EP99 Meryl Danziger | Unlocking Musical Potential: Following Joy, Not Rules

Meryl Danziger, founder of Music House and author of Sing It! A Biography of Pete Seeger, has redefined music education through curiosity-driven exploration. With a Master’s in Music from Goddard College and a career as a professional violinist, she focuses on helping children connect with music in personal and meaningful ways. Her unique approach emphasizes freedom, creativity, and the intrinsic joy of musical discovery.

Together, we explore the deep connections between self-directed learning, unschooling, and Meryl Danziger’s approach to music education. We discuss how allowing children to explore music on their terms fosters genuine passion, curiosity, and lifelong creativity.

Meryl shares how she built Music House based on a belief that music is best learned through personal engagement rather than rigid lessons. Her stories of students finding their musical voices through play and experimentation mirror the core values of self-directed learning: trust, curiosity, and intrinsic motivation.

Together, we reflect on how art, love, beauty, and personal expression intersect in learning—music and life. We also discuss how parents can create supportive musical environments at home, embracing exploration without formal training.

This conversation is for anyone passionate about fostering creativity, questioning traditional education, and seeking new ways to learn through joy, freedom, and personal connection.

 ▬ Episode links ▬
http://www.nycmusichouse.org/site/
https://www.meryldanziger.com/

🗓️ Recorded December 15th, 2024. 📍 The Addisons, Withyham, United Kingdom

Chapters

• 0:00 Unschooling Music Education Transformation
• 11:20 Exploring Passion and Discipline in Music
• 20:54 Exploring Natural Learning in Music
• 38:58 Trusting Natural Learning in Education
• 47:21 Discovering Musical Passion Through Instrument Choice
• 52:20 Discovering Individual Passion Through Exploration
• 59:00 Embracing Musical Dialogue and Freedom
• 1:08:41 Cultivating Musical Connection and Community
• 1:16:58 Reimagining Music Education at Home
• 1:31:25 Exploring Music Education Websites

Transcript

0:00:00 - Jesper Conrad
So today we are together with Meryl Danziger, and first of all, welcome. 

0:00:07 - Cecilie Conrad
Thank you so much for having me here. 

0:00:09 - Jesper Conrad
Yeah, and then how did this podcast come about? There's a little story to that. So, as many of the people who are listening knows, then, we are full-time travelers and have been traveling since, I think, 2018 full and many years a lot before that and one of the places we ended up was near barcelona. And when you are full-time traveling and you have a son, as we had, who needed some really big work on his teeth, we ended up with a specialist in barcelona, and it's a long story it's a long story and there will. 

We will end up in this relation where how come we know you? Yeah, so, from where we could park our car to the dentist, we passed a handpan shop and I loved the handpan instrument and I went in there, ended up chatting with the guy and he was a really wonderful man called Ravid, and we talked with him and I sent him a text saying, oh man, it could be fun making a course with a handpan one day. And he wrote back do you know, I've written eight books on how to play the handpan. And he was like okay, let's talk more. He ended up becoming a really good friend and then, one or two years later, we were going to Istanbul and Kavit said oh, I know someone in Istanbul you should meet and that is Rake, who are your daughter. 

0:01:33 - Meryl Danziger
And we met her, made actually a small interview with her, which people also can find on the podcast and had a lot of interesting conversations and a lot of fun and did some art and, yeah, it was great he said so he's great and then she wrote me one day and say, hey, maybe you should talk with my mom. 

0:01:52 - Jesper Conrad
So here we are. Some of the subjects we often talk about is living a self-directed life, taking ownership of one's life. It is about unschooling, and I think maybe it's kind of that angle that they thought about with you, because you have created, or maybe more found, a more natural way to teach music. So so can we get your story? How did you end up becoming interested in in helping children and young people and old people to people to play? 

0:02:29 - Cecilie Conrad
broad topic, but I'll try. Um, so I was teaching at a school in new york city called the little red school house and a lot of the children in that school were taking private lessons, music lessons outside of school. I was teaching music and in my classes these were just happy, eager, excited, avid learners. They loved everything. Lots of them continuously came to me with the same story of how their child was, excuse me, so excited to start music, to take lessons. And then there was this kind of arc of well, now they're less interested, now they don't want to practice, now they want to quit, now we're fighting. And there was this. You could almost superimpose these stories one on top of another. Yeah, and it it was. 

It was definitely troubling me, but the impetus was finally this dad who came to me his son was charlie, who I had. He was just the most excited child and musical child and said we don't know what to do. It was the same thing. You know, he wanted to do it, he doesn't want to do it anymore. We're all fighting. But I, he said, but we, it would be such a shame for him to give up on music, do you know of anything? And I just stood there for a minute, feeling just angry is not far from that, I mean it, just frustrated. You know and I just blurted out this idea to him that I had no idea that I'd even had this idea. And I said I am not a pianist, I'm not a piano teacher, but if I were introducing a child to piano, it would not be about. This is how you hold your hand. This is a C, this is a F the name of this note Do it this way. I said. I would say why are there black and white keys? Why are some higher than the other ones? Do you notice any patterns? What happens if you play these three notes together? What happens if you do this? What happens if you do this? And I went on and basically described a curriculum that I'd had no idea, that I knew. And I came to the end of this thing, kind of out of breath and panting, actually, I was just and he said there was this pause. And then his dad. The dad said take him. And I was like what I'm gonna? I'm gonna do this. He's giving me permission to try this. 

And, uh, I didn't really know what to do initially. I mean, I, I had an overall idea and then I remembered my childhood, which was some instruments around the house the piano and auto harp, a few things and for some reason my parents just didn't tell me what to do or when to do it or how to do it and I intuitively connected with these instruments in a very profound way the piano, the auto harp. I got a sense of harmony. I got a sense of how to play by ear, all on my own, just from being able to engage freely. I said that this is going to be my initial model for Charlie and I brought him. He started to take lessons from me, lessons and I got. First. I got a keyboard. I found my old auto harp, dusted it off, got a few other things Like well, what if he wants to try this? 

What if he's interested in music books? What if he's interested in composers? I put various stimuli around the house and he came and I just explained to him. This is how this is going to work. You feel free to engage with any musical related thing that you see here and I'm just going to be in the room. I'm available, I'll be sort of the genie in the room. If you need me, feel free to ask, but I'm just going to let you choose what you want to do and try things and see what happens. 

And I could see by the look on his face before he even did it. This was just a transformation, just the suggestion of this, and it just told me that what he'd been lacking was the ability, as you both know, to make choices and to personalize it and to have it be irrelevant. I just knew that right away and I just stood and I watched and at first I think he just sort of wandered the room and tried a little of this and tried a little of that, didn't really ask me any questions. And at some point, maybe a few weeks into this general exploration, he I can't remember right this moment what inspired this but he decided that he wanted to try to. Oh no, he was looking at a book and it was showing an orchestra and he was asking me some questions about the conductor and this and that and the orchestra. And he said I want to try this. And when I think about this now I get chills because this was the moment for him and it was from this interest, this glimmer, that it was a seed from which everything we did sprouted. 

