Learning music through play

Have you played this week? And I don't mean your instrument. Have you engaged your brain and body in something make believe that maybe feels a little silly? Today, I'm speaking with a music educator who believes the play involved in teaching kids music is just as important for adults and the more serious you are about learning music, maybe the more serious you need to be about your play.

Welcome to Zeitgeist Radio. I'm Morgan Roe, and today I'm speaking with a music educator who incorporates play into her teaching from ages zero to older adults.

Morgan: My guest today is Danielle McNamara, a performer and music educator in Central Coast, California. Danielle, welcome to Zeitgeist Radio. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, and it's fun that we're here in person.

I don't get to record in person very often. This is fun. So Danielle who are you musically?

Danielle: Okay, so this I think was actually the [00:01:00] hardest question for me. This is the easy one. I know, right? I think I'm an amalgamation. I think the word I came up for myself was explorer. Okay. . My dad loved classic rock.

My mom loved pop. My best friend's mom introduced me to classical and musical theater. And I love it all. There's really not a lot that I don't like and that hasn't made up some part of me. So I guess I'm a musical explorer. Awesome. And then you do a lot as far as performing and can you talk about what you do as far as your current musical participation, sure. It's less than it used to be for sure. Being a business owner definitely takes. More of my time than than it used to. Yeah. But primarily I perform musical theater. Yeah. So I'm pretty plugged into the theater scene here. I also perform with our local Master Chorale and, the occasional church gigs and wherever I can sing, I sing.

Morgan: Yeah. I love it. I love it. . Where did you [00:02:00] first connect with early music learning or early childhood musical learning?

Danielle: it was by accident. When I graduated from college, I started teaching voice lessons and majority of my students were in the afternoons, and I really wanted something to plug into my mornings. And I connected with this woman Kitty Bailey at a workshop, a vocal workshop, and we had lunch one day and I said, I really, I'm thinking about doing something.

And she said, oh I teach this program called Music Together. You need to look at it, come work for me. This is where you need to be. And it was just fate, because I went to the training and found my place. Amazing. Yeah. It was by accident, something led, they're on purpose.

Morgan: Amazing. So what was that first training like and. Specifically, we're here to talk about play. So can you bring [00:03:00] in like, where did that come in?

Danielle: The training itself was really intimidating. I graduated as like a theater major with a music minor, so I thought I pretty well knew music.

And it was a three day intensive. They started talking about just like throwing things at me that I'd never heard of before. But once we got into that, we really got to experience the play. So their philosophy is learn through play. And as soon as I got comfortable, I think with the material, the play started to come through and watching kids play and learn and explore is just amazing.

And a little light bulb went off for me about how much better I felt after teaching these classes. Because I was able to start playing and that light bulb really just got me started on the journey of play. Yeah. Yeah.

Morgan: I have a daughter. She's one. And [00:04:00] watching her, it's like she plays, but it is like occupies her whole brain. So I think that's it's play, but so important. So like just, I just see watching her, it's.

So important. Yeah. Play a serious business. Play a serious business. I'm sure that you hear that all the time. , Do you like continue like with training sessions or like how do you like

Danielle: Yeah, so with this program, there's one initial training that gets you started teaching.

Yeah. And then there's just however often you want. You can go back and take that training again. There's we teach semesters, so every semester there's trainings on the new songs and music. And then there's usually a skills aspect of that where we take one thing and we deep dive Yeah. And talk about it.

Morgan: So the training can be ongoing?

Danielle: Yeah. And I choose to make it ongoing because there's always more to learn and always, things that fall outta your brain as you go that you need to learn [00:05:00] again.

Morgan: So how long did you work for the other person before branching out on your own?

Danielle: Gosh, I know this wasn't question like two.

That's okay. Two semesters. Oh, and you were like, Nope, this is it. No, she was like, I don't like being a boss. Do you wanna just start on your own? I was like, oh, no. Okay. Yikes.

We're still friends to this day, and I, it was, I think, one of the best gifts I could have been given for sure. Yeah. It didn't feel like it at the time. Here's the in now go. Wow. And then now you're just on your own and you do have people in your studio? We do, yeah. How many? So we've got four of us that teach this particular program, and we teach all over the county.

Nice. Yeah. And, okay, you're, you were theater major, music minor.

