Welcome to the Rock School Proprietor Podcast! In this episode, hosts John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) dive into the core philosophies that shape their music schools. John, who runs a rock school, and Mandy, who manages an early childhood music center, explore how their vastly different backgrounds contribute to a shared passion for music education.
John and Mandy share personal stories from their early music experiences that have influenced their teaching philosophies. John recounts his challenging piano lessons as a child and how they shaped his approach to making music enjoyable for his students. Mandy discusses the joy of discovering the Music Together program with her children and how it revolutionized her understanding of early childhood music education.
Together, they emphasize the importance of creating a positive and engaging music culture in their schools. They discuss the significance of understanding and communicating their core beliefs to build a community that resonates with both instructors and families. John and Mandy also offer practical advice for other music school owners and instructors on finding and sharing their authentic stories to enhance their teaching practices.
Join John and Mandy as they harmonize their differences to create a richer, more inclusive music education experience for everyone involved.
Episode Transcript:
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Understanding my approach and what is important to me, and that’s what builds the culture.
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That’s going to impact how I make all these decisions about hiring and getting
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the right instructors and who are the right families for my studio and who are
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not the right instructors and families for my studio.
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Like, I almost felt like a dummy sitting in that class.
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Like, well, I was a musician and I’m sitting here with all these kids.
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Music.
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It’s like, kids can make music too, and this is such an important part of their development.
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As music school owners, as music instructors, we get too focused on the act
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of teaching that we forget that at the core,
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everyone is a fan of music, and everyone wants that experience.
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Welcome to the Rock School Proprietor Podcast. What do we hope to do on this
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podcast? Well, so I’m John Kozicki, and I run a music lesson business. It’s a rock school.
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And Mandy, you’re my co-host. Why don’t you introduce yourself?
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Yeah, I’m Mandy York. I run a Music Together Center, early childhood music and
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movement facility for families of young children, birth through age five. Yeah.
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And we’ve been friends for, and I should say both of our lesson businesses are
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in the same town within walking distance of one another.
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And we’ve been friends for, what, eight years, seven years, something like that?
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Maybe close to nine. Yeah, and we have vastly different backgrounds,
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which I think is great because I come from a background where I didn’t go to school for music.
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I played in punk rock bands and I studied business in college,
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but I run a lesson business.
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And you, you took a different path. Yeah, I studied vocal performance in college.
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I studied classical music.
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And then, yeah, about, you know, almost 10 years ago is when I opened my early
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childhood center. But prior to that, I had been performing.
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We should not be friends and we should not have so much in common.
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I, well, and I joke because we’re both teaching music, I think it’s all about
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in the philosophy and my hope with, with our conversations here,
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because we’ve had these conversations so often and, and my thought was like,
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well, we should just record these because I think they’re beneficial for anyone
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else who’s running a lesson business.
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I always take something away from our conversations that I didn’t think of,
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I think, because of your background.
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And I think you hopefully say the same. Oh, yeah, same.
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Absolutely. Yes. I think because our backgrounds are so different,
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we have so much to learn from each other.
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Right. And I think that’s the sweet spot where, you know, me as being kind of
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the rock school guy and you being sort of coming from that classical world,
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the sweet spots in the middle, always with life, right?
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And I’ll also say that I’ve had my kids in your program, and you have your daughter
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and, well, both of your daughters in my program.
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So that mutual respect is there.
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And I think the hope is that we share our conversations with other people in
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similar situations running music
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lesson businesses, and maybe they can get something out of it, hopefully.
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Yes. Right? Absolutely, yeah.
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What I wanted to do today, this first episode, is talk a little bit about even before,
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I mean, we talked a little bit about our higher education backgrounds and our
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college years and what we do with our businesses.
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But even before that, I think figuring out and finding those stories that we
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have from our earliest experiences as students,
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at least for me, I can say that’s impacted in a big way how I approach teaching
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and how I approach the philosophy of my business.
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So I want to share some stories. Do you have one? I have one,
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but I want to hear yours first. Okay. All right.
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But I, again, I said I didn’t study music in college, but I took piano lessons
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as a kid. I had music lessons as a kid.
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And when I took piano lessons, I think I was probably nine years old.
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And I went to a woman who lived in our neighborhood.