So he would come into my house, set up a little wooden box in front of this long mirror, take up the baton that he'd found in some box of stuff and play an audio of the New York Philharmonic playing the Nutcracker Suite exceric playing the Nutcracker Suite. Excerpts from the Nutcracker Suite. And he would push play and oh no, no. He would also take some little random percussion instruments and lay them out very methodically on the couch. I didn't know what the plan was, I just was the observer, and then it was all ready and he would push play, climb on the box and as the orchestra started to play, he would conduct them and watch himself in the mirror, and the look of passion on his face made me want to stay out of his way completely. I mean, this was what was missing in his previous experience was engagement, excitement. I'm like this is what we're here for. 

My entire vision of Music House back then as it was, was to help this one child. I wasn't really thinking about this could become something I was just like. My goal in life is to get Charlie back on track of that enthusiasm that I know he has for music. And this continued for over a month, I would say. And what happened as a result of this was I would just be in the room and he'd be conducting, and if he lost track of the beat, he'd look over at me and I would model it and then he'd get back on track and I, I, um, it might be because I can't remember. 

0:10:21 - Jesper Conrad
So you were a teacher before, but had you taught music, or was the music part an extra thing? 

0:10:28 - Cecilie Conrad
I had been teaching music for years and years and years, but trying with an education behind you also in it yes, I, I had that, and I had been a myself a professional violinist yeah, but but I could really love to draw that into the conversation. 

0:10:48 - Jesper Conrad
How was it to see this glimmer of passion, of lust to be with the music in him? And then, looking at your own professional background and what you have been taught was the right thing to do, what happened? That kind of arguing in your head, maybe not at all, but that's a great question. 

0:11:10 - Cecilie Conrad
My music education, such as it was in college, um, did absolutely nothing for me. It was a complete turn off. They my, when I was little, I had taken, discovered chords and given them colors and given them personalities and things. And now they're calling it a one six four chord and a one six five and just just sterilizing the beauty out of these things. So I was rebelling. I was doing it to get a degree and be allowed to do what I want. 

Basically, you know, and when I taught these big classes, I was constantly trying to stretch as much as you could with 28 children in the room. You know, just to personalize, individualize. I would tell my classes every one of you is musical, there's something and we're going to do lots of different things and maybe one of those things is going to click with you. Everything won't click with everybody. Some people don't like to move as much or dance as much, but there's going to be something. And so try to stay open. And they really responded to that. They felt validated and respected, I should say, by that. And it worked and we did little things. I'd divide them into groups and it was noisy and it was chaotic, but I got wonderful feedback and the children were just very, very engaged. I also, as I had been a professional violinist, I taught violin. That was something you also did and I tried to make it as interesting as I could. But I was constantly feeling restrained by the expectation of what this is about. The goal is to learn technique on the violin and do things correctly and master it, and that's, that's wonderful. It was wonderful for me when I took violin lessons, but some students I just knew this was not the right thing for them, or they weren't ready or they were getting tired, and I couldn't take five minutes and say just let's chat for a few minutes. You know, because the parents are paying me to teach them how to play the violin, and it was. You could feel it like this. You know the paradigm, so that that influenced me. I didn't consciously think of another way to do it. But I'm like you know, student doesn't practice. They come to you and what do you do? You just repeat. You know it just wasn't, didn't feel ideal to me, you know, and I know that eventually contributed to me wanting to do this thing. 

Now, this is what I really want people to understand is this is not in any way a critique, a criticism of the way lessons work. There is a time and a place for certain people to take those lessons. They were wonderful for me. I loved everything. I loved the teacher telling me what to do and the practicing and the scale books. And I was ready. I had grown up in this musical environment and I was ready. I knew that violin was my thing. I was a professional violinist for 25 years and it was fine for me. 

And I'll just throw this in here. I'll just throw this in here is one of the ways that my Music House program differs from other fixes of the problems is this is not trying to repair anything in the traditional lesson an entirely different type of lesson, a different model for people, for either who are not ready or are not predisposed to learn an instrument, one or one or the other or whatever. You know, we're all musical, we're all born with some type of potential, but potential varies widely, you know. And you take a child who the parent says oh, natasha's been writing songs since she was a toddler. You know she's dying to take music lessons because she wants to learn how to accompany her songs. 

They put her in a piano lesson and it was her muse would not allow it. It was a complete turnoff because it had nothing to do with her songwriting. You know and this is one of an example of one student who came to me and I just super glued everything we did onto what she wanted and it was. It was total success with her, and so I'm not sure if I wandered away from your question, but my background, my childhood background, was a positive influence on this. My schooling from little to college was not a positive influence. It inspired me to do something different. 

0:16:27 - Meryl Danziger
It inspired me to do something different. I'm thinking about how passion and discipline play different roles in music studies. In in our personal story, we travel as we move around, which means I can't you know, I can't find a music teacher, an in-person music teacher for my children. I don't have the talent to teach them myself and, uh, somehow, even though I'm I'm a radical unschooler, somehow I can't get it out of my brain this idea that you have to have discipline and that with music, for the most part, for most instruments, if you want to be able to pick up a guitar and play a song when you're, let's say, 55, at some point you're going to have to sit down and do boring stuff for a while, to, to learn the little movements, to to just get it under your skin. I don't, I play the hand pan, I play a little bit of piano and I'm not. I mean, I'm just playing around with it. I'm not a musician. 

But listening to you, I just realized to the extent I've had discipline in my life to do a little bit of structured Okay, I have to actually sit down with this instrument daily, or almost daily, if I want to get to a point where it gets fun. Um, it comes from passion. It comes from I want to sit down with this instrument. I, I don't. I feel I I'm going to bed without my musical moment and I don't like it. So I don't know. Can you explore a little bit? You know, how do we? I could have been that parent paying good money for a violin lesson and seeing the teacher just chatting with my kid being annoyed. I could have been that. But but how do we, if we want the kids to be free but we also want to support the exploration of learning to play an instrument? Where's the balance, do you think? 

0:18:52 - Cecilie Conrad
Wow, this could be a much longer podcast. 

0:18:56 - Meryl Danziger
Well, we could just do a record two or three or four and nine. 

0:19:00 - Cecilie Conrad
All right, I'm going to just say these, in no particular way. Yeah, just throw it at me. I've seen, as you said, you know, when it's something you know you want to do and it's the right path for you, the discipline is not necessarily so tedious. I mean, I never felt like I was working on violin. I mean it was just. It almost it wasn't. I was working. I worked hard guitar, I taught myself a little piano. Violin I couldn't teach myself. It's not a what I call a friendly instrument, it's a snob you know, that you have to do it its way. 

Violin is not an exploration instrument, you know, but so I've seen children who were said to be unfocused, undisciplined, in a we'll call it a traditional lesson okay, come to my program glom onto something and you could not tear them away from it. They just wanted to work and work and work on this thing. You know, they just wanted to work and work and work on this thing, you know, and I had the freedom, by the way, to do this. In how I explained it to those parents, the parents who initially brought their kids to me, they had had miserable experiences, so in the beginning, it was an anything but that kind of method, you know, just do something to get them back, because most parents tell me they just want their children to be. They don't want. 

You know, once in a blue moon, somebody thinks their child is the next Vladimir Horowitz, you know. Almost never, though, and most parents say they want their child to be enriched by music, to love it. That's a big word I hear from from parents, but traditional lessons are not built to love it. They're built to love it later, someday, maybe, if you last that long, you know, um, and I've I found that from the loving it and the passion I saw, a lot of, I saw. I would never call these children undisciplined, that's one thing, whatever it was they were doing. You know, once Charlie realized he needed to learn about rhythm and learn about meter, and learn about cueing and study, we would watch videos of Leonard Bernstein, you know. And is that not a form of discipline? 

