Can Technology Replace a Teacher?
Recent video from music educators in Portugal
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Our program was created in the USA, but the method was built upon the experience of the entire world. I sought out progressive methods everywhere – both in music education and general pedagogy. I gathered information about the psychology of music perception and the nature of musical abilities, about the mechanisms of the development of new skills as well as causes of the inability to learn – everything that was related to the initial period of education. A huge role was played by knowledge attained during my years of study at the Kosenko Music College in Jitomir (UA) and the Karpenko-Kariy University of Arts in Kharkov (UA). My work in classes with Solfeggio, music theory, and piano has become priceless – in Ukraine as well as the US.The sum total of all of this research is my method, which has surpassed all of my expectations.
Spain, Madrid Hellene Hiner with school teachers Accion Piano after training.
The embodiment of the new methodology turns over all assumptions about the nature of a person’s musical abilities. Now, we know the truth. A five-year-old child can learn to play a simple piece with both hands not after two months, but in fifteen minutes after first opening the notes. Three-year-old children can freely read notes, sing Solfeggio and play Bach’s minuets from memory. Children can learn music long before learning to read and write. All one needs to do is install Soft Mozart, and an entire class in a public school can manage to learn a few songs – a secondary student at a traditional music school will spend several months on them! And all of this isn’t dependent on an innate music hearing. Music doesn’t require the ear – it develops it. It all just depends on the method.
Piano class in Charter School (San Diego, California)
This is the truth about music. The dream of universal music literacy can soon be realized. The interactivity of the computer, its impartiality and unlimited audio-graphic possibilities have finally overcome the main problem in education, considered inescapable – the separation of hearing, voice, coordination and note reading into separate, unrelated entities. The problem with the development of “musical talent” in beginners no longer exists. Pedagogues can leave repetition alone and occupy themselves with their true work.
Russia, Siberia, teachers are learning Hiner Method.
Trust me, I know how hard it is to realize. The conservative predisposition of teachers from the “old school” will continue to battle for “proper lessons with the teacher” for a long time. If someone’s going to resist new methodology, it will definitely be them.
Dahl University. Lyudmila Novikova holds a seminar on the Method Soft Mozart for future music educators.
It could be that my colleagues are afraid of losing work or the trust of their students. I sincerely hope that they’ll understand that our method doesn’t abolish the teacher – it simply makes the teacher a full-fledged tutor of his student. The only difference is that instead of one student, they’ll be able to teach many, and several times faster than before. The program doesn’t replace the teacher. Instead, it is to be used as a training instrument of true power. Now we can work with both toddlers and adults that may have been “burned” by music schools, and we can guarantee success. And for success, people are always ready to pay more.
Herzen University (St.Petersburg, Russia), Soft Mozart seminar for higher level music educators
Nowadays, I don’t earn my money for time spent, but for the concrete achievements of my students. They have increased, and so has happiness and trust in my lessons. Earning more than before, I know for sure that I have fairly earned every cent.In the program Soft Mozart, early education isn’t separated into performance, Solfeggio, music theory, rhythm, and music literature. All of these components are interrelated and form a united, universal system –what music actually is, after all.
Soft Mozart classes in Art College (Russia)
Having transformed “sciences” into real practice, we have relieved another enormous problem in education – the unbearable burden of incomprehensible words. Think of the “fat tiger!” Incomprehensible words are the result of a break from gradualness. A person can only name that which he can feel and understand. Remember, first passes the sounding-out stage (feeling, seeing, familiarization) and only after that, the stage of rules (naming, calling, understanding). In unpleasant circumstances, words remain unnecessary and abstract, and each time call forth confusion and rejection, a feeling of nonsense and at times, even a headache! “Theorization” of skills, in essence, causes the pedagogy to crush the psyche. Relieving this frightening burden, we continue to be surprised at how quickly and happily our beginners learn music.
TV news from Cherepovets, Russia about Soft Mozart in piano class of the State Music School
The more sensory organs participate in learning a new skill, the more neurons are grouped together that are responsible for it. In contrast to “single channels,” these universal “matrixes of behavior” are solid and active. Our program adds all that is necessary in making music with the muscles and sensory organs to work – except the legs. Pedals should only be included in the lesson when reading no longer occupies all of the student’s attention. The program takes this gradualness into account. While developing skills, we try to attach them in a thought-out and adequately balanced proportion.
Pianist and vice-dean of the Madrid Conservatory, Victoria Lopez with a young student. 2008
I am convinced that this type of work is essential to all music education. I hope that my discoveries will change our future for the better. They will certainly help new generations of educators. Of course, the current version of the methodology is only the beginning. The program and the method will continue to be perfected, will become even more effective, and will adapt to the particularities of different countries. And music will become what it needs to be – the simple and universal language of our planet.
Sincerely yours,
Hellene Hiner