098 - Five Ways I’m Applying Slow Productivity to My Studio

Aug 19

Resources Mentioned

*Disclosure: some of the links in this episode are affiliate links, which means if you decide to purchase through any of them, I will earn a small commission. This helps support the podcast and allows me to continue creating free content. Thank you for your support!

Slow Productivity (Cal Newport)
Join the Musician & Co. Book Club (it’s free!)
A Review of “Slow Productivity” by Cal Newport (Musician & Co.)
Ep. 064 - How I Plan a Year of Student Repertoire
Learn Faster, Perform Better (Molly Gebrian)
How to Learn Faster and Perform Better: A Review of Molly Gebrian’s Book (Musician & Co.)
Ep. 047 - An Inside Look at My Lesson-Planning Process

Earlier this year, I reread Cal Newport's Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout for the Musician & Co. Book Club. For those of you who may not know, I lead an asynchronous quarterly book club for musicians through my other website, Musician & Co. We read four books a year on business, the creative process, music teaching, entrepreneurship, and being a musician. Sign up for free at musicianandcompany.com/books.

Cal is a computer science professor at Georgetown and author of several books, including Digital Minimalism and Deep Work. One of the things I really enjoy about his books is how well-researched they are. The three principles he outlines in this book are informed and enriched by writings, studies, and historical insights.

Cal addresses two main questions in this book: 1) How do we accomplish meaningful work without burnout? and 2) Can we take a slow approach to productivity?

The framework he came up with is simple:

Do fewer things
Work at a natural pace
Obsess over quality

I’ve spent some time thinking about what this looks like in self-employment (see my book review): how much I choose to take on, what my workweek looks like, and how to maintain a level of excellence in everything I do. But recently, I’ve been thinking about what this looks like in my studio. How can I apply the principles of slow productivity to my teaching practice?

In this episode, I’ll share five ways I’m adapting Cal’s framework to my studio, from evaluating my time and capacity to repertoire selection and lesson planning to practicing expectations.

What Slow Productivity Looks Like in My Teaching

1. Studio Size and Schedule

This is the foundation for everything else—establishing my teaching schedule, determining my capacity as a teacher, and deciding how many students I can take on while still doing my best work. Principles 1 and 3 apply here: Do fewer things and obsess over quality. If I try to squeeze in a few more students in September, I end up with an extended teaching day or two for the whole year, which can contribute to burnout. If I don’t have boundaries around my schedule, I may feel compelled to accommodate special requests like teaching on weekends.

It’s my responsibility to figure out how many students I can realistically take on, given my other commitments: How many repertoire plans I can manage, and how many informances I can host in a given week without decreasing the quality of my teaching. “Don’t rush your most important work,” Cal says. For me, 18-20 students seems to be the sweet spot.

2. Repertoire Planning

I talked about how I plan a year’s worth of repertoire in Ep. 064. I’ve been immersed in repertoire planning recently and am reminded how individual the process is. I don’t assign the same supplemental books at each level; instead, I look for music that will inspire and connect with each student—their individual interests, skills, and backgrounds. This makes the process more time-consuming, but ultimately, I think it serves my students better. And from a teaching perspective, it means there’s more musical variety in my teaching week, and I’m learning new repertoire, as well.

Principles 2 and 3 apply here: Work at a natural pace and, again, obsess over quality. I want to ensure that the music I select for my students challenges them and helps them develop their musicianship, but I also want it to be enjoyable for them to work on—accessible and attainable.

3. Student Practicing Expectations

I had a parent of a new 1st-grade student recently ask me about practicing expectations. I generally sidestep giving a specific number of minutes because, as we all know, the quality of practicing matters more than the quantity of time spent. However, I’ve learned that part of my job as a studio teacher is to educate parents on how to support practicing and musical development at home. Guidelines for how long to practice can be helpful for this.