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Her name was Mrs. Conley. And as a nine-year-old boy who loved music,
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I remember when my mom told me I was going to take piano lessons because my
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older brother had piano lessons with her too. So I was kind of excited.
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I would have to ride my bike over to her house. And when I got there,
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because I’d never seen her house until my first lesson, it was not what I was hoping for.
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I think she was probably maybe in her 60s. But as a kid, I thought,
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my God, she’s got to be 80.
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And I remember walking into her house, and there was a piano on the left.
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And then I was supposed to wait in a different room, which was kind of converted to the waiting room.
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And she had these drop cloths on the floor, and you weren’t allowed to walk on the carpet.
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So there was a drop cloth that traveled from the door, and then one that went
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to the series of towels and drop cloths that go to the piano.
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And then one that went to the right that went to the waiting area.
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And her furniture had plastic on it.
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This is amazing. I love this. I love this.
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This is exactly like, it was not a good experience, you know?
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And from the beginning, it just had kind of a funny smell in her house.
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And then we got into the actual playing, the piano part.
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And i i never
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got any sort of say in what
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i was to play of course right and immediately i was doing flash cards and and
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working through method books and you know first i kept going and thinking like
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okay well it’s gonna it’s gonna come together in my little nine-year-old mind
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thinking like okay okay, she knows what she’s doing,
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right? She’s old. She knows how to play.
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But every week I would go and I was less and less motivated.
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I would ride my bike there and I felt like the kid who was coming out,
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who was right before me, looked a little bit happier because he was done.
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He got to get back on his bike and go play. But for me,
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I was just going in and the music
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that we were playing never seemed like anything that I recognized like I wanted
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to I don’t know I wanted to play like Elton John or Journey but it seemed like
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this vast vast gap between what I was learning and the music that I actually liked,
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And in my mind, again, I just assumed that Mrs. Connelly didn’t even know that Elton John existed.
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I just figured like, is this even the same instrument, right?
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And ultimately, I hated the lessons. I didn’t want to practice.
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Begged my parents to quit after who knows how long. They let me.
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They didn’t want to fight anymore.
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And that was the end of piano for me. It wasn’t the end of music for me because
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shortly thereafter, I think I got into middle school and I played trumpet in
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middle school and then in high school and then I picked up a guitar.
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And then when I started guitar lessons, it was exactly the opposite.
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First thing that Mike, my instructor, asked me was, what kind of music do you like?
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That was in the first lesson, right? Yeah. So those two experiences,
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I think, shaped how I look at teaching and how I look at how students learn.
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And it’s stuck with me all this time. And so I always try and find that happy
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middle, right, to understand what’s your motivation?
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How are you going to get fired up and feel good about what you’re learning?
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Yeah, man. And I think that’s such a typical experience.
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So many of us adults can can
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relay similar stories of music lessons as kids but when you were telling that
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it almost broke my heart to hear you say how excited you were for that first
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lesson your piano teacher but then almost immediately your experience was diminishing yeah yeah and,
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your story is unique though.
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Somewhat unique in that you stuck with it. Unfortunately, so many kids have
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that negative experience and that’s the end of it.
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They don’t pick up a trumpet later on or their, you know, their kind of music motivation is gone.
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Well, yeah. And I think that’s, I probably credit, I probably credit my parents
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for that because I did love music.
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And I think my parents recognized that I did love music and I’ve never actually asked them.
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I should have asked them to get get their perspective on that piano lesson experience
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because it was just the the scenario you know that was not a good fit for me
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it was not and i think it was extreme as these stories go you know there were
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a lot of elements of that that just were not kid friendly yeah.
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Again not not too unlike what some some of us have experienced as kids though
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it was the times Yeah. What about you?
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Do you have a story or an experience as you, Mandy, as a student that you feel
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has shaped Mandy, the instructor?
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Yeah. Well, I kind of have a couple things. As a kid, I grew up in a home with music.
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My dad played guitar and sang all the time.
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I grew up with music in the home. My dad would teach me songs.
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I was shy, but I would sing with him at home or with family.
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And then, again, I was really shy. I did not join the choir in middle school.
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I joined the band. I played flute.
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Really loved it. And I remember my first experience in band,
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like full band when you’re actually starting to play real sheet music,
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you know, parts, not unison lines. I mean, I remember that.