0:21:47 - Jesper Conrad
this investment in you know, discipline isn't just doing something, that's, you know, the pain is gain theory, right maybe, maybe the word drive is better than discipline, and but where the word discipline kind of resonates a little for me is the routine it takes to be good at something, Because sometimes you, for example with the handpan I've had a little try on as well it is with the routine and with the drive to wanting to be good at it that you unlock the instrument I 100% agree and there's no argument with that from me. 

0:22:35 - Cecilie Conrad
The argument is only that if a happily musical, intuitively musical child children, if vast numbers of these musical excited children go through this same thing of hating their lessons and wanting to quit, and not only never engaging in music again, feeling completely unqualified or untalented or, you know, not cut out for it, but they grew up to be adults who populate our planet with oh, I'm tone deaf, oh, you know, and these are the products of I don't want to say forced music lessons, but inappropriate or too soon or whatever traditional lessons. So if there had not been a problem, I never would have started a program like this. There would have been no need but to see these children, you know, fighting with their parents I don't want to practice and hating their music lesson and then never going back to it, thinking well, if this is music, if this experience I had is music, I don't want to do music. That's what Charlie said. 

And when he did get back into it with his old piano teacher, who he had been miserable with, he did beautifully. He became a Bach aficionado, learned to play the preludes. He came and performed for me. I couldn't believe it, but he needed to have something bridge that gap between the interest and the technical path you know um. Does that make sense? Does that partly answer? 

0:24:26 - Meryl Danziger
I'm just thinking actually the key word. Again it's it's happened before the key word is freedom. The key word is that this lesson is voluntary. There's nothing wrong with the lesson, the structured, disciplined. You have to do it like this. You have to rehearse like that. You have to spend 20 minutes every day trying to I don't know go faster or go more precise or whatever it is if that lesson is voluntary if the student could be a child, could be an adult, doesn't matter, comes to it because want to learn then structured um, even curriculum based teaching from someone who knows better how to do it, is a great, great method. 

But it has to do with freedom. It has to do with that lesson being taken voluntarily, and that's a big problem for children. They're being pushed into it and if they don't want to do it, the parents are like, oh, you need the discipline, I paid money for this, it's thursday today and it's four o'clock. You have to do it and you know it makes sense. But then again it just doesn't make any sense at all. And I've just been thinking, while having this conversation with you, about the whole discipline thing. There there are some things maybe we need to do our push-ups to stay strong enough to to cope with the years passing. Maybe we need to brush our teeth twice a day, maybe we need to do the laundry and I'm just thinking is that discipline? It's more like I don't want the consequences of not doing it yeah, there is a problem with the word right a little bit. 

0:26:10 - Cecilie Conrad
It's a problem with the word discipline. It evokes certain, a certain something where, if we start to try to call it something else, maybe, like you said, you know, determination or whatever- yeah, but what, what um I'm this dialogue make me think about? 

0:26:28 - Jesper Conrad
is, um, so, to make it easy for people when we talk about how we live our life, uh, the general firm is uh, unschooling, uh, and some people even call it radical unschooling because we do not use curriculums doesn't mean our children doesn't learn, doesn't mean we doesn't use hours and hours to explore together with them, and from this point, mostly Cecilia. 

But what I find really interesting about this dialogue is and maybe the word is natural learning. And if we look at how society for 100 and something years have become more and more structured in the schooling, even the schooling and the curriculums, as I know most in Denmark, the teachers it's almost down to what they need to teach in a certain day nowadays, which limits the exploration from the student sides. And in the dialogue, a person who knows more about a subject also often called the teacher with a person who wants to know more about the subject, if it is so controlled, you cannot explore and find your natural path to learn it. Yeah, and I think that is what really interests me about all these dialogues we have had about unschooling and learning, cecilia and I, with more than a hundred episodes, and and and all the private talks is there's something fascinating in exploring how is it people learn, what is it that make people learn? And you, you have looked into music in this field, but what you're explaining and I'm like, but this is how you could learn math. 

0:28:19 - Cecilie Conrad
I consider this a metaphor for the Summerhill unschooling, democratic, free school thing. You have to show up, but then what you do is your choice. You know, and I I really do think that it, completely as you say, it carries over to lots of things. You know, yeah, I mean wow, yeah, yeah, I feel like you know. When it's like, let's say, kindergarten, you know, look at how little toddlers learn and what they do and their excitement about everything that they try makes them do this, or has expertise Not really Five years old, they step over the threshold into the kindergarten room and what you did before no longer really matters. 

Now you're going to do serious learning. And it's exactly the same with music lessons. This child has been dancing or singing or doing or composing or whatever, and now you put this person, little person, in a traditional lesson party's over, leave that outside. We don't have time for that. And you know, perfectly devoted, good, excellent, wonderful people. Teachers, teachers can't, they're not allowed by their, by the paradigm that they're working within, like I was not allowed, to address needs intuitively, even if they want to. And that's why I think of this as a totally different model to be offered as an option, to be offered as an option. I you know, if you feel like your child is ready for learning the trombone, you put them in this kind of lesson. But so many parents who came come to me with children who failed their lessons say I had a feeling this might not work, but but there was no other option. It hasn't, to my knowledge, been done in music and maybe that's overinflated. But I have not run across my colleagues have not run across anybody who teaches, who provides exposure, exploration and choice in a private music lesson, and I think it's crucial for us to consider not only having that model as an option, because it would help so many people, but I think it would invite a whole bunch of musicians and interesting, charismatic, generous people who like to share what they do to become music teachers, because it really redefines what your role is as a teacher. You're responding to this person in the moment and it becomes very exciting and, I would say, thrilling. You know a session ends, I run to the phone and I pick up the phone and I call somebody one of my kids or one of my friends and say you won't believe what just happened. This happens all the time. I would be surprised if your traditional violent teacher feels that way at the end of every lesson. I feel that way at the end of almost every session. I've documented all of my students. I've loaded up my computer with files on every student. 

I made two little insufficient films and I just want to say one thing about one of those. The first film I made was early on. I was working with about maybe 10 children. All of them had come from either miserable lessons or were dysfunctional outside of my house. They were in those days they used the word retarded, intellectually challenged, whatever. Back in the early 2000s they were holy terror. One boy was considered impossible. He was in a class of seven kids with three adults in the room. Just complete, you know. 

They came to me and I allowed them to make choices. We discovered what their little musical seed was. Allowed them to make choices. We discovered what their little musical seed was. We nurtured and developed that in a should I say painless way rather than pain is gain way. I made a little movie because I wanted to be able to share what I was doing. I strung some things together, somebody helped me. I put this movie out. I rented a place down in the West Village in New York and I had a screening of this movie and you know a little tiny place but it filled up this beautiful place Watched the movie it was about 20 minutes long and afterwards I did a Q&A with the children. 

0:33:31 - Meryl Danziger
They all stood at microphones and people asked them questions and then later, more than a few people came up to me privately and said well, this is wonderful what you're doing, but obviously you're working with brilliant children. It's funny you say that. Oh sorry, go on. 

0:33:50 - Cecilie Conrad
No, that's it, I mean yeah, it's just funny. 