I'm a music. I had a music major. And so I imagine it was the same with classical, like a lot of classical focus. Yeah. Yes. Did you have to unlearn [00:06:00] some things when you were thinking of teaching music this way? Or learn, maybe learn some things or unlearn some things? 'cause for classical it can be very disciplined and I feel like there's not so much an element of play

like the practice of it can be very structured and not that there's not play within structure, but I think,

Danielle: yeah, I do. Yeah. I think not so much as far as the discipline goes. Because as, as funny as it sounds the play requires discipline.

Yeah. 'cause you have to be on your toes and be ready. Actually, my theater training comes in handy a lot. Sure. But I regards to the way I sing in class actually, because you're wanting to invite people in, you have to, I don't know a nice way to say it. We have to dumb down your voice a little bit to invite people to sing with you and make it not a performance.

Sure. So that was probably the biggest change. So not so much play for me play. I had a, some great teachers at, I went to Cal Poly and, they incorporated play a little bit [00:07:00] in their own lessons, right? To find certain sounds we'd b like a chicken or do various noises. So play was always there a little bit for me.

And I think my biggest light bulb was just accepting the silly. And not being embarrassed to try.

Morgan: I can see theater being helpful there.

Didn't do theater. I haven't done theater in a long time, but it's definitely, silliness welcome, at least back for sure. Back in the thespian days.

So let's step into the classroom a little bit. I had a kinder music, someone involved with building kinder music on, in, on the podcast a little while ago. And she always talked about a prepared environment being really important. So can you describe, what does it look like in the classroom. What does your class look like?

Danielle: It's different every time.

We do have a format, right? Yeah. So the format stays the same of our 45 minutes, we always have a Hello song, a goodbye song. [00:08:00] The structure of the class is the same, and I use the same plan for every class during the week. But the element of play is always different. It depends on the makeup of the class.

So some classes, the kids really are into taking ownership of the song and having all the ideas. No, I wanna sing about a bunny instead of a horse. Or, let's sing about this and this. And so that element of play comes up a lot in certain classes. In other classes it's more physical play.

The kids want to get up and move and so that's really keeps it interesting. Yeah. It depends on who's in your class Exactly. So the play can look different from class to class, depending on the energy. Sometimes the grownups energy, right? Because they're not always willing to like, crawl around and act like kitty cats.

Morgan: What rude

are the, so the parents are in the classes with you?

Danielle: They are, yes. They're parent participation [00:09:00] classes. And what ages are we talking here? So our main class is from zero to five. We do have an older kids class from five to eight. And I keep, those are my choice to keep parent participation based.

Sure. Mostly because we get more done at classroom management with five to eight year olds is really tough. So the adults in the room help with that. Nice. But yeah the core of what we do is zero to five.

Morgan: Talk about zero. What?

Danielle: most of the time the zeros come in with older siblings. Sure.

But sometimes we capture 'em really early. Our youngest was two or three days. Yeah, so things you're gonna be seeing when they're, that young is gonna be more like cooing on tones related to the music. And less like physically being able to show beat or, sing words. But they will respond musically to what's going on.

So if you kinda listen for those cos you're gonna hear them if you know the terms like tonic and dominant or the one in the five, you're gonna hear them. Mostly on those tones and it's pretty [00:10:00] special when you start to identify that.

Morgan: Ah, it's cool. I'm getting jitters. That sounds so cute.

Danielle: It's very cute.

obviously this is a. Podcast, so audio format, but can you describe like what does it look like? What are some activities, like what types of play are we doing? Oh, okay. So it's definitely we have the class structure and then within that there's room to be a little bit unstructured.

Yeah. But so we sing, sometimes we'll just sit and we'll do like little hand. Movements. We dance, we have choreographed dances, lightly choreographed dances, and then just total free dances. And by choreographed we'll walk to the left, we'll walk to the right, we'll go into the circle and come back out, not, we're not talking like full choreography left and right.

Sounds hard for a 2-year-old. It definitely is. It's the class is definitely for the grownups. So that actually our entire goal is to get them. To be inspired to continue to make music at home and to give them ideas of how to make music at home. Because music [00:11:00] making is not so much a part of our wider culture anymore it's definitely feels like a select few and the rest of us consume that music making. It's, the goal is just to make music making accessible to anybody, whether or not you're musical or have musical training. So definitely the structure is for the grownups and the kids join in as best they can.