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The the way my stomach felt playing the
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flute in band and how cool it was to be in the
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middle of the music you know but I loved
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singing and I finally got up the nerve in high school so I
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I dropped band joined choir in high school loved it and you know had my first
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little solo my freshman year at a choir concert was too nervous to audition
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for the musical my first year but I went and watched it and that was another turning point.
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I was so upset. I did not audition for that show.
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The production was magnificent. I just wanted to be on the stage with all those other people.
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So going forward, I was in the musicals in high school and really dug in,
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started taking private lessons.
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Again, I’m classically trained, so I was doing solo and ensemble and,
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you know, other vocal competitions like that.
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And there was nothing more, nothing else I wanted to do as I entered college and studied voice.
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So my love of music started early on. And I can’t say that I had any really
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negative or disheartening experiences, except that maybe,
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you know, I, maybe I wasn’t pushed, you know, to do that freshman musical, you know, it,
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I didn’t have, I didn’t have anybody really pushing me to do it.
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I just, I just didn’t do it. And no one, you know, my parents didn’t really
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push on that, but you know, it was, I was self-motivated to join the next year.
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Can I ask you a question? Yeah. I mean, I don’t, I apologize for interrupting,
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but what do you think it was like, clearly you had a love of music, right? Right.
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What do you think it was about the band experience, about wanting to do the musical?
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You know, what do you think it was about that aspect of of like your desire
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that either held you back from doing it or continued to push you forward to learn more? Right.
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I mean, music, watching the musical, okay, that freshman year that I did not do.
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I’m just so moved by music, you know, and I I still feel this way today if I
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go to a show, depending on what what it is.
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But I still feel like I want to be up there with those performers.
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I want to be doing it. I want to be an active part of the music making.
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Yes. OK, that’s and that’s what that’s what I was getting at.
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I was I was I suspected that was going to be your answer. But I think,
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all right, I wasn’t going to do this, but I’ll tell, like, I’ll make this a
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really quick story about taking my daughter to her first concert, right?
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And big arena show. It was Green Day and Weezer and I think she was 12 at the time.
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And she was, I mean, she was screaming and dancing.
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And at one point she looked over at me and I was sitting there.
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I was sitting. I was just, I mean, I was watching the band, but I was also watching her.
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And she screamed at me why why are you just sitting there and you know i two
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things i had explained to her later that i have a different relationship with
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music at this point because i’ve i’ve seen so many bands because i’ve you know i’ve seen how it’s done.
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But i needed that experience i needed to see that fire in her that that like
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that fan aspect of it But to remind myself that I am a fan of music because
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I think as music school owners,
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as music instructors, we get too focused on the act of teaching that we forget
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that at the core, everyone is a fan of music and everyone wants that experience.
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Yes. Yeah, I like to tell my parents that music is…
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Part of the human experience for everyone worldwide.
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And so to be giving your kids this early education music is a gift that they will have forever.
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Who doesn’t want their kid to connect with music and feel that?
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Yeah, and for anyone who doesn’t know, music together, which is what you do, that’s for ages.
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It’s like a kind of a parent and child class.
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Yeah, caregivers and children. Okay. For what ages?
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Birth through age five. Right. So I got some teeny tiny babies and preschoolers. All in the same class.
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Right. And there’s never any discussion about practice, right? No. No.
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There’s encouragement to make music at home.
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Like that’s a strong underlying goal of the program is that we get these families
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that are in our classes making music at home, right?
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It’s not enough to just come in for 45 minutes a week.
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I think as a culture, we just don’t make music at home anymore organically,
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like with our own bodies.
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We have access to so much music to listen to, but making it is a different thing. Right.
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And that’s that’s one of the big things that we agree on. And I think it’s so
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crucial to, I guess, like kids success,
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like even or even if you’re an adult student, anyone’s success learning,
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you want to be able to then like do that activity, make the activity right. You want to make music.
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So, and I think that’s, that’s why one of the things that you and I agree on in a huge, huge way.
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And one thing that I hope to explore a little bit more as we have more conversations
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about why, why does that oftentimes get lost when it comes to the delivery of music lessons?
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And maybe there are ways that we can kind of put that a bit more center. Yeah.
