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In this post, I interview Jarred about his love of Chopin. Jarred is known as a Chopin expert, and in 2018 was the First Prize and Concerto Award winner of the prestigious Lithuanian International Chopin Competition (Vilnius).

What was the highest point in your musical life so far?

There are many! One great moment of my life was when I played at the Chopin museum in Warsaw. I love playing concertos with orchestras. Winning the Lithuanian Chopin Competition meant I had a year of traveling for concerts and teaching master classes. Moving to Poland from New York, two places I had always dreamed of studying, and studying with great teachers. Any opportunity to make a choice that develops who I am and deepens my contact with art is a high point. My whole career feels like a high point because I still can’t believe this is all happening.

I know you perform many different composers’ works, but let’s focus on Chopin for a moment. This is where it all began for you, isn’t it? Why Chopin?

When I first played Chopin, yes. This was the beginning of my musical life. When I perform Chopin, it feels like I just took off my hat and my coat, and I am home: everything is as it should be. When I teach Chopin, it’s never enough, I have always something to add to what my student plays. I love to read about Chopin, yet I know I will never really know anything about him. It’s intriguing: Chopin was an introvert, yet so extroverted about his love of the piano, and only allowed himself (so it seems) to be understood through the music he composed.

Did you come to an even deeper understanding of Chopin’s music by living in Poland?

Yes, of the mazurkas specifically.

If you could have the chance to ask Chopin himself one question, what would it be?

Just one? Explain yourself, Chopin: would you please play for me every piece you composed?

Do you have a favourite Chopin interpreter?

No. It constantly changes. Argerich, Zimerman, Richter, Ashkenazy, Lugansky, João-Pires, Horowitz, Blechacz, Lhevinne, Rubinstein. Popowa-Zydroń is my favourite right now. She interprets Chopin so personally and makes very intimate moments without becoming sentimental.

What is your favourite Chopin piece to play?

That’s truly impossible, but right now it’s Polonaise-Fantaisie.

Listen to?

Today it is Chopin’s F-sharp minor Polonaise, although 20 other titles just flashed through my mind.

Watch a performance of?

Chopin études. They are so spectacular. It’s interesting to watch different people play them, to see the different movements people use.

Check out Jarred playing the Polonaise-Fantaisie!

In 2014, I spent about six months trying to get back into serious practicing after a five-year lull. I needed more than just determination. I needed inspiration.

During this time, a colleague sent me an email about an open lesson with Jarred Dunn. (An open lesson is when there is an opportunity for an audience to watch someone’s piano lesson.) Jarred was introduced as a Chopin expert, so immediately I was intrigued. Jarred would be teaching a high-level student that had always impressed me. I needed to see this.

The lesson was two hours long, but the time flew by. I was completely taken away by Jarred’s understanding and love of the music, his incredible ear, and his ability to demonstrate such difficult pieces so easily. I guess you could say I was a little star-struck.

After the class, Jarred invited many of us to a teacher workshop he was holding the following month. I was a little nervous in accepting- the schedule and the cost of it were more than I had anticipated. But going to that workshop changed my life. I met some really great piano teachers in the area, and all of us were just amazed by Jarred. It had been a very long time since I felt so inspired!

So, of course, I inquired about private lessons. I had a couple of lessons with my new teacher that summer before Jarred took off for Europe.

I had my first Skype lesson with him that fall. I was pretty skeptical about online lessons, but it turned out to be great. I could continue to study with this amazing teacher who was halfway across the world, furthering his music studies — far beyond what I would ever be capable of doing. I’m even more thankful now that I decided to pursue online lessons with him. It prepared me for teaching during this COVID-19 pandemic since all lessons need to be taught online. I know a lot of music teachers have struggled with this change, but I’ve had plenty of time to adapt, thanks to Jarred.

I was Jarred’s studio assistant for two years and worked closely with him to organize his schedule, master classes and workshops. It was one of the busiest times in my adult life. Jarred lives and breathes classical music. He continually undertakes an incredible workload, and never shows any signs of slowing down. He reads more academic books in a summer than I have probably read in my lifetime and has a naturally eloquent manner about him. The music he’s capable of playing, and regularly performs, makes the difficult repertoire I am learning look easy. As a performer, Jarred has this fascinating ability to transport his audience to another world.

I’m sure most of you have heard the saying ‘when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.’ This is exactly what happened to me with Jarred. I still can’t believe how lucky I am that he was the teacher who appeared.

That open lesson in 2014, opened the door to the next chapter of my piano life. As you can see, Jarred Dunn is an important player in my musical journey. Over the next five blog posts, I would like you to get to know him a little better, so I’ll be sharing an interview I did with him a little while ago.

In the meantime, take a look at the video below of Jarred playing…..

One of the things students first learn is pitch. It’s about training their ear to notice the different sounds that different notes make. Some kids are naturally musical, and they can pick out notes by ear quite quickly and easily. Other kids need more help.

I might use the Blob Chorus for about 3-5 minutes in some lessons. The Blob Chorus is a tool that helps children identify pitch. It’s a game where there are a few blobs, and each sings a note.  After all the regular blobs have sang their notes, the Blob King sings a note. Children then pick which regular blob sang the same note as the king. If they get it right, they’re presented with new blobs singing new notes. If they get it wrong – the blob they picked explodes!