So, I created a short practicing guide for parents to send out at the beginning of the year. It talks about the importance of consistent practice, working through everything on the assignment sheet each day, not skipping more than one day in a row, and the benefits of the “sleep boost,” which Molly Gebrian talked about in her book, Learn Faster, Perform Better. Side note: This book was also a Musician & Co. Book Club pick—read my review here.

The practicing guide also includes the following recommendations, in case you’re curious:

K-Grade 2 (early elementary): 10-20 minutes a day, split into two sessions if needed
Grades 3-5 (mid-late elementary): 20-30 minutes a day
Grades 6-7 (early intermediate): 30-40 minutes a day
Grades 8-10 (intermediate): 40-50 minutes a day
Grades 11-12 (late intermediate-advanced): 60+ minutes a day

I’m applying Principle 2 here: Work at a natural pace. That means setting achievable goals for my students and embracing a natural pace in how much I ask them to practice between lessons.

4. Lesson Planning

For my elementary students, I spend time before each lesson planning the sequence of pieces and any related activities, including sight-reading, movement, rhythm, and improvisation. I talk about my lesson-planning process in more depth in Ep. 047. Again, I want to embrace Principle 2 here: working at a natural pace, not rushing through activities, and leaving space for creativity, extra repetition when needed, and curiosity in the lesson.

I find a quick pace helps keep students’ attention, but it’s only effective if learning is taking place. I’ve learned that sometimes it’s more effective for them to write reminders in their music than for me to do it, even though it takes longer. Sometimes a pattern will remind them of something else, and they’ll start picking out a song they know by ear. This is a valuable learning opportunity, even if it isn’t on my lesson plan. I want to be better about trying to squeeze in one more thing so I can check it off my list and recognize the student’s natural working pace.

5. Analog vs. Digital

I’ve been thinking about this recently—how technology fits into and supports our work as music teachers.

There’s this push always to embrace it, learn it, and use it in lessons, with no shortage of ear-training, note-reading, and practicing apps designed to gamify music learning, foster peer competition, and introduce accountability during the week.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I wonder if offering a more analog experience in music lessons is a welcome reprieve for our students living in a digital, always-on world. Maybe there’s value in sitting on the floor with a set of flashcards and playing a game with another person. Or creating a melody with felt circles on staff lines. Or writing their own rhythm patterns on a whiteboard. Or building major and minor scales with a set of alphabet dice.

Technology can be beneficial, but I want to apply Principle 3 here and obsess over the quality of the experience. For me, that means more hands-on, manipulative, experiential activities vs. iPad apps and other tech.

Summary

In sum, there are many ways to apply Cal Newport’s slow productivity framework to studio teaching. The five I’m focusing on are studio size and schedule, repertoire planning, student practicing expectations, lesson planning, and the balance between analog and digital.

Have you read this book? How would you apply these principles to your teaching? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Amazon Music

Listen to more:

098 - Five Ways I’m Applying Slow Productivity to My Studio

Earlier this year, I reread Cal Newport's Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout.

One of the things I really enjoy about Cal’s books is how well-researched they are. The three principles he outlines in this book are informed and enriched by writings, studies, and historical insights.

Cal addresses two main questions in this book: 1) How do we accomplish meaningful work without burnout? and 2) Can we take a slow approach to productivity?

097 - 24 Ways to Use Piano Safari Sight-Reading Cards in Your Teaching

I started using Piano Safari in my studio five years ago. There are a lot of things I like about the curriculum and pedagogical approach—the emphasis on rote teaching and pattern-based learning, creative exploration and improvisation, an intervallic approach to reading, and repertoire that is expressive and captivating for young learners—but one of my favorite resources is their correlated sight-reading cards.

In this episode, I’ll share my 7-step teaching process for using these cards in lessons with elementary and early-intermediate students, and 24 creative ways to incorporate them into your teaching.

096 - How I Use Assessment in My Studio

Assessment is a process of measuring, evaluating, and documenting learning.

This informs our teaching, curriculum planning, and repertoire choices. In turn, it also helps students develop a diverse set of musicianship skills, including technique, performance, aural skills, sight-reading, and musical creativity.

