I hadn’t given a music lesson to a beginner for almost 30 years, focusing my teaching on musicians further along the learning path. All this changed last Summer, when I decided to give my (then) nine year old daughter, Julia, saxophone lessons.

Mostly I did this just to give her something to work towards on a daily basis during the pandemic lockdown. Julia has always been deeply drawn to music…singing, whistling, clapping and dancing ever since she was a small toddler.

So when I asked if she’d be interested in learning the saxophone, her reply was a resounding “Yes!” We began working together about 4 or 5 days a week, for about 30 to 45 minutes at each session.

The whole process has been fun for me (and more than a little enlightening!) My approach to teaching her has been quite different than lots of the “conventional” ways that children take music lesson. This is mostly because I understand her learning style in great depth

But it’s also because I taught her in a way that seemed to make sense to me based upon what I’ve learned about practicing music over these many years. In essence, I taught her to play saxophone the way I wish I had learned to play.

In a short period of time the two of us found a beautiful, playful daily practice rhythm. In our interactions I began to notice the kinds of things that seemed to make the music come alive inside of her so easily.

So I thought I’d share some of the most essential concepts that helped Julia have a richer, more complete (and if a dare say, a more “natural and comprehensive”) experience in learning to play the saxophone than I did when I started. Here they are:

Begin with curiosity. We would start each session with me asking, “What would you like to play around with and explore today?” This gave her a chance to begin with her own interests and inspiration. From there it was very easy to engage her, keeping her attention lively and flexible. This “curiosity” would be her “warmup” for the day, always a sort of meditation on the very thing that she felt compelled to explore. It also became nicely holistic and comprehensive, as if following her curiosity was the most efficient path to improvement and growth.

Let your ears lead everything. Julia spent the first several months playing 100% by ear. This included singing everything she played. Lots of children songs, simple beautiful melodies…even scales and melodic patterns…all of this started with her internal, aural imagination (and this imagination included many details of the actual musical expression, including color, dynamics and articulation). In Julia’s words: “If I can sing it, I can find the notes on the saxophone.”

Music is movement. And this movement is a “whole body experience”. For Julia, this meant bringing a gentle attention to how she was “using herself” (quality of movement, posture, balance, breathing, etc.), as well as realizing that her entire body was involved in the process of expressing the music. She learned that she was the “instrument”, just as much as the saxophone was (perhaps more so!)

Time and rhythm are (nearly) everything. And speaking of music as movement…there can be music without pitch, but there really isn’t any kind of music without clearly expressed time. Julia learned that lots of the “letting her ears lead” part meant being precise, yet flexible, with time and rhythm. We would play rhythmic games every practice session, chasing and mirroring each other, fooling each other, clapping, “speaking in rhythm”, and even practicing conducting patterns. These rhythmic games really made whatever music she was playing on her saxophone come alive in an immediately expressive way.

Sound quality is (nearly) everything. Because of all of her work by ear, Julia learned early on that the quality of her sound began with her aural imagination. We talked minimally about “embouchure” and “voicing”, and talked more about “How would you like to sound on this song?” It was wonderful to see that things like “support”, “resonance”, “color” and even pitch, all came together quite easily if her imagination was informing the “motor coordination” part of her nervous system.

Improvising is a natural activity, suitable for musicians at any skill level. From day one in our sessions, Julia began to effortlessly and joyously improvise. Even when she could only produce about four different notes, she found a way to “speak” with these notes, using rhythm, dynamics, tone color, melodic voice leading, and the element of surprise. She discovered that music was alive insider her, as long as she was willing to listen to it and allow it to come outside. These improvisational skills profoundly impacted her “interpretive” skills, as well. It’s all music.

We are all composers. Just as in improvising, all of us can “listen” to our muse and find those melodies that are lying there in wait. Even fairly early on in our work together, Julia got to the point where I’d hear her humming an unfamiliar (to me) melody as she sat in her bedroom, reading a book or drawing. I’d come in and ask her what she was humming , and she’d answer that it was something that just “came to her”. So I’d have her find it on the saxophone, then I’d transcribe it (notate it) for the sake of posterity. She came up with some lovely, cogent, highly singable melodies, reminding her yet again that the music lives insider her imagination (not to mention a reverence for the efforts of other composers, and recognition of form in musical composition).

Challenge yourself every day, but bring things into reach. One of the greatest qualities Julia has cultivated over this saxophone learning process is the strength and efficacy of her will. Each day she would come face to face with something she’d like to do on the instrument, but didn’t quite have the skills to make happen. So she learned to be persistent, yet patient and flexible. And the most practical tool she learned was the ability to digress something that was slightly “out of reach” and bring it “within reach”. This allowed her to trust in her efforts and in her process. Nearly any musical challenge becomes possible if we can break it up into bit-sized pieces.

Reading comes last. As I mentioned above (“Let your ears lead everything”), we played together for a long time (several months) before we began to look at any notated music. When Julia began to read, I noticed two important things: First, reading came to her very quickly and easily, as it was clear to her that the notes were just a “map” to what she could hear/imagine; Second, everything she read turned immediately into meaningful, intentional music. In hindsight, part of me wishes I had let her play much longer before introducing notated music. After all, the notation is just an abstraction of the composer’s ideas and the performer’s imagination.

Let kindness color everything. This is perhaps the most important lesson of all. Julia and I approached each practice session with humor, curiosity, creativity, playfulness and self-expression. And never did the process of learning music have anything to do with her “value” as a human being. (That value is in of itself sacred.) Self kindness is the supple energy that cultivates curiosity, enjoyment, growth and satisfaction.

Well, though we can’t go back in time, you and I both have the freedom to decide how we would like to practice and continue to learn (and teach!) music right now. We can aim toward turning our daily practice and teaching into a “whole person” experience, a form of meditation, a playground for curiosity, and a dynamic and gentle refuge for our muse and our growth. Enjoy!