Most of the time for the dances, they like to be held anyway. 'cause, imagine you're a little, two foot tall human being in a circle of dancing adults that can feel intimidating. So a lot of times they ask to be picked up and. So they get to experience the movement without having to be able to do it themselves.

but we do, we play, like with egg shakers, we've got rhythm sticks and scarves and all kinds of developmentally appropriate instruments, but still really fun.

Morgan: So I'll share, I did kinder music growing up. And I remember a lot, like a lot of the things you're doing, I'm like, oh yeah, I remember dancing with scarves and.

Xylophones and yeah, [00:12:00] I think there's a lot of similarities actually. I think, so is it Montessori based ish?

Danielle: So the, their base is on the Gordon Music Learning Theory. Okay. And it's, what's that? Let's see if I can distill it down. It's been a while since I read my book, but it's just really about how you learn music in the steps.

So it's, probably like more the orff is a little bit more closely related. Sure. Yeah. They've got a lot of similarities. Yeah. From what I understand, I've never taken a kinder music class, but the Gordon Music learning theory is about like breaking down tonalities and meters into like bite-sized chunks for the kids.

So like we sing our song and then we'll maybe do a tonal pattern. And then have them repeat it back to us, or we'll do the song and then we'll break down a rhythm and have them repeat it back to us. So like twos and threes and maybe fours or what are we each. So if I was gonna do a song in major, and I just finished the song, then I'd go Bubu, then you'd repeat.[00:13:00]

So we were outlining the chord structure of a major tonality for them. And then if you're gonna do a song in Duple, so like in four, four, then I'd be like, BA Baba. Then you'd repeat it. Got it. Got it. So it's, it creates like more of a kinda a call response. Exactly, yeah. Call response in a bite sized chunk for them to understand, oh, that song we just did is sounds like that.

Or, so yeah. That's the nuts and bolts of the real basic explanation of how kids learn music. So you present the whole thing, then you break it down into a bite-sized chunk. I see. Okay. So the song, the whole thing, meaning the whole song and then Yes. Yeah. And then, yeah. So yeah, that's how we learn music actually.

That's how I practice, that never went away. Interesting. And then, okay, so the other thing, and I'm just curious [00:14:00] because I know a little bit more about kinder music because I, I took it and then had Jackie on, I'll put the link to that episode in as well. Just if anyone wants to go listen related, she talked about movement being important too. Yeah. Is that the same? Yeah, so movement is super important 'cause it helps you feel the beat in your body. And so our musical goals are to help. Kids and adults achieve basic music competence. Yeah. Which is to sing on pitch and keep a steady beat on everybody.

Yes. I think that I, that started you're doing every baseball game a big favor or every Oh my gosh. Concert at the park where they give the national wedding every wedding birthday songs. Yep. And being able to keep rhythm in your body, it's like even walking as you age. Being able to keep that rhythm in your body.

Morgan: It's helpful for keeping your balance, for keeping. So yeah, it's a lifelong skill in many ways. I have always wondered, I had a, my musical career is very strange and for a while I was teaching and I really got in with [00:15:00] focusing on adults and I feel very strongly that a lot of those things, like we talk about kids.

Danielle: and the importance of early childhood music education, which I fully believe in, but I feel like a lot of these concepts, you're talking like adults can use those too. Oh, absolutely. And there's people, I absolutely worked with, people who were like, oh I'm tone deaf. Okay, there's an actual thing called tone deafness.

Do you enjoy listening to music? Yes. Then you're not tone deaf. Yeah. So let's work on, it's just controlling the muscles. And maybe you haven't had the practice in doing it, but if you apply the practice and I worked with a couple people and totally not to where they're like amazing singers, but they were able to match a pitch.

And hold a note and sustain without. So I think a lot of these concepts. Apply to like people Oh my gosh, humans. Yes. So once I started teaching these classes, actually I feel like I revolutionized my voice teaching practice. Sure. Because we [00:16:00] learned oh you're probably not tone deaf.

It's probably a coordination issue, or it's probably an audiation issue. So if you're not able to hear the music in your head you're gonna have trouble singing it. Yeah. Yeah. So we do a lot of the same like little kid. Activities with the adults, but they work. Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting.