In this episode, we’ll talk about how to plan an assessment for your studio, including defining assessment criteria and choosing measurement tools, and how to use this data to motivate your students and inform your teaching.

095 - Schubert vs. Richter: A Studio Class Listening Project

I love doing listening projects in my studio classes. These leveled, small-group, hour-long classes are offered 5-6 times per year, with 3-5 students per group. I always include a performance element and plan several themed activities spanning technique, sight-reading, rhythm, improvisation and composition, and listening.

In a recent class with three intermediate students (8th-11th grade), we compared the music of Franz Schubert and Max Richter.

094 - The Curious Mind of Pianist Josef Hofmann

What does it look like to be a musician who is also an inventor—someone whose curiosity about how things work shapes the way he approaches his instrument? Pianist Josef Hofmann spent his entire career exploring that, and his story is worth knowing.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Hofmann's birth. He was a Polish-American pianist, born in 1876, and considered by many—including Sergei Rachmaninoff—to be the greatest pianist of the 20th century. And yet, despite his many musical achievements, including a fifty-year performing career, 100 compositions, commercial recordings, a signature tone, and enviable technical precision, he doesn't have the same name recognition as his contemporaries.

093 - What We're Doing for Informances This Year

March in my studio means one thing: informance season. We spend 10 to 12 weeks getting ready—learning and analyzing music, practicing demonstrations, preparing to talk to the audience. And this year, I knew from the start that the theme was going to require a little more planning than usual.

If you’re new around here, I define a musical informance as an informal, informational performance that integrates education and experience. It’s an opportunity for students to share what and how they’re learning and invite parents and audience members into the music-making process.

092 - Beauty, Artistry, and Intention (A Tribute to Marvin Blickenstaff)

At the end of January, we lost a wonderful musician, teacher, and pedagogue, Marvin Blickenstaff. You’ve probably heard me talk about Marvin on the podcast before—he had a profound impact on my teaching through the years.

With a career spanning over six decades, Marvin dedicated himself to serving piano students and teachers worldwide. He valued deep emotional expression at the keyboard and a human connection through the music. He once said, “The only reason that music exists is to express who we are and how we feel.”

091 - Seven Black Composers in the Piano Teaching Repertoire

February is Black History Month—a time to honor and celebrate the contributions of African Americans. As a music teacher, this prompts me to pause and evaluate what I’m teaching, but also why. I ask questions like:

How much diversity is present in my students’ method books and repertoire?
Which pieces should we skip due to their complicated history?
How can I make more thoughtful, informed choices about the music I put in front of my students—choices that are pedagogically sound and historically responsible?

090 - Nine Supplemental Books for Elementary and Early Intermediate Piano Students

As we prepare for the Spring semester and look forward to lessons resuming in January, I want to share nine collections I’ve been using with my students this year. Some are etudes based on specific technical patterns, others are solo repertoire books. Most of these are available through Piano Safari, though they can be used alongside any method book.

For reference, my elementary and early intermediate students are in Piano Safari Levels 1-3 and range from 2nd-7th grade.

If you're looking to refresh your teaching materials for January or add some variety to your studio library, I hope you'll find a few gems here that spark your interest.

089 - The Science of Practicing: What I’m Learning from Molly Gebrian's Book

One of the things I love about teaching is that we can draw on many disciplines to make our work better—art, psychology, learning theories, and even neuroscience. Recently, I’ve been reading about what brain research can tell us about practicing and how we learn, and it’s fascinating.

Welcome back to our 2-part series on practicing.

In part 1, we talked about the art of practicing. I shared what I’m learning from Madeline Bruser’s book, The Art of Practicing, and how I’m carrying these concepts and strategies into my practice sessions and studio.

088 - The Art of Practicing: What I’m Learning from Madeline Bruser’s Book

This fall, I read two books about practicing: The first is Madeline Bruser’s, The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart. The second is Molly Gebrian’s 2024 release, Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician's Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing.

Art and science. Because practicing requires both.