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I sidetracked us. You were in the middle of talking about your background.
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So can we go back to it? Oh, sure, sure.
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Well, I mean, I think I completed that thought about my early music.
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Well, you know, as I was growing up, my music education and what drew me to music, how I was moved.
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But I have an experience as a young parent, too, that I think,
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based on what I’m doing, you know, now as a music school owner,
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shaped the way I teach and my experience.
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So I worked full time when I had my second daughter.
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But when I went on maternity leave, I took the opportunity to like do the fun kid stuff, right?
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All the things that you can do during the day that I wasn’t able to before because
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I was in the office, the library and the children’s museum and all that.
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And there were music classes at the local community college.
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They were using that facility to teach music together, this early childhood
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program for babies. And I loved this program.
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I mean, I still do because it’s a family program.
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You can take all your kids to the same classroom and all be together making music as a family.
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So I took my, you know, eight-week-old, I think that’s how old she was, and my two-year-old.
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And I signed up because it was just like, well, of course I’ll do this.
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I’m a musician. I’m going to take my kids to music class.
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That’s what we do. We already make music at home. This will be fun.
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So we started doing that every week. It was like a seven- or eight-week class.
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And week two
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maybe three i was like
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i had this like palm to forehead moment i’m just sitting in this class like
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how did i not know about this this is amazing this is so smart this you know
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The way these classes were run,
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the intention of these activities in class,
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and then to go home and I have these little guinea pigs, my two daughters,
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and seeing the ways that they experimented with the musical activities at home
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in their safe space. Right.
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In class, we’re kind of on record mode. They’re taking it all in.
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The caregivers are a major part of the music production in class. Right.
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They’re two years old in eight weeks. They’re not singing the songs and doing
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the movements. The caregivers are. Right. But they’re watching us intently.
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They’re experimenting and trying on their own. And then I would get home and
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I’m, you know, in the playroom or the kitchen.
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What is she doing over there? What? Oh, she’s, she’s experimenting with the
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movements we did for Ram Sam Sam, you know, or, and as they get older,
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hearing them sing these melodies,
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start to make up their own rhythm patterns.
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I am certain that the
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music immersion experiences that they had had
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a significant impact on their language development
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so it was just it
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really like I almost felt like a dummy as like a trade musician you know what
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I mean yeah sitting in that class like well I’m a musician I’m not I didn’t
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have you know I wasn’t a music ed major I didn’t have all of that you know experience
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and knowledge but I was a musician and I’m sitting here with all all these kids,
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like kids can make music too. And this is such an important part of their development.
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Do you think you had, it sounds like you had almost the same experience as I
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had with my daughter where, you know, you’re, you’re classically trained musician,
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you know, how this works, you know, more about music than most people,
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probably everyone else in that class.
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But in that moment, you had that realization that your level of knowledge is
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applicable to a much higher level.
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And in order for you to be an effective parent at that time, you had to lower the bar.
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You had to kind of look at where they were, what their level was, and you just had to do it.
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Right you just had to sing the fun songs and and like clap on beat and and like make the music,
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so that you could teach them yes instead of trying to pull them up to your level,
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you sort of looked at it like okay if they’re if they’re gonna get anything
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out of this class if i’m gonna get anything out of this class then i have to
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you know i have to like eliminate all
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this baggage I have as like a,
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you know, a degreed classical musician and, and just do the thing.
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Yes. Just have fun. Just make music.
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Yeah. It’s it’s something I tell my family is like we just like we don’t teach our kids language.
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Right. We don’t teach them vocabulary.
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We don’t only use the words that they know.
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Ball, da da, ba ba. We use full sentences, full vocabulary. And that’s how they learn.
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Same thing with music. you know and
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we are i mean we’re operating
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at a higher level than them even when we’re just singing itsy bitsy
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spider yeah you know we do the whole thing and it just becomes part of them
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they just start to know music feel music right right and and so that like those
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things that’s That’s why I think these are so important.
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Those, those early experiences that we have, mine was negative.
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Yours are pretty much all positive, which is great, but they influence us as,
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as instructors, they influence us as music studio owners.
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We have to kind of be aware of those because I think they’re going to shape
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how we approach teaching.
