You don’t know what you don’t know.

I love the saying “you don’t know what you don’t know” because it is so true. How can you know something you have never learned or experienced or been told?

When I was a teenager I wanted to learn to drive a standard. A friend agreed to teach me, but when my first question was “Do I have to put the clutch in to start the car?” He looked at me with disbelief that I could be so dense and immediately withdrew his offer to provide lessons. Clearly this guy was not cut out to be a teacher…I mean really…if I had never driven a standard, how was I supposed to know that the clutch had to be depressed?

When you are teaching a lesson you must assume that your student knows nothing and go from there. Whatever they do know is purely bonus.

I bring this up because every September as new classes begin some students and parents seem to be embarrassed that they don’t already understand what I am teaching. No embarrassment is necessary in my studio. It only prevents you from asking the important questions you need to have answered in order to fully understand what is being taught.

The whole point of taking a course is to learn something new. If you already understood music theory and could already play like a virtuoso, why would you need lessons at all?  You can bet that Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Elton John, Justin Bieber….all of them started out knowing nothing about music. Experience, practice and asking questions made them competent musicians.

Oh I did eventually learn to drive a standard. I found a patient teacher who was capable of answering my many questions….and I married him.  Now I prefer to drive a standard to an automatic.

So this year as classes begin I challenge you to remember that “you don’t know what you don’t know” and to open yourself to learning by asking questions, practicing hard and celebrating what you DO know!

Happy music making!