This is part 1 of a 2-part series about practicing and what I’m learning and applying from both books.

In this episode, part 1, we’ll talk about the art of practicing. I’ll share what I’m learning from Madeline Bruser’s book and how I’m carrying these concepts and strategies into my practice sessions and studio.

087 - 9 Creative Lesson Activities You Can Do with a Broken Arm

It was about this time last year when I got a panicked email from a parent: “Jack broke his left wrist this week. What does this mean for piano? He’s in a cast.”

Has this ever happened to you? Some parents may assume that lessons need to be paused during this time. I mean, they can’t play with only one hand… or can they?

The answer is yes, and there’s more and more one-handed repertoire available. With a broken foot, we can focus on repertoire that doesn’t use the pedal, or they can learn to pedal with their left foot for a few weeks.

But more importantly, what I want to convey to parents (and students) is that playing is only one facet of musicianship. There are so many other things we do in lessons, so many other skills we’re working to develop. It reminds me of something Frances Clark once said, “Teach the student first, the music second, and the piano third.”

086 - Teaching Keyboard Skills to Students of All Ages

Learning to play the piano isn’t just about learning repertoire pieces. It’s about developing a set of keyboard skills that lets you make music anywhere, with anyone, in any style. Technique, performance, and sight-reading are part of it, but so are harmonization, transposition, chord knowledge, and voice-leading. It’s more than the ability to perform what’s on the page; it’s understanding how the music is made.

In this episode, I’ll share why keyboard skills matter for students of all ages and a few strategies I’m using in my studio to build them into lessons from the very first year of study.

085 - Everyone Can Improvise (+ 3 Examples From My Studio)

When I was in grad school, I took an elective class on Improvisation. I remember shuffling into the 3rd-floor classroom that first day, pulling a blue chair into the semicircle like everyone else, unfolding the desk and preparing to take notes.

“Improvisation is something we can all do,” our professor, Dr. Christopher Azzara began. “We’re born improvisers.” The challenge sometimes is trusting that creative process. Trusting that we have something interesting and musical to say.

Today, I’m sharing a few simple ways to build improvisation into your teaching practice in meaningful ways, even if it’s new to you. You’ll learn what improvisation is and how to get started, how to find inspiration and musical ideas, and activities to do with your students in lessons. I’ll also share a few examples and recordings from my studio recently.

084 - Recital Recap & Year-End Reflection

Earlier this month, I hosted my 14th studio piano recital. There’s always so much that goes into planning and preparing for an event like this.

We spend months learning the music and practicing performing. What happens if you play a wrong note or miss a key change? What happens if you forget the repeat or play the first ending twice?

We discuss arm movement and phrase shapes, articulation, and projection, and how it feels and sounds different in the big theater vs. the classroom where we have our lessons. We listen and observe.

Today, I’m sharing my own recap and reflection on this year’s recital—how it went, what I learned, what I observed, and how it’s shaping my teaching practice for the year ahead.

083 - Bernstein & Bill Evans: Inside My Recent Intermediate Studio Class

It starts simply. Two blocked jazz chords with I-V in the bass. And then the vocalist comes in:

“Twenty-four hours can go so fast.
You look around, the day has passed…”

This is Leonard Bernstein’s song “Some Other Time” with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, written for the 1944 musical, On the Town. It’s about three sailors on 24-hour leave in New York City who meet three women before leaving for war. Four characters perform this song (in the stage version), hoping to catch up some other time, but knowing they may never see each other again.

082 - What Art Is Teaching Me About Music

Some of you may not know this about me, but I’m a musician and an artist.

I always loved art as a kid—from finger painting in my blue smock at my Little Tikes easel to coloring and tracing to the pastel class I took one summer, culminating in our work being displayed in a local bank. For a while, my answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was “An artist or illustrator.”

Music was always there, too—singing and playing the piano, learning letter names as I learned the alphabet, and later, accompanying, teaching, performing, and arranging.

At some point, I set art aside to focus on music.