0:33:52 - Meryl Danziger
You say that because we work in the field of radical unschooling, and I want to correct my husband a little bit. I, I don't know, maybe it just came out in a way that could be misunderstood. It's not that you don't know, but radical unschooling is not about working without curriculum. When schooling is living as if school doesn't exist, you don't have an academic agenda on your behalf of your children. Radical unschooling is when it spreads out to more fields than what would have normally been taught in school. So you, you open up for even more freedom on more levels than academics. So that's the radical part. And that's where we are radical, um, because we don't draw a line between what they would have learned in school and what they would have learned in their own time. This, it's the same freedom everywhere. So that's the radical part. It's not very radical actually, technically it's just freedom technically, this is what the words mean. 

Anyways, we move in these uh circles of of unschoolers and radical unschoolers. So this is children who grow up with I noted it down when you said to be able to they are exposed, they explore and they can make their own choices, as you said that your students do in your classes, and they grow up like that In most fields of life. They, they have this freedom. And then when, when they, when we meet people from the mainstream world, they very often say oh yeah, you can do that because your kids are geniuses, your kids are special, your kids are, you know, that's big. You can do this because and I'm like in the beginning kind of, yeah, my kids are very smart and very special and very and then over the years I realized they're probably not. 

Of course my kids are, but not all unschooled. They are just humans who grow up in a different context, in a different environment, and because of that environment they become different, they become something else. And to a mainstream person who is used to the schooled child, which I would think is the suppressed and maybe even slightly broken child, this looks like a genius. And but it's, it's not. It's, it's just someone who had the opportunities and had them for so many years yeah, I. 

0:36:22 - Cecilie Conrad
I just wanted just to say one thing about that. I I don't. I've stopped using the phrase he is genius. I'll say he has genius and I really believe that every single person has some type of genius. Most of the time it does not have an opportunity to be discovered. It's like an unwrapped birthday present that is hiding in a closet and you never you know. But I feel that this happens when you give the freedom and the support and the validation and the opportunities to discover what the spark is. I like to call it a spark and you know. And once you discover that spark, then you see things. 

This one little boy who was just thought to have I don't know what his IQ was, but whatever. But he was in a special class and came from a poor neighborhood in New York and I invited him for a free lesson. You know, just, I wanted to see at something. He didn't want to learn an instrument, he didn't want to make music. What he wanted to do, he said to me I want to be an architect, I want to be an architect. He took instruments from every corner of America and built the most. 

Oh, first, he said he wanted music in the background while he did this and he chose I don't know if you know Bachianas Brasileiras, beautiful piece by Villa Lobos. I don't know why he picked it, Maybe he just liked the picture on the. It was a CDd back then and uh he, while this inspiring, gorgeous music filled the room, he built a phenomenal sculpture out of drums, bells. I was sure the whole thing was going to come tumbling down. Um, I could never have done it what he did, never. And it came out perfect and beautiful. And while he was building, he was humming along the whole. Oh wow, yeah, I just don't. It shouldn't be rocket science. I mean, it's obvious. Are we so stuck in the Prussian education model that we can't imagine that serious learning can also be relevant and passionate? 

0:39:01 - Meryl Danziger
given this some thought before and obviously there's an element of habit, culture and routine that we've been doing this kind of schooling for many, many years and it's been working with these methods for many, many years and they don't work. But there's a basic I think there's a basic human psychology that if we have a problem and we solve it with method a and method a does not work, we fail, then we try method a again. If you, if you observe that's how it works very often and if, when that very often fails, we try method a harder, then we try method a with a friend, then we try method A harder, then we try method A with a friend, then we try method A again. And you get the point. Now we keep going with the same thing and for some reason it's really hard for us to move on to method B. We try all versions of method A, move on to method B, we try all versions of method A. 

We think that if we just try harder, more, stronger, again, many times together or alone, a and I think the school system and the way of teaching in the school system, with the curriculum, the plans, the exams, the structure, the pressure, all these things we're so used to this being the way we allow our children to grow up and move from babies to young adults with all the things they need to learn or will learn, and change from this miracle to this other miracle. We think schooling is necessary. So if we think they need to learn to play the violin, we do this method A, and I think because we I grew up with that, lots of us grew up with that and we see, okay, I came out and I knew how to read and write and walk and talk and make money and whatever, and it was so hard. So now I have to push my kids through this so hard because if they come out and they can't walk and talk and read and write and make money and whatever, then their life has failed and it's my fault because I didn't push them. Letting go of that and letting go of the fear that if I just leave them be to. 

You talk about seeds and sparkles. I mean, if there's a spark, that can be a fire. If there's a seed, something can grow and you actually don't have to control it, you just have to be around it. Make sure the fire doesn't burn down the house, make sure that the seed is not eaten by an animal coming by. But that's your job just to be around it, and I think the fear of just doing that, not all the pushing, it's a huge thing for parents. 

0:41:58 - Cecilie Conrad
It's a huge thing and it's it's feels cozy to do the, and there's actually, if I'm getting this right, there's a term in psychology that maybe you've heard called a set point, which is a cozy, dysfunctional thing from your past that you will default to interesting which I think is kind of what you're talking about. 

You know, and and um, that that's. I think that's why, initially, there needed to be a big problem for parents to bring their kids to me. You know what I mean. They had to method a, which I would call the traditional music lesson which is great when it's great, you know, was so not working and so harmful to their kids because it wasn't the right thing. That's why, when they just said anything, that was the anything but that. Anything but that. You know, and you know I had at least one or two parents after maybe months, of their child, just that I would. I would get feedback from their parents this is the high point of his life regularly. But after some time went by, if the child needed more exploration, more of this kind of you know, they'd say so. When is he going to learn to read notes and when is he going to learn the right hand position? 

I had a mother show up one day who said she'd hated her music lessons. This was classic. She wanted her kids to do anything but that. She brought her son and daughter to me and I would teach this separately and then they'd meet at the, then they'd go together and collaborate at the end of the lesson for 10 minutes. She, she showed up during those 10 minutes when both of them were in the room, michael and Olivia and stood there looking a little with her knitted eyebrows and of course I'm thinking, uh-oh, and what her kids are doing is Michael's saying to Olivia well, you play the harmony, why don't you accompany me on the auto harp and I'm going to try a pentatonic improvisation on the piano. And they're doing these things and using these terms and clearly become, you know, becoming comfortable as musicians. And then she said when are they going to learn fingerings and notes and set point? She forgot, you know, you forget after a while why you, why that didn't work and and it's just, it's just a feeling of like being outside the spaceship without the cord. You know what I mean. It's like uh, but I can't. You know so many of my students, students, snowflakes, you know they all did different things, went on to return to lessons or become professional musicians and I would say, well, you had it in you anyway. And I know one of my, one of those kids, just says no, I would never have done this without, without going to your program. He's now 20, almost 30 now, you know. But yeah, it's, it's, it's getting people to trust it. You know, it's a trust thing, right, like you said, a fear and a trust of what they're going to miss out, but when they do go on to look. 

I love this analogy. Imagine a Martian landing on Earth never been to Earth before and an Earthling comes, wants to feed him, and he brings over some black olives and says here, eat these, this is earth food. And the Martian tastes an olive, makes a face, goes back to Mars and said I didn't like earth food. I didn't like earth food. That's what happens when a child is made to, or even wants to, choose an instrument. That is really not the right instrument for them and it's a well-kept secret. 