Here’s something I’ve noticed – most of the boys love, love, love this app. I have one student who is not quite 4. He’s the type of kid who is just happy all the time, always smiling. Always excited for his lessons. But he is a prime example of a little boy who just looooooves the Blob Chorus. Some girls, on the other hand, are actually afraid when the blob explodes! I get it – it’s a bit sudden, (although I kind of love it)!

For kids that are really good at identifying pitch, I can adjust the app to a higher degree of difficulty – more blobs singing notes more closely together. For children that don’t quite have an affinity for pitch, we can start easier – maybe only two blob choices. 

It’s a great tool to help kids learn about pitch, but also one that I can adapt to each child’s level. We only use it for a few minutes at a time – I don’t want piano lessons to become about screen time! But because it’s a game, because it’s an app, and because it’s cartoony… it has become a great teaching tool. 

When you’re teaching pre-schoolers you need to have energy. Especially for those kids with a lot of energy. You know the ones…they want to jump from activity to activity. You need the energy because you have to keep up with them! But I also want to show them that music, and the piano specifically, is super exciting!

No matter what age you are when you begin learning, there is so much to learn. Pre-schoolers in particular though, are learning SO much and SO fast! But they haven’t yet developed the fine motor skills necessary to be a pianist. So at the start, I don’t teach them to read music or teach them piano technique – I teach them ABOUT music.

One of the things that I work on with students is rhythm. Rhythm is an important part of music. Some might say the most important part. Sometimes I have the students clap along to a piece of music, press down random keys on the piano in time with a song, or use rhythm instruments such as tambourines. Other times they get to march around the room in time to the music. For those high-energy kids, marching is a great way to keep them engaged!

Having kids move around while learning works especially well when I notice that the child might have just a little too much energy in their ‘engine’. (For more information on the self-regulation engine alert theory, check out this CBC radio documentary at https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/how-does-your-engine-run-documentary-1.2445082).

Here’s another perk of teaching children rhythm – children who aren’t naturally musical, or those that struggle with pitch, can pick up rhythm and see themselves do well. Rhythm is innate, which means we are born with it. It doesn’t need to be taught, it needs to be developed. 

Giving children a way to succeed is always a good way to keep them engaged and allow them the chance to enjoy learning piano!

At what age should you begin? I think 4 years old is a good age to start. Kids are really starting to pick things up… they’re learning their alphabet and numbers, some are able to tell right from left, and they’re all in school by this age. This past school year (pre-pandemic), I spent one day a week teaching at Meadow Creek Montsssori school here in Barrie, so some of my students were actually as young as 3.5 years old. 

This is young. Some of them seem super young. And most kids that age come with a lot of energy. 

Excited Energy 

Scared Energy

Shy Energy

Super Star Energy

Hyper Energy

To be a good piano teacher, I need to be able to adapt to each child. 

Recently I was teaching a shy little girl, which wasn’t something new to me. We’d had a few lessons together and she’d always seemed quietly wary. But one day, this little 5-year-old just seemed overly anxious. She didn’t want to speak at all. Didn’t want to play. Didn’t even want to just listen to a song from a CD. And halfway through the lesson, she looked liked she wanted to cry. 

She just seemed so overwhelmed.

Piano lessons aren’t meant to be traumatic. 

So, on rare occasions, I have call it a day. In this case, I ended the lesson early. It’s a half hour lesson – so she only got 15 minutes of teaching… or another way of looking at it is that she only missed 15 minutes of teaching.

I really don’t like to do this. One of the things that piano lessons teaches children is commitment. The routine of weekly lessons. The discipline to practice at home. The experience of learning something new.

But in this case… continuing that day’s lesson wasn’t beneficial for the student. In fact, it had the potential of damaging her relationship with music lessons all together. 

Just like many of us, kids have good days and bad days. And of course (as almost always seems to be the case), the next week was a different story. The little girl came to class, still shy. Still quiet. But now she was engaged and even interested in her piano lessons; way more than she’d been for the previous two months before.

She wasn’t jumping up and down, but questions were being answered. One-word answers mind you, but still she answered. And when I asked her to play some notes – she did. 

Sometimes a child may be overwhelmed by other things… and piano lessons are just one more thing where they feel like they don’t have control. The simple act of letting her out early told this child that she wasn’t being forced into something. She had freedom. 

And when she returned the next week – she gave herself the freedom to learn and enjoy it.

My name is Tasi Glass and I’m a piano teacher with 17 years of full time teaching experience. I have both my Teacher’s A.R.C.T. and Performer’s A.R.C.T. from the Royal Conservatory of Music, and I love piano and teaching!!

Now when I say I love the piano – I really do mean it. As a child I was a competitive gymnast, but doing both piano and gymnastics took up too much time and I eventually had to choose between the two. While I did love flipping around – I loved playing the piano more. 

I do spend a lot of time teaching piano – but I also love practicing and improving my own abilities. Here’s a confession – I sometimes judge if activities with people are worth giving up practicing the piano for… not everyone or every event makes the cut. 

I’ve taught around the GTA, but in the summer of 2019 moved to Barrie and am enjoying being part of the community. Things have changed drastically this past year, dealing with Covid-19, but I have been using this time to build my business and skills behind the scenes. 

I’ll be blogging to muse about life as a piano teacher and performer.

If you’re interested in piano and/or theory lessons, a solo performance, an accompanist, or if you’re even just looking for a duet partner, you can contact me at: [email protected]