081 - Celebrating Women in Music Month: An Inside Look at Our Studio Informances

March is Women’s History Month and by extension, Women in Music Month—an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate women’s contributions to our field.

When I was a grad student at Eastman, they used to have an annual Women in Music Festival in March. Students and faculty worked together to create a series of programs and lunchtime concerts featuring music (and sometimes lyrics) by women. I had the opportunity to accompany on a program one year—it was so meaningful to be part of such a special event. It’s still something that stands out in my memory from my time in grad school.

As a teacher, I love finding ways to honor and celebrate things like this with my students. This year, we’re celebrating Women in Music month with a series of musical informances.

080 - 14 Ways to Practice Away From Your Instrument

When you think about practicing, what do you picture?

Maybe you think about your instrument in the living room or your favorite practice room at school. Maybe you picture your studio with morning light streaking across the floor or in the evening with a few lamps casting a cozy glow.

Certainly, practicing happens in all of these spaces. But it can also happen at your desk, in the car, at the breakfast table, on a walk, in a carrel at the library, or in a classroom where no instrument is present.

How?

Because practicing is more than the mechanics of playing an instrument.

079 - From Technique to Musical Identity: Six Things I’m Focusing on in Lessons

Happy January!

I hope you had a restful teaching break and that you’re ready to dive back in with renewed energy, creativity, and motivation.

The Spring semester can be busy. In my studio, we have informances in March (which you heard me talk about last year—see episodes 068, 069, and 071), our state Solo Festival in May, and our annual year-end recital in June, plus 2-3 studio classes for each group (which ends up being 13 or so, for me) and of course, weekly lessons.

078 - The Days of Auld Lang Syne: A Year-End Reflection for Music Teachers

It’s the middle of December, which means you’re probably caught up in the rush of holiday performances, concerts, and recitals, studio classes, parties, and general busyness as we wrap up the year. Your to-do list is long, but the days are short, and you’re doing your best to stay on top of it all.

But as busy as this time of year is, it can also be a time to pause and reflect. To embrace the quiet and stillness that comes with the first snowfall or sitting in the living room late at night or early in the morning by the light of the Christmas tree.

As a teacher, December is a time to acknowledge everything you’ve created and accomplished this year—everything you’ve learned and all the ways you’ve changed and grown and evolved as a musician and educator.

077 - A New Approach to Teaching Group Classes

I have a love/hate relationship with studio classes.

I love the idea of them, and I love being able to offer them to my students. But I’ve never found a structure or approach that works.

At the school where I teach, I’m limited to a classroom with a single piano, which means students have to take turns or do activities that don’t involve an instrument.

In addition, having a group of 6-8 students in a room together for 45-60 minutes (again, with one instrument) was challenging. It’s difficult to keep everyone engaged and focused, give directions, facilitate meaningful learning activities, and assess each student individually.

As an introverted teacher, it can feel a little chaotic and overwhelming.

076 - 7 Things to Carry Into the New School Year

It’s my second full week of teaching. I know some of you have been back to school and lessons for a month now, but I’m still getting my bearings, adjusting to a new schedule, organizing studio classes, and setting my intentions for the year.

This is not a formal practice, but it’s something I sort of subconsciously do to mark the beginning of the new teaching year. Today, I’m sharing 7 things to carry into the new teaching year, and I hope this inspires you on your teaching journey.

075 - What I'm Working on This Summer

I don’t know about you, but this summer is going by very quickly. I know some of you may be going back to school this week or preparing to go back in a few weeks; here in New York, we still have a little summer left, as we don’t start back until after Labor Day.

But regardless, it’s quick.

At the beginning of the summer, I made a list of 5 things I wanted to work on outside of teaching. In this episode, I’ll share what was on that list, how it’s going so far, and what I’m spending time on this month.

074 - What a First Piano Lesson Looks Like (Here's My Lesson Plan)

Last week, I taught a brand-new beginner her very first piano lesson.

Cora is 5 1/2 and is mature for her age. She is the youngest of three - her two older brothers also study with me. In fact, the oldest started with me when he was 5, a few weeks after Cora was born, so it’s kind of a full-circle moment.