I got excited about that. 'cause I felt like people were like, if you didn't get it when you were a kid sucks to be you. No, I mean it does, but it does. But for different reasons. Exactly. You're not beyond hope. You're not beyond hope. Exactly. Yeah. And I still have a good friend that we.

We're he's can you teach me drum? I'm like, I know nothing about drum. But what he was asking for was rhythm stuff. Yeah. And I'm like let's go back to some really basic stuff. And he still will call me and be like, that was the best. I learned so much. I was able to, to play along.

Just like to beat along with his favorite tracks and stuff. Cool. Yeah. So how, what would some of those look like with your older students then? What types of things or if someone is listening here [00:17:00] and is I like to sing, but I don't feel like I'm that great. What are some things that they could incorporate in?

So I would always start with a happy birthday, which is a surprisingly difficult song. It is. But everybody knows it. Yeah. And a lot of times if you have trouble keeping pitch, that big octave Leap, happy birthday. I would start by singing it in your brain, right? Sing it two times in your brain, then sing it out loud.

Does it match what you heard in your head? Then sing it in your head again. And the more that you build that muscle of being able to hear it in your brain, the more accurately it's gonna be able to come out. The other thing that I do is I do some pitch matching games. Because the other part of it is muscle coordination, is that maybe you can hear what the pitch is, but you don't have how to make your voice find it.

Yeah. So we do i'll sing a note and then you'll slide around till you find it. And then you give me a thumbs up when you think you found it. Yeah. Yeah. And it can be fine because you are, you're sliding around being silly. And then, if you have a friend or a family member who can hold pitch, have them do that with you and [00:18:00] then go the other way around where you hold a note and they have to find you.

Because it helps you feel, there, there's. There's a certain like vibration when you're matching. Yeah. Then you, and you can feel, okay, you're locked in. So all of those things are really helpful and silly. And if you don't have a friend or family member that you feel comfortable with, do it with somebody on the radio.

Morgan: If they're holding out a note, try and find that note.

There's also tuner apps. Oh yeah. For your phone. That's like for you just like a pitch pipe. Is an example. You don't get the feedback of is it right or is it not? Yeah. But you can start to feel the vibration. It's just so funny that we're talking this, like our conversation went this way 'cause I'm remembering these things.

And one particular person I was working with, he would be like, yeah, I found it because we were doing very similar thing. He was like, yeah, I found it. And sometimes it was that pitch, but sometimes. It was the dominant. Yeah. And that's so interesting to me that it was like, because you can feel that, that resonance in those related notes. And I, yeah, I forgot [00:19:00] about that. It's really, it's cool. I can nerd out about this stuff all day. I know. I get so excited about it. But then I think that all relates to play too, right? Because Totally. You have to keep a playful attitude and you're learning a skill like this.

Danielle: It's very vulnerable people. It's very vulnerable. Your voice is like. So personal. It's it's your body. Exactly. Exactly. It's the only instrument really that is physically a part of you. Yeah. And it does, it feels very different than like playing an external instrument where you make a mistake and it's oh, whoops.

Morgan: I know it's not like that instrumentalist, but it's very personal. It's very vulnerable. It's like a personal rejection of yourself. People can feel that way. Yes. Yeah. I find it's helpful for, and again, we'll turn it back around to you, I promise.

But I remember like when I would have a new student come on, who I could tell was in that space I always started with like the whole first lesson. I would book an hour and it would be, do you know how the voice works? And we'd talk about it for an hour and they'd be like, oh my God. And [00:20:00] almost every time at the end of it, they would just feel this release.

Danielle: No wonder I have trouble doing this. It's hard. There's a lot of moving pieces. Yes. There's so many. We'd sing too. It wasn't just like L lecture time, yeah. People I think over. Simplify everything that's going on. Absolutely. Yeah. They're teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny little muscles and it's really one of the only instruments you cannot look at.

Yeah. You can't see what's happening. It's all based on feel. Yeah. And gosh, I just, I saw this really interesting study and I wish I could remember more of it, but people who are really tuned into their voice actually have this amazing, attunement to their own bodies in ways that like people who don't sing can't, like they can feel teeny tiny muscles.

Morgan: And it was just, it would be a note. Interesting. It was so interesting and I wish I could find it again.

Yeah.