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And then if, I mean, for me, I know as like, as,
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as a rock school owner with, with employees and multiple families,
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that’s understanding my approach and what is important to me and the other parents
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and students. That’s what builds the culture.
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And that’s going to impact how I make all these decisions about hiring and getting
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the right instructors and who are the right families for my studio and who are
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not the right instructors and families for my studio.
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And all of those things I think are important because when we create a specific
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kind of culture in our studio, that again, that’s going to attract,
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that’s going to attract who we want. That’s going to impact.
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I mean, if you go even deeper, like I know that that’s a conscious element that
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I think about when I put my marketing together.
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How do I speak? What kind of messaging do I put out in social media or emails or whatever?
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Because all of that is important.
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I heard, actually, I’m a big fan of Simon Sinek. He’s the Start With Why author.
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I know you read more music books, and I read more business books and culture books.
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But I think it was just yesterday on his podcast, he had mentioned something about.
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Stop talking about what you do and how you do it and start talking about what you believe.
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And I think that’s so important because that’s like, yeah, we all do music lessons, right?
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But we can’t talk about like if we had a discussion about music theory,
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it would be a discussion between you and I and like anyone else in the room
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is going to be lost, right? Right.
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But if we talk about these things that we’re talking about, well,
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then all of a sudden everyone’s involved and like that’s going to bring everyone
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in to the conversation that’s going to create that culture that I’ve been talking about.
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So, I think what would be cool is if based on all of this that we discussed,
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what are some, like, I guess, action steps or advice that we could give other
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people from our conversations,
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other music instructors,
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other music school owners?
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What are the takeaways that or the things that we could suggest they think about
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based on all these things that we discussed? Right.
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I think examining these experiences, right?
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And like you said, kind of identifying your beliefs.
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Or I think about it as my why. I like that. That’s just what I like.
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Why? Sign and cynic. Yeah, let’s start with why. That’s exactly. Yeah.
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Because, I mean, truly, we could all have different approaches,
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different personalities, right?
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Cultures. Yes. And we could each be successful as long as those are authentic, right?
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Yeah. As long as you’re authentic in how you are presenting yourself,
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your community, your culture.
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So find your authentic self, your authentic voice.
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And I always like, I like, I think about start as you mean to go on to,
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you know, with intention, right?
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This is who we are. This is our why.
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And, you know, hold on to that, you know, consistently communicate that.
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I think you’re right on.
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Students or parents anything. Certain things like this. I thought that I had
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to talk about, well, what are, you know, when I get asked about,
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like, well, what are they going to learn?
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I felt compelled to have that conversation.
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What are they, how much should they be practicing? I felt like I needed to give
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them an answer that was direct about their question instead of saying what I really believe,
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which is let’s not talk about how much time they should practice.
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Because there’s so many other things I think that are important right now with
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your student who just started lessons last week, right?
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I don’t think I had the confidence to…
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Talk about these things in the way that I do now. So my advice would be to,
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like, I guess, first find your story, you know, find those stories, find your Mrs.
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Connelly story, you know, find your, you know, when you were a student of Music Together story,
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find those stories, and then be okay with starting to share them,
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you know, start by sharing them with, I mean, depending on your circumstances.
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If you have other instructors, share those stories with your instructors.
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If you’re a solo instructor, if you’re a solo teacher, then maybe you’ve got
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that one parent who you feel like you could start sharing that stuff with.
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But I felt more confident sharing those stories the more I did it.
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And I didn’t feel like at that point I really had to talk about,
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to be quite honest, music lessons.
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I didn’t have to talk about the nuts and bolts to music lessons.
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Because when I started talking about what I believe and sharing these stories,
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I felt like I was having a greater impact.
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So that’s my advice. Yes. I love that.
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Yep. Well, I think on that note, let’s wrap up our first episode of the Rock
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School Proprietor Podcast.
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Woohoo. That was great. Yeah. Mandy? Always a good time talking with you,
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John. I’m looking forward to future episodes and I will see you next time.
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Kazicki if you like to connect. If you enjoyed this show and gained insight
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from our conversation, then we count that as a win.
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All we ask in return is that you pay it forward and share the show with someone
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you think needs to hear it.
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When you can, we hope you apply what you hear on the show, and we’ll see you
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next time on Rock School Proprietor Podcast.
