George Hrab

If you want to pick up an instrument and play, you should do it.

If you want to sing, you should do it.

There is no right way to learn how to do music.

There's no wrong way to learn how to do music.

There are efficient ways to learn how to do music, and that's a separate issue.

So I was very excited when 60 Minutes, just this past Sunday, was doing a story about this supposed new

piano method that was developed by this guy named Payam Kastakhoday.

And it's the Payam piano method.

And he has claimed that he has redefined what piano methodology is, that it's a new system that radically resets and makes it way easier for children and adults and for anyone who wants to learn the piano to learn the piano in a brand new way.

super efficient way, which right away got my skeptical juices tingling.

So it's like, okay.

His whole thing, as he approaches it, he uses an alphanumerical notation.

He has this thing of speak, then read, meaning that much like language,

You don't learn to read language first.

You learn to speak language first.

And so he wants his students to play music first and then be able to notate it and read.

He's all about student choice so that you want students to do music and songs that they like, not some kind of predetermined repertoire.

And he's all about emotional expression.

So getting students to write music, getting students to perform music, to improvise.

which is all great.