I would say in music education that the choice of an instrument is extremely personal, of an instrument is extremely personal. Some people are just feel passion when they blow into something. Some feel it when they strum or when they bow, or when they hit a drum. Like took rocky a long, long time to find percussion because we didn't have any in our house. We weren't those, you know. But, um, you know, when you see a performer, an outstanding virtuoso, playing with you know, he feels that passion come through his hands and into his fingers and it is. 

I have seen remarkable things. I had a tiny little girl who came to my house and everything with strings on it got her attention the auto, harp, the ukulele, the guitar, this one stringed thing that I had lying around. Everything else was invisible. She was like three and a half I mean teeny, teeny but something made her go to those string instruments. She worked with me for maybe a half. I mean teeny, teeny, but something made her go to those string instruments. She worked with me for maybe a year. 

I ran into her mother in a random coffee shop seven years later. She said actually, annabelle's been talking about wanting to play the violin now. Wanting to play the violin now. Would you teach her? And I did. And people don't know this. 

You know I had a boy who I would call a genius, and I don't throw that word around. He had taught himself part of the Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin by ear. He could play anything he wanted by ear, didn't want to read notes, know nothing at the piano, and I would sit there like trembling when he played because I'm like how does he do that? How does he fling his hands by ear? Didn't want to read notes, know nothing at the piano, and I would sit there like trembling when he played Cause. I'm like how does he do that? How does he fling his hands around like that, untrained, completely? I would show him a guitar and he'd be uh, uh. You could see him tense up and have no idea what to do with strings. 

And this is such a big deal to at least make sure you've chosen the right instrument. How do you find the right instrument? Basically by exploring a lot of things and seeing what calls you. What do your hands want to get on? You know, I don't know if people don't know this or they don't value it. I just don't know. I don't know. I suspect they don't know if people don't know this or they don't value it. I, I just don't know. I don't know. I suspect they don't know. 

0:48:55 - Meryl Danziger
I don't think parents know about this, but I I know about it you know, and it reminds me of a general problem of the education of children that we do in our culture, um, which is we want them to learn everything, and it's another element of the fear. 

Like you said, some of them don't really need to learn to read notes, so this is just inside the field of music, but actually we kind of think that we have to teach all of them everything, and some children are really passionate about languages and some children are really passionate about the arts and maybe only drawing. So give them paint and they hate it, but give them a pencil and they love it. And I think this it's another fear element that we kind of think that by the time they are, let's say, 18, they need to to be somewhat proficient in everything. So we don't let them gravitate towards the things that they are actually passionate about and where their seeds will grow and where they will find love for what they're doing and where they will not need discipline because they have passion right it's. 

0:50:25 - Cecilie Conrad
It's a total lack of trust of the child as a learner, as a natural learner yes, I really love the word gravitate towards in it. 

0:50:34 - Jesper Conrad
Cecilia, I like that. 

0:50:36 - Meryl Danziger
But I feel in my personal life and what I see with our children and in general people we move around, what I see out of my eyes is that people tend to gravitate towards things or like life elements. 

There is some. You know I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It's not a chore. I really like fiddling with all the food stuff and I gravitate toward. I like a kitchen. It's a thing for me Some people couldn't care less about. They like a nice meal, meal, but they don't care. Like our second daughter, yeah, but she's like give me nice food, but I don't want to spend five years eating it and, yeah, it's all right. She does other. She gravitates towards dogs, and she's always done, and now she's 16 and she will become a dog whisperer if you wouldn't call her that already now. She's such an expert with this and I'm in awe with what she can teach me about it. But that was also a gravity. It's like gravity, it's a good word. You can't stop it. 

0:51:43 - Cecilie Conrad
the problem with gravity, gravity and gravitating is it's not a concrete thing, it's not always explainable. You can't necessarily explain what it is about the kitchen that calls to you. You can't explain what it is about the ukulele that makes you want to just get your hands on that thing. That's me, my little. That makes you want to just get your hands on that thing, like that's me, my little. 

I gravitated to that after I gave up professional violin playing. But people like People, you know, I think in general a lot of people don't want to think a whole lot about stuff and the concrete is easier Things that you can measure, label, and the measuring and the labeling is is, can be, can be the really the worst thing in a way, for for learning, you know that you have to be able to measure and label it, because my program is is definitely well, children do keep track of what they're doing. I have a little thing that I do, a template of. Along the top is all every instrument in my house that they engage with and then down the side is every song or piece that they do. 

And if they've, let's say, played, tried to play Fur Elise on the ukulele, they put a dot there. If it's a work in progress, they could put a little circle like it's open. If it starts to sound like they could play it for their grandma, they fill in the circle. If it starts to sound like they could play it for their grandma, they fill in the circle. If it starts to sound like they could play it for people who are strangers, it's a bit, you know, they, they, we have these symbols and they do all of the all of the evaluation, self-evaluation, and are much stricter than me. I'm constantly saying to children I would have given that a star, I really no, no, no, it's not ready yet. It's not ready yet. That's not discipline, I mean, or you know. 

Well it is structurally, yeah, yeah so. But the labeling and measuring is getting in everybody's way. 

0:54:13 - Meryl Danziger
I think you know you think a problem also in the labeling, measuring traditional music lesson or any lesson, a problem that really prevails is maybe the right word, I don't know is the teacher is planning the lesson before the student arrives. The teacher is planning what the student will learn. In the school system in the country where we come from, we have something we call the learning goal. So that would be the learning goal even of this lesson, even of this page in this book. What is it? My goal? 

The child has learned after reading, but this is a manipulative structure. Actually, I'm not saying on the top of the page this is what you're supposed to learn. I have an agenda underlying. But even if I did say it, the thing is, can the child come open-minded to fur Elise and learn something new, something maybe, I don't know, learn something about flowers or something completely not on your mind? I know with you they can, but in a lot of learning situations there is this test behind the test that they are supposed to learn something specific. You're not just exposing the child to some random poem by oscar wilde and let them fly, you know whatever you get out of this. 

If it's looking up some words you didn't know before, or if it's discussing philosophy, or if you need to think about the past centuries after all, you just want to go for whoa. Whatever you take with you is fine. I'm just giving you this because I would like to give it to you. Yeah, that's never how it works in mainstream education and I think this is a huge problem, because the kids have to perform. They have to not only be pushed into learning things they don't want to learn and they don't see the point of, but they also have to learn something specific. So there's a test inside the test am I learning the right thing? What if I? What if this gave me a different emotion? What if I found this happy song sad? Did I get it wrong? Are Are my emotions wrong? So we're putting them in such a weird space when we don't give them freedom to explore. 

0:56:38 - Cecilie Conrad
Totally agree. 

0:56:41 - Jesper Conrad
I love it. So Cecilia and I showed some of our French kids Moulin Rouge here recently, because they hadn't seen it. The movie, the movie, yeah, moulin Rouge, by Bess Lohmann I don't know if you've seen it. I haven't seen it. No, you will enjoy it. It's a musical where it's about the Bohemian Revolution. It's about love, freedom and truth. 