I love starting beginners in the summer, before the beginning of the new school year because it’s less chaotic. This gives us a few weeks to get into the rhythm of lessons and playing at home so that routine is already established by the time school starts.

073 - How to Prepare for a Consult with a Prospective Student

A friend of mine from college reached out to ask about how to find a piano teacher for her two young children:

"Any pointers on how to find the right person?" she asked in a DM. "Do you think going to a school is better or finding someone to come to us is better?"

The interview process for finding a music teacher goes both ways:

The teacher is interviewing the student and family to assess musical, physical, and emotional readiness; determine if the student (and parents) have the same goals for musical study; and evaluate whether or not they'd be a good fit in the studio. We talked about this in the last episode, Ep. 072 - The Case for Consultations in the Music Studio. So, go back and listen to that, if you missed it.
At the same time, the student (and often the parents) are interviewing the teacher to assess musical skills and qualifications, teaching style, method and curriculum choices, and extracurricular offerings.

072 - The Case for Consultations in the Music Studio

Years ago, I received an email from a piano teacher asking about initial consultations and interviews.

“What do you do? What questions do you ask? How long should it be? What materials do you give them?” These are great questions!

Here are some of the reasons I offer consultations to prospective families in my studio:

They give you an opportunity to meet prospective students (and their parents) face-to-face before either of you commit to lessons.
For students who are transferring from another teacher, it's important to see what music they're currently working on, assess what they know, and determine where you want to begin in your first lesson.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to structure a prospective student consultation (including what to have the student bring or prepare ahead of time), six questions to ask, how to plan your time together, and how to onboard new students and families after the consultation.

071 - 3 Things I Learned from Hosting a Musical Informance

Welcome to another episode of the Field Notes on Music Teaching & Learning podcast. Today’s episode is part 3 of a series I’ve been working on this spring all about how to plan and organize a musical informance.

I first mentioned the idea of a musical informance in Ep. 068. An informance is basically an informal performance or an informational performance where you share insight into the music and the learning process with the audience. In Ep. 068, I shared a few examples of musicians who exemplified this model of education and engagement in the past, talked about what separates an informance from a performance and how you could structure this in your studio, and shared how my students and I were preparing for this event.

In Ep. 069, I talked more specifically about the theme of our informances this spring—music to celebrate the Total Solar Eclipse happening here in Rochester. I shared my repertoire list, the questions I asked my students as they prepared, how I built in opportunities for student creativity and input, and how I organized the event with parents and families.

Today, I’m sharing how it all went including three things I learned, what went well, and what I would do differently next time.

070 - The 3-Month Studio Recital Plan

The birds are chirping, the first Spring flowers are popping up in the front yard, and Rory, my dog, insists on laying in the middle of the daffodil bed whenever the sun is out.

These are my seasonal cues that it's time to start planning for our annual end-of-year studio recital. To give you a little context, I think I've mentioned before that I teach at a private school. It's nursery through 12th grade and I teach in the after-school program. Most of my students attend this school, so having our recital on-site is easy and convenient for everyone (and it gives us an opportunity to practice on the piano in the space during our lessons a few weeks ahead of time, which is helpful).

069 - A Musical Informance to Celebrate the Solar Eclipse

I did a poll on Instagram recently to see if any of my music teacher friends had ever hosted a musical informance. A few said "yes," a few said "no," but a surprising number of respondents chose the third option: "What's an informance?"

An informance is basically an informal performance or as Eastman professor Dave Headlam describes, "A performance for the information age." (source: Oxford Handbook of Public Music Theory)

It's an opportunity to share musical works in progress or perform in a laid-back environment while inviting the audience into the process. There's a teaching component and a performing component, and depending on how you structure it, a conversational or interactive component.

Cal Newport booksCal Newport Slow Productivityindependent music studiobooks for musiciansmusician book clubbooks for music teachersSlow Productivity book

Ashley Danyew