I got really excited in this conversation [00:21:00] because I feel passionate about adult learning. I think people are funny about the plasticity and incredible neuron connections happening in kids. It's really true. But remember that kids are. Also connecting a lot of other things like learning how to stack blocks or saying their RS or sharing. Adult brains already know a ton of stuff.

We are not learning concurrently with gross motor skills, language, social skills, and everything else in this huge world that kids have to navigate, which means we can actually dedicate our brains pretty darn well to learning new skills, including music. I love learning from Danielle that play cements things into our brains better than non play practice.

By the way, if you or someone you know struggles with rhythm or pitch, I really recommend two workbooks made for beginners: ear without fear for pitch, and rhythm without the Blues for Rhythm, both by Constance Preston and Charlotte Hale. They are [00:22:00] fantastic. If you're enjoying this conversation, but you also love reading, I send a newsletter after each conversation with my incredible guests.

Go to zeitgeist academy.com/radio to sign up. Now. Back to Danielle.

Morgan: I'm also interested in what you said about hearing, hearing it first and singing it in your head. My first, my brain was laughing. Did you see that old show? The Music Man, right?

Danielle: Oh, method Technique. Yeah, a little bit. It sounds a little con artisty here, Danielle. So tell me about that. Tell me about how that works. Sure. So the skill, it's got a fancy name called Audiation. And it's just to be able to hear the music in your brain, and I'm gonna forget all the mechanics of it now that I'm, that's fine.

But it's essentially, you have to be able to like, hear it accurately in your brain for it to be able to come out accurately in your voice. There's that connection between your brain and your instrument. And so if that connection isn't there and isn't strong, [00:23:00] you're probably not hearing it in your brain very clearly.

When you're audiating on when you're thinking about the song you're working on creating that connection? Yeah. I have a really embarrassing story about this, which is fairly recently I had a solo and it ended with a very high note, and in my head it was the chord structure was such that it was kinda like a spiritual, and it would've been very normal for it to end on the seventh.

The minor seventh. It didn't, but I heard it in my head that way. So that's what I sang. No, it was just a tonic. I needed to just go up an entire step, but there you go. Because what you were hearing in your brain is what you did. You had the right connection. I heard it. I was seeing exactly what I heard in my brain.

Morgan: It's so embarrassing. If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure we have. All been there once or twice. [00:24:00] Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so let's go back to kids. So as they're developing this, 'cause again, this is really small little muscles and they're really small little people. So how do you notice or do you know with your studies of childhood development, like when.

Danielle: When is that functionality able to happen in the brain to where they can hear a pitch that's very specific? I can't remember the exact ages, but I can tell you like the progression. Yeah. So they're gonna start with the cooing, right? Yeah. On the, either the tonic or the dominant, and then they're gonna start trying to join in on the ends of phrases of the songs.

Maybe my daughter's doing that right now. It's so cool. And then they're gonna start maybe trying to pick out like the important notes and being able to match that. I feel like in my experience it's around two or three when they've been coming to me for a few semesters and it's like those skills are building that I'm starting to hear at least relevant [00:25:00] pitch where they can like sing a song.

And it might not be the same key as me, but they're in. In tune with themselves. So what a fun moment. Everything happens around two. It's a big age. I'm looking ahead at it and people are like, oh yeah, you're potty training, you're talking, you're like, all these things. You're hearing songs. So in the first five years, you're literally creating millions of pathways each day. And the plasticity of the brain. It is, it's never that way again. You can always learn new skills. Yes. And it gets significantly harder as we age, and our brains are less malleable and it's harder to create those pathways.

So one nice thing about starting musically at a young age is if you do it from zero to five and you don't touch it again for a while, the pathway's still there. And it might be a little overgrown. You haven't walked on that path in a while. But it's there. You can find it again more easily than creating it brand [00:26:00] new as you get older.

Morgan: Yeah. So to, to reassure people who are feeling deflated now because you just said that they Yes. Please put them back up. Yeah. Let's go back to adults. Can you. Get some of those skills if you maybe didn't study music.

'cause it's fairly culturally rare for I don't know when I was one of two kids that had a music class in my class of 30 when I was in, Yeah. Kindergarten, first grade. So for those other ones, if they were in a musical environment, if they is it.

Danielle: Are they able to get some of those skills? What is the correlation and what can people do? Yeah. So it's if they can't do lessons, yeah, absolutely. Just the more you use it, the better. It's, it's, even if you sing off key, it's better for you to sing than not sing. Those skills are absolutely achievable.