After re-watching that one, we have been talking about, um, how can we get more freedom, love and truth, uh, into our life? Um, and maybe it's time for another bohemian revolution that is coming now. After all this more and more confined way, we believe people need to learn, and this rant is bringing me over to you. You sent me because I know me and cecilia, we just love to chat with people, but you were like oh, maybe here's some question, if there's something. One of them, though, is what does it mean for society? I believe we need freedom, truth, love, revolution, beauty and beauty. No, the beauty, sorry, the beauty. Beauty, freedom, love, truth, which is the art, but I think it is growing, it is time. There is so much fear, there's so much confinement in people, there's so much, as you say, going back to the set place that it cannot keep on. We need to show people the love and the beauty and the truth and the freedom. And you're doing it, and then I would use this to bridge over to what does this way of learning mean for society? 

0:58:39 - Cecilie Conrad
I wrote a book, a biography of Pete Seeger. If you've heard of him. He was an iconic activist musician and he combined, he used music for activism, particularly in the 60s, but he, you know, he was every. Every Americans and others have heard of him and there were a lot of biographies about him, but that's a longer story. This is another podcast and basically I wrote there were there were biographies of him for adults but none for children, and I quote that I love. 

Which leads me into this is do not judge the musicality of a society by its virtuosos, but by the number of people playing for themselves, by its virtuosos, but by the number of people playing for themselves. And this was a person who had started out as a straight classical musician and kind of abandoned that hierarchical. This is good music, this is bad. This is, you know, he went on, he took everybody on a trip down south to teach the classical music to the poor people you know, the country people and discovered that they had an incredible musical thing of their own going on and he kind of that was when he kind of shifted over, began to. And I think one of the problems that causes all of these things that we're both talking about is the hierarchy thing. This is good music, this is bad music, this is good learning, this is, this is serious, this is just fun and get you know is, and I feel that, um, the hierarchy of especially Western cultures that perpetuate this through the type that traditional type of music lesson is really missing out. You know, especially third world countries that just have this natural, intuitive, dynamic, passionate, intuitive, dynamic, passionate, lively interplay of you know, it's not the professionals up here and the everybody else down here, and that talented and the untied everybody. They dance, they sing, they write music. It just is a natural kind of thing. 

And that quote kind of describes my sort of vision of the future. You know that, why do we value, why do we really, how does it benefit society to have an audience full of people who dropped out of music lessons and said that think that they're tone deaf and on the stage are the. You know it's wonderful to have virtuosos and orchestras and things, but I think it's just as wonderful to have a bunch of people getting together on the front porch and strumming a banjo and saying, hey, joe, what about? Oh, susanna, you know, I don't think it's any less and to it's, I think it's a mammoth mission, you know idea to get people to consider something like that. But that's kind of what I'm picturing for society and the way what I'm doing could help. That is just by embracing two equally valid but very different models for music teaching. You know, when I went to violin lessons I was so ready it was perfect for me. But for people who either aren't ready or are not predisposed to playing an instrument or don't know which instrument they want to play, or are learning an instrument but it's in a kind of a vacuum where they don't know anything about music. It's just the sheer straight road to, to, to have a goal of learning who you are musically, discovering that and having that everybody. 

I believe this is a book. I'm writing this book and it's an advocacy mission of uh, everyone has the right to be music. Who has ever yearned to be musically engaged has the right to be mentored according to their predisposition, inclination, learning, style. Part two of it is to book, and I've heard famous people say this. I just have to find them again so I can quote them but to become a musician, before you go into a training path, it's not a first step. 

Training, you know, and that's what. That's what the model, the traditional model, is, a training model, and I I liken it to imagine taking a child who loves to jump rope and do somersaults and play ball and putting them into Olympic training. There there's got to be something that bridges that gap and I really feel that this model that I've both found and created you know, discovered teach this way and to parents who know that deep down they're looking for something that's not you know, because from there, from knowing who you are musically feeling empowered, you know, and becoming a musician, you can do anything that you want, and then it becomes appropriate to learn the violin or whatever it is you know. 

1:04:57 - Jesper Conrad
Yeah, I would love to ask you about the dialogue of music, and I have this great respect for our oldest son who decided in himself that he was so sick and tired that he couldn't sing and that he was afraid to sing out public. So he decided just to start singing. 

1:05:25 - Meryl Danziger
In or out of tune. 

1:05:26 - Jesper Conrad
In or out of tune, because I enjoy singing, yeah. 

1:05:29 - Meryl Danziger
End of story. 

1:05:30 - Jesper Conrad
And in the start it sounded absolutely terrible, but he did it and I'm kind of jealous of the, of the unfear, if that's a word, but but the yeah, yeah, but it's actually. It's not the bravery, it's not being afraid to stand out of line, be out of confidence maybe you know yeah, and and what I? 

when I look at myself, uh, and the musical experiences I have had, and this where I want to go about the word dialogue is we have some friends who play music and sometimes there's red wine on the table and they start picking up instruments and I from time to time sit next to a drum set and just meet a little and sometimes I find the dialogue and it feels there's this energetic vibe going on between people that are jamming together and I'm both jealous at it. 

I really would love to do it more and but I feel so without confident in it because and I think this is an interesting subject to unpack I have been raised in a result orientated world where if I couldn't do it like this, then it wasn't good enough and I never became good enough to play music, so that I kind of dared to play publicly or sing publicly. I really loved to sing when I was small. I was like in a choir in school, but mostly, mostly because there was a lot of girls there also. But, joking aside, it's really wonderful to use the instrument of your voice to to connect with other over music, and I'm still at I, I, I do not dare do it well, you, you sound like the child I described before, the happily intuitively musical child who grows up believing. 

1:07:25 - Cecilie Conrad
But in your case it it wasn't because of lessons, but it often is because of lessons. That's the turning point to Untone Deaf. I can't. I you know, I'm musically hopeless, but yeah, I mean it's. You know Sir Ken Robinson, who does you know? 

1:07:45 - Jesper Conrad
Yeah. 

1:07:46 - Cecilie Conrad
What is his? Let me see if I can think of his quote School skills, creativity Right exactly His quote about music is we are all born musical. The trick is to remain musical as we grow older. 

1:08:04 - Meryl Danziger
Whatever it is, whatever it is that gets in what To not let the schooling destroy it, but also maybe the insecurity in this, in the, in the social life. 

You you talked before about some cultures not in what we call today the western world being more musical by nature, being more so you you learn by being a natural partitioner of music, because it's a part of your everyday life, um, and and hence you grow into having music as just like one of your senses kind of thing. Um, we don't do that here for some reason, and it's become this structured, fear-based thing. And we have these superstars and we have spotify and and earpods, and and also music has become a more lonely things compared to when I was a teenager. Now, I mean, they do share it, but they also have a lot of things going on alone, which is good and bad. Um, I think one of the things where music is really powerful and also points into these bohemian values where you just shared with me yesterday that there's the movie version and then there's the real version from the bohemian revolution, one of them being community. 

1:09:33 - Jesper Conrad
And sharing. 

1:09:34 - Meryl Danziger
Music, when we create music as a community, if we have communal singing or we play music together, structured, something we rehearsed, or just jamming, exploring, hitting things, doing things, it puts us into the same moment. It's very interesting. You have to be present in the same moment to play music together. Yeah, I talked with one of these it's the same people, obviously, that would play music with when we sometimes join in and and one of them said what you will notice is that when this happens, we're drinking wine, some of us more than others um, not my husband, I'm just trying to no, no, no, no, no. 

1:10:25 - Jesper Conrad
I don't drink it, but uh but anyway, it's casual, adult, late. 

