Arriving this summer from her native Northern California, Jy Gronner has brought a new approach to piano teaching in Pacific Palisades. ’We’ve learned so much about the brain in 300 years, and we’ve changed the way we teach everything’except piano lessons,’ Gronner tells the Palisadian-Post. ‘Piano lessons have the highest failure rate of any taught subject. The whole idea of traditional lessons is to elevate to adult-level concert performance, and only one in 5,000 makes it.’ In response, the conservatory-trained Gronner, who taught traditionally for 20 years, turned to the non-traditional Simply Music method eight years ago and now has a piano studio in the 881 Alma Real building. Foregoing metronomes and reading music, the Simply Music curriculum focuses on patterns and tools, and unlike standard music lessons, Gronner’s students don’t learn to read music until they have a few dozen songs in their repertoire. With Simply Music, Gronner says, the kids ‘have 35 to 50 pieces that they can play at any keyboard, any piano. Right in the beginning, they’re learning how to play popular, blues, classical, jazz, accompaniment pieces. They’re singing along with themselves, they’re composing music from the very beginning and they’re improvising’stuff I never learned how to do in my lessons. It’s super fun to teach.’ She emphasizes that students learn the most commonly used contemporary chords and all the 12 keys before they are taught how to read music. Beethoven’s ‘F’r Elise’ is one of the first songs many of Gronner’s students learn. Neil Moore began Simply Music in his native Australia in 1998, and today 700 teachers can be found throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The goal of the program, Gronner says, is ‘to maximize the likelihood of students acquiring and retaining music as a lifelong companion.’ Unlike some old-fashioned programs, which label people early on, Simply Music believes everyone is musical and can enjoy and benefit from playing the piano. Gronner’s own musical journey began with piano lessons at age six with ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ and she readily admits that part of the reason she stuck with it was to get out of evening chores. She was a piano major at UCLA before transferring to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Her studio in Corte Madera, Marin County, which she still runs, boasts 250 students. ’There’s just a quantum leap beyond what people have thought possible in music education,’ Gronner says, and she is ready to share that possibility with Palisadians young and old. She teaches toddlers, teens, adults and has even had students as old as 104. In January, she plans on starting a program for babies through five years old. She takes great joy in learning from parents that they do not have to force their children to practice, but instead have to tell them to stop and go to bed. Teaching kids and adults is different, Gronner says, because ‘for adults we remember things better if we understand why. So I explain to adults why. And kids, you explain and they’re going to fall asleep. They trust. We don’t have to explain anything to them. So that’s the big difference. I like both.’ Gronner’s lessons run between 30 and 50 minutes. While giving this journalist a lesson for Beethoven’s ‘Bells Are Ringing,’ she first made me uncross my legs. ‘If you’re going to remember this, you’re going to uncross your legs, just when you’re learning.’ She then made me repeatedly say ‘bottom, middle, top’ in different combinations (patterns, if you will) while touching different fingers. Soon enough I was playing the centuries-old classic, something I hadn’t done in many years. She also taught me another little ditty, which actually sounded pretty good after a few tries. The next free introductory session for parents and adult students will be held this Saturday, September 15 at 2 p.m. For more information, call Gronner at (310) 454-1045 or visit thepianostudioca.com
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