’m always listening to music and there is no genre that ups. Well, there are some genres that I’m not into but like I’m a big musical theater guy. I love dramatic music and I think trying to share that with people is cool, but also being open to suggestions from other people. Humans are terrible for that taking a recommendation like hey man, I found this amazing album. You should check it out.
what they immediately hear is meh meh meh meh meh meh meh meh. Yeah, I’m not gonna listen to that. You’re like, why? This is beautiful art and it touched me. Listen to it.
John Kozicki (32:30.068)
Hahaha
John Kozicki (32:35.524)
Yeah. Isn’t it funny though how in that you take that same artist, you’re able to, like the artist you may recommend, right? And say, hey, you should listen to this. If you take that same artist and you’re able to actually see that artist live and you bring a friend, the experience changes. It’s less about like this chore listening to…
an album or a track or whatever. And it’s more about experiencing the live performance. Yes. Yes.
Levi (33:07.717)
Which is great if the artists that you’re talking about still exist or still play gigs. But I’m going to say to all of my students, hey, have you listened to Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys album? It’s a great record. And they’ll be like, like Randy Newman, the Toy Story guy. And you’re like, yeah, yeah. But forget all the film scores that he wrote. Like his original music’s wonderful. You should check out the album Good Old Boys. I can’t be like, we should go and see Randy Newman. That isn’t an option, unfortunately. Same as Stevie. You can go see Stevie. Tickets are a bit more expensive though.
John Kozicki (33:17.889)
Right, yeah, yeah.
John Kozicki (33:28.354)
Right, yeah.
Sure, I guess
Yeah, yeah, I guess where I’m going with I’m still in my heart. I’m still trying to find that solution to the AI problem that you posed, right? Let’s let’s keep steering them away.
Levi (33:43.76)
Yeah.
Jam Nights, man. And if you can’t find a jam night near you, make one. I know that sounds wild, but like my partner, she’s a musician as well. She’s very, very good singer. She has a master’s degree in songwriting. She’s passionate about music, right? And there wasn’t much of a scene when she was coming up in air. So she made one. She started a local jam night and eventually word gets around, people come down and it doesn’t have to be, nobody has to be good at a jam night.
John Kozicki (33:49.743)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (34:08.666)
Mm-hmm.
Levi (34:15.951)
It’s not about getting up and showing off. It’s about finding like-minded people. It’s about having conversations about music. It’s about listening to people’s ideas and maybe learning from people. Not that that can replace a good teacher, of course, but you will, you you learn from playing with more experienced musicians. And as a teacher, I’m sure you’ll agree with this, I learn from my students. Sometimes a student will say something and you’re like, that’s an interesting thing. I’ve never really thought of it that way. That’s an interesting way of putting that.
John Kozicki (34:35.738)
Mm-hmm.
Levi (34:41.998)
I didn’t pull you up on it earlier, but you said when I used to be a student and I want it to be like, you’re still a student. We’re all still students. We never stopped learning. Yeah.
John Kozicki (34:47.928)
Yeah, Fair, fair. Yeah, so I think for the what you just said is like the creative jam night. That’s that’s the gold here for for instructors and studio owners to create that jam night for your students because then they have that that reason to come and.
then they have that opportunity to meet other people and learn from other people. And so they see this bigger picture that it isn’t just about putting your fingers in a certain place.
Levi (35:22.821)
Yep. And to be a little bit more business minded and cynically minded from a business owners perspective, very lucrative.
John Kozicki (35:30.522)
100%, 100%. And it also then, the value that you create with those jam nights takes that focus off of a potentially transactional relationship with lessons that you see with parents oftentimes when they’re paying for the lessons. Well, I’ve been paying this much for my kids lessons and what are they getting out of this? What can they do after, yeah.
Levi (35:31.825)
You
Levi (35:42.705)
Yeah. Yeah.
Levi (35:51.026)
Yeah, Yeah. I specifically said lucrative rather than exploitative because I don’t think it’s exploitative at all. think I’ve taught in situations like that where I’ve done, you know, band sessions for, you know, guys in their fifties and sixties. I always had a lot of fun doing it. And there was never a point where anybody that was paying good money to be in a situation like that was annoyed about the money that they were paying because they felt that they were having a great experience and experience that they would never get in a one-to-one lesson.