1:10:30 - Meryl Danziger
Actually the teens and the children are there as well and we're having fun. And then one person picks up a guitar, maybe the instruments are around, and then you see what happens when it becomes. Now we're entering the same moment. What happens is the bodies start first, before the music. You start moving in the same pace. It's so interesting. 

1:10:50 - Cecilie Conrad
Whoever joins the music you start moving in the same place. 

1:10:51 - Meryl Danziger
It's so interesting. Whoever joins the music starts doing this. Just now I'm overdoing it for the camera. It's just a little movement, but the interesting thing is, you cannot leave the moment. You cannot leave. As soon as you leave the moment, you leave this shared, and here is where community grows. This is why it's so important. This is why you wake up so happy the next day and you want to do it again. It's not about the wine or the friends or the music. It's about sharing the moment. 

1:11:23 - Cecilie Conrad
I love that. I love everything about the way you put that. Yes, it's funny. I love everything about the way you put that. Yes, it's funny. I used to. When I was teaching in school. I used to love to like sit and play, play guitar, and we would sing a song and I'd I would ask, tell the kids to tap their feet. And you'd have, you know, 28 children tapping their feet at the same time and at the end of the song I'd say why, why do you think? Why do you think that happens? Why do you think you're all tapping your feet at the same time? And it was just such a you could see them going, you know, like, really thinking about it, and we would discuss their theories and stuff. 

But the things that transcend, like what you're talking about, verbalization in a way. You know what I mean. Yes, exactly, value that. Those things and it's it's not about you know, when you're talking about that enabling that in addition to these civilizations that are much more musically participatory and functional. I would say it's not about are my good or bad at it. It it just doesn't come into the picture. There's no, there's you. If you lose that, like if you could lose that idea about whether you're good or bad at it. I think if you could do it, it would enable some kind of flowering of whatever your musical potential is. Do you know what I? 

mean Absolutely but you put good and bad on it and it can't happen it. 

1:12:54 - Meryl Danziger
You'll lose the moment and it just doesn't work the problem really is that we I think we've been conditioned through the school system, um, and also the parental system, that or strategies that actually are kind of an add-on support system for the school system, where everything we do is being judged. So am I doing this right or wrong? I got, coincidentally, pregnant when I was in my early 20s and single, and I remember the experience of my I come from a country with extreme health care and single, and I remember the experience of my I come from a country with extreme healthcare and welfare, and that whole system came to me. I came home from the doctor just starting the process of getting a midwife and all that, with like this thick layer of little pamphlets and books and stuff about how to cope with it, like what is it now teaching me how to do it? And all of my intuition and spontaneity. 

And so, from the moment the child is even conceived, there is a structure you know, I would, I would see in that I never liked, I didn't comply to it, but I had a little book when she was born and it would teach me, you know, what week would we expect her to hold on to things and when would she have to lift her head? And what year would she have to cut with scissors? And you know, all these things were so measurable. All these things were so measurable and there was this chart with the weight and the height of the child that you have to follow this line for girls, not for boys, otherwise you know you're under or over. So obviously you want to be over. 

You want your child to lift the head a week before the whole thing is so wrong and the child enters the world of judgment. Are you doing it well, are you doing it right? And to what extent are you doing it well and right? So where's the unconditional love and where's the moment? And where's the community? And where's the transcend, transcending exploration of life? 

1:15:11 - Cecilie Conrad
it falls apart and what it also. The another effect that it has in addition to all of that, is it, it, it. It discourages parents from using their intuition. You have to go to an expert, you have to look at research, you know, don't. And this is this is the problem. 

When you were talking about not feeling qualified to teach music, I'm one of the three books that I'm currently writing is um for parents, about just there's a lot of psychology in it, about just giving them permission to set up their house with some instruments around, zero expectations, have fun with them yourself. Just it happens. It doesn't happen. He touches it once a week. He touches it, but like where you, you make a value statement of? We believe this is important. 

We're putting piano in the house, we're putting a guitar in the house, touch it, don't touch it, like you know, in my, in my background, and but it's you're fighting against the system because the system tells you don't do anything without consulting an expert, or or, or research, or. I'm pretty anti-research, I mean I. So many people have like said to me you know how? How did you know how to react, interact with my son so well, did you? You must have, you must have read a lot of stuff I've said. I haven't read nothing. I was just like trying to be a human in the room, you know um and you fighting. 

You're fighting that all the time. And when? When that started? I mean I don't know. But I would love to see parents just set up a little music house in their house. People say, well, we have a keyboard, we keep it in the, in the in the closet unless he asks for. I say, do you keep your sofa in the closet until people ask to sit down? I mean you have to have things around and just casual everybody, anybody, can do it. You don't need to know anything about music to fertilize the field for learning music later, you know from. 

1:17:33 - Jesper Conrad
What I find really interesting is I believe more people can see the light and understand it when it comes to something extracurricular like music. I actually believe more people will be like oh yeah, you can do that with music, but they would have more difficulty seeing it with the subjects that are taught in school, because it's the same natural learning I'm talking about. 

1:17:59 - Cecilie Conrad
Right. 

1:18:00 - Jesper Conrad
It is the. I mean, just where we are sitting here now, there's three instruments in the room. I'm looking at three different kinds of drums, so that's wonderful. I'm looking at three different kinds of drums, so that's wonderful. But so the question is how can we help open the eyes, show people a way, lead the way? Maybe it's just by walking, talking, doing our thing? How do we ignite the revolution of love, truth, beauty and harmony and community sharing? 

1:18:36 - Cecilie Conrad
Right, but I just have to say that, for being an extracurricular activity, music lessons have remained a total dinosaur, I mean, given that they do serve a good purpose and they do it well, but people have not been very open to any sort of free freedom in music learning Not that I've seen, you know. And people trying to fix the problems are trying to do it still within that structure, which I think is a huge mistake because that structure is just fine for what it does. We need something that does something different, different goal, different everything you know. 

1:19:21 - Jesper Conrad
But I agree in principle that people are more likely to receive something that's about something that doesn't matter as much, you know, like the art about music history I absolutely do not know enough about, but I know the a little about the story of the guy who invented the saxophone because our son have listened to a really fun podcast about it. Um, and one of the interesting thing that I realized was a lot of the musical instruments were created for marching music and I'm considering if some of the way music have been taught comes out of and maybe it's a far far stretch here, but I'm considering do some of the way music have been taught comes out of and maybe it's a far far stretch here, but I'm considering do some of the way people are teaching music coming from that? It derives down from army music instruments teaching. 

1:20:21 - Cecilie Conrad
I haven't thought about that. That's interesting. I don't know um. I just I think it comes a lot from it was, you know, being able to play an instrument with kind. It was a status symbol. 

1:20:33 - Meryl Danziger
Yes. 

1:20:35 - Cecilie Conrad
I know a lot of it does come from that the ability to master an instrument, which is what the Model A music lesson is. 

1:20:47 - Meryl Danziger
Upper class did it because they had the time for it. So middle class wanted to do it, so they could look more like the upper class did it because they had the time for it, so middle class wanted to do it, so they could look more like the upper class. Right right, status symbol like. Just like when I said before does my child lift the head a week before the book says she's supposed to do it? And how early did they learn to read? And these things you know because we've seen people with success, some of them that we now call geniuses. They learned, maybe, to read very early or they played five instruments or they spoke many languages. 