They might take a little bit longer without some professional guidance, but we're in the world of YouTube too. Yeah. So with the voice [00:27:00] specifically, things you wanna watch for is if you're getting like a scratch, tickle, or cough way down deep in your throat, that's usually your voice telling you this doesn't feel good.

So if you're feeling those things with, like your YouTube teacher, just stop and take a break and come back to it later. But there's a lot of good information out there. There's a lot of maybe not as good information out there. So as long as you're watching out for yourself and seeing.

Morgan: Does something not feel right? If you stop when it doesn't feel right, you're probably golden. You're not gonna do any damage. Take the knowledge you can get. But yeah, things you can do on your own is just keep singing. Yeah. Keep trying and the skill will come. It will. I'll just say asterisk as a teacher. Having a teacher is great. I just know it's not always accessible. Yeah. Again, chill pill for adults here is.

W you just heard Danielle say two years, right? And then kids can, everyone's oh the young brain is so amazing and it is amazing. But it still takes [00:28:00] two years before they can start to potentially sing a song. On pitch, on rhythm, on maybe on their own, maybe with a class. If you practice, if an adult practiced every day for 15 minutes.

Danielle: let's be honest. How often do your students practice? Oh gosh. You're such a constant battle. Okay let's go back. If you had a student who practiced three times a week, like actually practice for three times a week. For 15 minutes for two years, oh, the gains would be incredible. Incredible.

Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean it, when you start, it does feel far away, but. Time's gonna pass whether you do it or not. Yeah. So you might as well take the time and gain the skill that you're wanting to gain. And have fun with it. And have fun with it. And have fun with it. And have fun with it. So there's something like, I'm gonna misquote because I didn't look it up, but it takes like 20 to 30 repetitions to learn a skill [00:29:00] without play.

Danielle: It takes one or two to learn it with play. Those are probably not accurate numbers because I didn't look it up, but I remember it takes significantly more repetitions to learn something than it does to learn something with play. And that's for adults and kids. yeah. Learning through play, it's okay let's get existential for a second.

Morgan: Yeah. What is play? Oh my gosh. Oh, honestly, play. Is anything that, that really makes you feel good? I think yeah, because play it's fun and it. Lighthearted and it does serious work, but it shouldn't feel serious when you do it. Yeah. And it really, it can be anything because again, I watch my daughter she's learning to walk right now, and it's her favorite game.

It's a game, but every time she does it it. There's a lot happening, right? Yeah. It's serious. And it's, but it's so easy to like, and to me, like these milestones from the pediatrician, blah, blah, blah. It's like it's easy to get bogged down and these are serious, but then I watch her and her face [00:30:00] is just lighting up.

Danielle: I get do this crazy thing with my feet. And that's play. Yeah, that's play to her. Yeah, so now I'm thinking of like my own practice and you know what if I just come at it with a different attitude, would that count? Yeah. So one of my favorite things to do when we're discovering your voice and all the different things it can do is I'll have you sing a song.

And then I'll give you different characters to sing as. So okay, this time try singing it like Dolly Parton or this time try singing it like, you're an opera singer or and it feels really silly, but it does help you like explore your voice, right? Yeah. And you're gonna find and unlock new colors and things that you wouldn't just by giving it a serious try.

Because by allowing yourself to play, you can be a little bit more vulnerable and try those things. And also. I, it just play feels safer Yeah. As well, right? Yeah. So 'cause you're giving yourself the space to look like the permission to be silly. Exactly. And there have to be boundaries around though.

No, I'm play, this is serious. I'm allowed to be silly here. [00:31:00] Yeah. I'm allowed to be silly anytime you like, no, I love it. And, okay. Brain, you can think that way. And it releases like dopamine for you too. And. All of the feel good hormones. There's so many important aspects of play.

Morgan: And actually they're even looking at play therapy to like recover from trauma. It's that play is that important. Sure. Do you think those, like the dopamine and those other hormones are, why you remember it? Does that help cement it in? That's a really good question. I'm curious why? I'm wondering why it's like.

Danielle: One or two times versus 20 or whatever those numbers are. That very well could be. I honestly don't know because there's that old adage like, people remember how you make them feel. Yeah. Maybe. And those are feelings. I don't know. That could be listeners. If anyone knows, let me know. I also think like right here, you let go when you play.

Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes when we're trying to learn something and we're putting a lot of pressure on ourselves, that it can actually put up a block, and maybe that is the [00:32:00] hormones, right? Because maybe like when we're stressed and we're releasing cortisol, I don't know. Does that block memory? Yes.

Makes, yes.

Yeah. Listeners earlier I lost my phone like, and was like, it was seriously lost. And it was right here. It was right here.. Oh, mom, hormones and cortisol. Very much affect your memory. I really hope I get my brain back.

People say, I will get my brain back. That's what I hear.

Morgan: Oh, anyway. We went on a long tangent. Thank you for that. It was a fun tangent. So if someone wants to start, we, you've mentioned some vocal things. What if they're not a singer? What if, what are some. Some things that someone can do at home if they wanna start maybe getting better at rhythm or getting better at, a piano or something that's not singing necessarily.

Danielle: for rhythm, I would think it'd be a similar thing, right? [00:33:00] You can audiate the rhythm and then play it on your drums, your body, your piano. So it's gonna be a lot of the, a lot of similar things for piano, I think. The ability to just, yeah, play with it. Like you sit down and you do a measure at a time and, but find a way to make it like silly or fun or give yourself a little, little rush.

Morgan: Like Yeah, gold star and like literally give yourself stickers. I have to say, in our studio we use stickers and the adults get just as much of a rush from earning a sticker as the kids do. Play. I love that. so many of these episodes people end up talking about perfectionism probably 'cause I bring it up.

'Cause it's something that I struggle with as well. But but perfectionism, as soon as I bring it up, they're like, yeah. It's something that I think a lot of people there's partially because of what you said about YouTube, there's so much out there that is perfect. Yeah. It's edited, it's it's, [00:34:00] someone has been in the studio for maybe days

Danielle: or if they haven't, their sound engineer has been, and then they release this track and then you try to sing along and you're like, why do I sound like crap? You don't, that they don't even sound like that. Yeah. So I think part of it is just what's in front of us all the time. The curated, the Instagram feed type of phenomenon.

Morgan: But I think, can you, this seems like a great way to combat that a little bit. If you're struggling with perfectionism, keeping you from your instrument or keeping you from starting to pick something back up. And you're like, oh, I used to be able to play Beethoven's Moonlight's.

Danielle: Not like nothing. Oh, now I can't even find the first three chords. Yeah. So I think, do you think play has a part in that type of thing? I think so. And I think play can be mindset too, right? And, changing your mindset is really important for battling that perfectionism. Yeah, because I don't know about for anybody else, but for me, when my perfectionism takes over, it's mean.

Yeah. Yeah. And then it's oh my gosh, you're not, how can you have [00:35:00] forgotten this? Or, you're so lazy that you haven't kept up with your practice da dah, all the mean things. And so developing maybe more of a play mindset is oh my gosh, how silly. Let's try that again or.

Yeah, just, just adopting a a gentler mindset that can be play as well or which came first. I don't know. The better mindset or the play. I, they go together. They go together. Yeah. Because the, like you said, the loosening perfectionism is very like stiff, right?

Yeah. And then you're like stuck. And then if you can loosen that up, makes it more enjoyable and you're more likely to go do it again. Exactly. Which makes you better at Exactly. At whatever you're trying to do. Yeah. But that mindset, it's, it is difficult to shift, but it is not impossible. So if you can find.

A playful way to talk to yourself. Yeah. You'll be more likely to come back to it. What's a game that someone could do run around with scarves? Like what? Yes. What should someone do if they're scarves? Oh my gosh. Dancing with scarves is wonderful, right? You like follow the line and make your scarf dance to the line of music, right?

When it goes up, you go up. When the pitch goes down, you [00:36:00] go down. But the other, you could adopt like a silly persona that is your, your teacher for yourself, right? Who's going to scold the mean person? Don't you talk about my Danielle that way? And just anything that can, yeah.

The silly, I feel like it breaks the spell of the perfectionism. So Yeah. Dance with the scarf. Adopt a silly persona to to scold your mean self. Or, put on, if you wanna pretend like you're Mozart when you play, put on a little like cape or like a little wig or something while you play.