So think things like that. Yeah, they’re for business owners. They are really, really good for students if you’re looking for those sorts of things, because it’s kind of a jam night, but it’s more structured. know, there’s someone qualified there. It’s not, I wouldn’t recommend a teacher or a studio owner to hire out your studio to people for them to just show up and have a jam. Like, no, I’m going to be there and I’m going to help you. Like how do two guitar players work together? Like, let’s focus on listening to the bass.
teach them about practice like guys let’s just work on the chorus let’s let’s count in and just go from the chorus none of this i can’t play the song unless i start at the very start of it it’s a yeah a learning experience but if there’s nothing like it is there playing with a drummer playing with a bass player nothing beats it best villain in the world
John Kozicki (37:05.901)
When I introduced our adult band program at my music school, I even had at least one of my instructors, maybe more, say like, I don’t know, why would these adults pay for this, Presumably meaning they have their own homes and they can set up a little jam in their basement or whatever and they can invite people over and questioning like, well, why, what’s the value in this?
the value is that experience, the value is accountability because when they have a reason to show up every Tuesday evening or whenever it is, well then that’s what keeps them motivated to continue to pick up that instrument during the week to make sure that they’re ready for their bandmates the next week.
Levi (37:59.161)
I want to be flipping in my response in a situation like that and say, that’s why I’m the owner and you’re the employee. Because I see the big picture here, because I want to offer things for people. I want to find spaces where I can provide a thing that isn’t being provided for people. There’s a million reasons why people don’t invite their friends over to have a jam in their basement. And it’s usually they don’t, well, one, they want to get away from their house. And two, they don’t have enough friends. They don’t know a drummer. It’s just not, yeah.
John Kozicki (38:06.147)
Hahaha
John Kozicki (38:25.433)
Sure, Yeah. Well, and in reply to what you said about being flippant with, you know, that’s why I’m the owner, not the employee. I think that there’s a bit of, how do I put this delicately? I think it’s easy to put blinders on as an instructor and to view your job as providing this service, which is education.
Levi (38:27.258)
It’s a great thing to offer. Real big fan of it.
Levi (38:36.882)
You
John Kozicki (38:54.419)
and not always necessarily looking for opportunity to provide value beyond just education. And if at all we’re concerned that things like internet tab and YouTube tutorials and AI are going to replace what we do as educators, well then we better start looking for opportunity and we better start looking for these other things that we can offer to our clients.
Levi (39:23.004)
Yeah, a million percent. I have had this conversation with AI about the future of AI and music education and the responses that you tend to get are there are going to absolutely be aspects of music education that AI is going to cause problems for. Yeah, of course. But I’ve been successful in business because of my willingness and understanding of the importance of being adaptive. I have to adapt to the space and
John Kozicki (39:28.525)
Hahaha
Levi (39:51.685)
as an experienced music teacher, somebody with both the qualifications and the CV to prove it, I should be okay. If you aren’t in my position, that doesn’t mean you’re in trouble. It only means you’re in trouble if you stay where you are. You have to push into that space where what can I do that makes me better than getting bad answers from AI?
John Kozicki (40:16.375)
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Levi (40:17.574)
I can’t necessarily answer what that’s going to be for every single individual. And some people are going to struggle because of it. But as long as you’re focused on that, I think it’s the reason I’m a professional musician, because from that young age, the question was every single day, how can I be better? How can I be better? And, you know, initially that means I’m getting better as a musician. But now it’s how can I be better as a teacher? How can I be better as a business owner? How can I be better as a content creator? As long as you’re asking that question, you should be okay.
John Kozicki (40:21.241)
Sure.
John Kozicki (40:47.801)
love that. I think that’s absolutely perfect place to start wrapping this up. We didn’t even get to talk much about your transcribing and ear training, but you know what, I think we covered some great stuff. So I’m going to mention your links. know if there’s anything that you want to share, but LeviClay.com is your main website, correct? And then you’ve got guidedpracticeroutines.com and your YouTube channel is youtube.com.
Tom slash Levi Clay. I get all that right? Okay. Yeah. And we’ll, link all those in the, in the show notes.
Levi (41:19.452)
That is me. Yeah, that is me.
Levi (41:24.134)
Yeah, I’m easy enough to find. If you Google me, you’re going to find, you know, 23 books on Amazon and all of my courses at Lake Library, Premier Guitar Columns. Like there’s all the stuff there. But the one thing I would say, if people do want to Google me, I’m not looking to, you know, sell you things. I’m not looking to have you as students. I like getting to know people and I’m active on social media. So if you want to send me a message anywhere, you have questions about anything that I’ve said.
You want to have discussions about my opinions on things or your opinions on things. I am insane when it comes to this stuff. My messages and emails are constant and I take great pride in getting back to people. So if you want to reach out with anything, like please feel free. I think again, it’s that union mentality, right? The music community is better when we treat it as a community, not I’m here and I’m going to put a fence in front of me so no one can bother me. I like being part of it. I like getting to know people.
John Kozicki (42:11.277)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (42:20.621)
And I can confirm that because that’s literally how we connected. I randomly saw a social media post that you had put out there and I just replied with a DM and you got right back with me. So yeah, 100%. Well, Levi, this has been fantastic. What a fun conversation. I really appreciate you making some time for the podcast today.
Levi (42:28.613)
Yeah.
Levi (42:43.755)
Thank you so much for having me on. really appreciate it.
John Kozicki (42:46.241)
All right, we’ll see you next time.