Now we try to push children to do these things because we hope that that will be like some sort of success. But I mean, we have a lot of people with a lot of success who learned to read when they were 15 and who only speaks one language and never played a musical instrument, but they did something else amazing in their life. So it's just this concept that we're trying to see a pattern, and it's a little bit like the fashion thing. You're fascinated by that heel on the shoe thing and it's the reason reason. Well, you can share that later, but it's a little bit like upper class had the time to play music. So if you play music, if you master an instrument, that means that you're wealthy and you're up in society. So now we try to let everyone do that, because then it looks like we are more than we are. It's a weird dynamic, but that's how it works. So it becomes this push instead of this. 

1:22:12 - Cecilie Conrad
You know, um, I feel I'm losing my then I will take the heel on the shoe one little little comment about that was that in music lessons, this is the excuse people have for taking a five-year-old with no musical background and putting them a lesson. What if he's? What if he's brilliant? What if we need to start early? We have to start and develop it early, and how many you know? I feel like if your child is one, is is one of those, it'll somehow show itself. That muse will not let him rest, but but it's, that's what causes that. You know that's. The one of the big pieces of that paradigm is oh well, you know what if we miss our chance to recognize his brilliance? But it's that it ruins it for, like the vast majority of people, you know, it's another research-based fallacy. 

1:23:12 - Meryl Danziger
I think that also, you have to learn while you're really little, otherwise the window closes and you'll never become anything. With music, we are now co-living with a family in southeast England and less than three months ago I saw the dad, who's in his 40s, buy a guitar. Last night the children in this house told me he's written a song to his friend who died. It's less than three months ago. He bought the guitar and the guy is in his 40s. So this, this stress we have, pushing small children, you have to learn now, otherwise you know, you can never become. You can never. 

It's wrong, and it's wrong on many levels. Like oh, you have to learn five languages before you're 16, because it's so much easier when you're young. No, it's not, it's not. You can learn a language when you're young. No, it's not, it's not. You can learn a language when you're 80. My grandmother started studying spanish when she was 72. She was pretty proficient. When she died 15 years later, it's, it's not. It's just this crazy idea we have. We're pushing these small children to do all kinds of things we, the adults, would love to be able to do, so we're projecting our yeah inferiority or our dreams, yeah, into our children. 

If I want my child to play the guitar, maybe I should pick up the guitar and learn to play, because it's probably because I want to play the guitar just as if I want my children to become really good at math. Maybe it's because I like math and I should study some math when I have a moment outside of the kitchen and the working and yes, totally I. 

1:24:58 - Cecilie Conrad
Can I recommend two books that you might like. Oh, yes, please. One has nothing whatsoever to do with music. It's called the continuum concept oh, have I read. I think I've read that it's about child rear, a child rearing experiment that this I've read, that did um when she moved to africa or somewhere, and it's, it's, it's. You know, there's there's some argue, arguable and dated things in it, but the essential thing is quite I just think it's 20 years ago, but I think I've read it. 

1:25:30 - Meryl Danziger
It's pretty old, right, it's not a new book. Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah, I think I've read it. The other book is music related. 

1:25:37 - Cecilie Conrad
It's called Highbrow, lowbrow and I. The subtitle it's by Lawrence. What's his name? 

1:25:48 - Jesper Conrad
well, you should be able to find it's a common last name. What? What's his name? 

1:25:50 - Meryl Danziger
Well, you should be able to find him. It's a common last name, what? 

1:25:53 - Jesper Conrad
What's his name is a common last name. 

1:25:55 - Cecilie Conrad
Yeah, I know the emergence the subtitle is the emergence of hierarchy in America, of musical hierarchy in America, and it is fascinating when you want to talk about, well, classical music is. I love classical music, I still listen to classical music, but it's, you know, classical music is the only good music. There's a lot of people and everything else is inferior. This is a complete construct. Construct. It has nothing to do with a truth or a reality, and it's that's. That's a really incredible book. Um, if you can't find it, I'll find the author's other surname. Besides, what's his name? 

1:26:44 - Meryl Danziger
we'll need it in the show notes. 

1:26:45 - Jesper Conrad
Yeah, so you'll find it and link to both of the books. Right, and also on that we have talked a lot and maybe we should take another episode at another time, but for now, to find a way to round up, I think it could be a wonderful bridge for you to give some advice for parents or people who are sitting there and being like I would love to help facilitate learning music to my child or to myself If you can get some good advice on where to start and also if you can share with them the work you have done with Music House, how they can get to know more of that In other way. Mention the website, et, mention the website, etc. Etc. So people can go and find it. 

1:27:35 - Cecilie Conrad
But first a good advice well, the target audience for the book that I'm working on slaving over is is musicians, parents, teachers in training, music teachers, who I think will be the least interested in making switches because they have their little thing, but I'm not, I can't leave them out and people who failed at their music lessons just to get some validation about. Well, maybe I should rethink this. And you know it's, it's it's not. I mean, it's a methodology, but it's not a step by step do this, do this, do this, because it's about sensing things and it's about it's a little bit. You know, but I'm writing this book as a as a sharing my experience creating Music House, why I did it, how it went. Here are examples and here's what happened. Here's how, with this girl, it developed agency. With this one it was autonomy, with this one it was validation and just putting it out there and summing it up, and that's so. 

I'm looking right now for an agent, maybe a publisher, for this, and that's where it is at the moment. You know, getting there it's called getting, it's getting there, yeah, so, um, but I so appreciate. I was so excited to read when rocky wrote sent me your what you do. I was like, oh my god, I'm just like forgot everything else. I was like I have to contact these people, you know, so I appreciate you taking the time and help. I've never done a podcast about Music House. I've done a lot of interviews about my Pete Seeger book, but this is really my first about my music program and you couldn't have found better. 

1:29:30 - Jesper Conrad
It was wonderful about my music program and you couldn't. It could not have found better wonderful but for for ending it properly. Then where do people can you mention? You have a website. How do people get to know more? 

1:29:40 - Cecilie Conrad
I have two websites, um, one was just a cute little thing that I. It's just so endearing that I've kept it, and it also has little clips of children doing this and that you know like not great quality video clips, but you get an idea of a few, and that's called nycmusichouseorg. The newer one is my name, meryldanzigercom, and there I have a series of puzzlers that I did's what happened. Here's the problem. What would you do? And then the following people would write in what they did, and then the following week I would say what actually happened and what I did. You know a boy who just kept getting bored and yawning and whatever, and it turned out he just needed rest, he needed to do something else for a few minutes. You can't do that in a musical. You know he needed to do something else for a few minutes. You can't do that in a musical, you know. And stuff about my Pete Seeger book is there also, but it's just MerylDanzigercom and pick and choose you know, Music House is there? 

1:31:00 - Jesper Conrad
Perfect. 

1:31:01 - Meryl Danziger
It'll be in the show notes. 

1:31:02 - Jesper Conrad
It has been such a pleasure. 

1:31:04 - Meryl Danziger
It really has yeah. 

1:31:05 - Cecilie Conrad
This was amazing. We went on for hours. 

1:31:08 - Meryl Danziger
I was looking forward to it, but I didn't know. I would appreciate this. 

1:31:13 - Cecilie Conrad
Oh wow, you are collectively a find. Seriously, I would love to be able to spend much, much more time with you on all of it. Let's figure it out. 

1:31:22 - Jesper Conrad
Yeah, and let's work for freedom, beauty, love, community and sharing and more music.