It's all the same thing, though

So I ended yesterday's post with "every time you interact with a Quality teacher, it 1) teaches you something new and 2) you do not forget what you learn," which meant I had to ask myself what it might mean to teach something to someone in a way that was, by definition, unforgettable.

And of course I thought of Piragua Guy.

And Marya D.

And all of those bits of musical theater that I had been analyzing over the past month, figuring out when they kept an audience's attention and when they lost it.

And they lose an audience's attention – and you don't need me to tell you this, plenty of people can tell you this – when they present new information without giving the audience an opportunity to process it.

Marya is old-school, a mumble mumble mumble

Something something did they just say "old-school"

Something something they're going too fast

And Andrey isn't here! I know that part!

I need to show you what I'm doing with the King's song in MELISANDE, the shifting of the patter so that the important words fall on downbeats, the pause at the end of every idea. This is how the King thinks – he is very square, he would never deviate from strict 4/4 – which means the song itself is structured appropriately, but I also need you to follow his thought processes, which means that I need to allow both you and the King to generate the next idea at the same time, which probably means MORE PAUSES.

(at this point I know I've lost you, because I've kind of lost myself; can the pauses be a measure long or do they need to be two measures long, do they need underscoring or should they be silent, is there business that happens during the pauses or do we literally see the King think, etc.)

It could also mean combining the more complicated ideas with easier ones, or with a repeated refrain e.g. "I am not throwing away my shot" to give you a chance to catch up, which is what I do with the song in which we explain exponential growth, which is still the one song that Larry thinks is the best song in the show.

AND ALL OF THIS CAN AND SHOULD AND WILL APPLY TO TEACHING, and more specifically to my piano students, and if I can teach myself how to do this in a musical number I can teach myself how to do this in a classroom.

Because it's all the same thing.