Morgan: Just anything to help you find the joy and find the fun in it. I love that. I love that.

so we've gone and we've done a class now. We've had a wonderful class. What are your hopes for your students when. They leave your class and then when they leave your program?

Danielle: of course I want everybody to be musical, but my number one hope is that they will be joyful humans [00:37:00] and they will be able to tap into that joy more easily because they know what it's like to play. They know what it's like to be silly and life is serious enough. Find the levity.

Oh, that's so nice. I really love that. And what are you personally doing right now to play and to practice? What are you working on and are you bringing in play into your own, whatever it is. I lost my play there for a little bit. Life and life was life. And so for me, I am learning to play again for myself and not just for.

The kids. Yeah. To bring in my own joy into what I do. So, I'm learning a new instrument. I picked up a banjo. Yes. So that's super fun. And then I'm just developing like my repertoire of songs that like, I would've never thought fit my voice, but who cares? And so finding the joy in that I think is musically where I'm at right now.

Morgan: Just exploring. That's amazing. You gonna do bluegrass? I might [00:38:00] play it a little bit. Nice. Yeah, it's fun. I'm not very good, but it brings cares joy. Who cares? Oh, that's amazing. I wanna get into the zeitgeist moments. Yeah. Again, this is a moment where you're connecting with music and you connect to something that feels greater than yourself.

And I'll share one with you. First of all, this has been really fun and I got into my mode, which I always have to watch out, where I'm like, oh you fired a neuron on here, let me share. So I recently was watching my friend's 2-year-old. And we went on a walk and, I think it was a garbage truck went by.

Danielle: So we were off on the side of the road and we were watching the garbage truck go by and. She looked over at me and she said something right? And you're like, I don't know what that is. But then she said it like three more times. I'm like you're really set on whatever it is you're trying to communicate with me.

[00:39:00] And then she goes like this, like rolling her hands around each other. And I was like, oh yeah, that was like a bus, right? The wheels on the bus. So we started singing the wheels on the bus. That was exactly what she wanted. And she was like, swaying. Wheels on the bus, wheels on the bus. And I could, I hadn't sung that in a minute.

Morgan: Like decades. I'm like, I remember the wipers. And I think the horn. And then I was like, I don't know what other, I know there's lots of other things on the bus. And she looked at me and she goes, woo on back. And I was like, oh yeah, the driver on the bus goes move on back. But she was like singing it and doing all of these move and just like watching her I felt plugged in through her to this whole world of.

Like she has this whole world, like I could see it in her, this all consuming song and experience of the wheels on the bus. There was a real bus quote, unquote bus that went by and then she's singing [00:40:00] this entire song and she knew all the movements and like it was amazing just watching her, how big her world got in that moment.

Like she was completely consumed by this and it was. Beautiful. That's amazing. That's so sweet. Yeah. Yeah. So I'd love to hear from you, what's a moment that has been really like either a recent or a memorable moment where you connected to something bigger for music? I can think of a couple.

Danielle: I had this cool solo moment in our local pack, which is. Big and it was so cool. Yeah. But I wanna hear about that. That's amazing. It was really fun. I got to sing with an orchestra for the first time. It was very cool. So cool. But I think actually my most recent one was really special. My parents just had some medical stuff and I was very fortunate that I was able to drop everything and go be with them for a month.

Nice. But we had this moment where we were in the car and I was driving and Billy Joel's piano man [00:41:00] came on, right? And love it or hate it. We all know it and we can all sing along. And so I just started singing along under, under my breath. And then pretty soon, my mom and my dad were both singing along too, and it was just three of us singing Piano Man at the top of our lungs in the car.

And it was such a cool. Connective moment, right? Yeah. 'cause my family is music lovers. My brothers and I are all all play instruments, but my parents are music lovers rather than music makers. And so hearing them. Singing in the car and they're fun and slightly off key ways, and it was just it did, it felt very plugged in and connected to something bigger.

Morgan: It was cool. I love that. Danielle, thank you so much for being on my podcast. Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Zeitgeist Radio, and thanks so much to Danielle for joining me. All of her links are in the episode description. Please check them out and go give her a follow. [00:42:00] Please also subscribe to Zeitgeist Radio on your favorite podcast channel, and don't hesitate to reach out with Zeitgeist moment of your own.

I always love to hear from fellow music lovers. You can email me at info@zeitgeistacademy.com. I'm Morgan Roe. Thanks for listening.