There Are No Shortcuts

Before every GRM student show, I make the same speech to our students. First, I congratulate them-- they've done all the hard work already, the performance is just icing on the cake! I tell them that we are not here for perfection or excellence, rather we are here to celebrate their hard work. Finally, I remind them that, as musicians, this show is just one of many performances they will have over the course of their life, just one more chance to try something new, to push themselves, to be brave.

Our goal is not to make contest winners, score achievers, or professionals. Our goal is to make musicians. Music, after all, is just something you do. It's a natural human urge and the process of learning to do it better over time is something to be enjoyed... savored, even!

Other schools, it seems, don't have quite the same goal. Back in May, 60 Minutes ran a story about a piano studio out in Seattle called Payam Music that is "making music education fun and accessible for kids." I thought, well that's great, we could use more of this in the world! More musicians, more pianists, and more music in the world is a great thing.

However, as I watched the rest of the piece, I took issue with a few things.

The Basics

Payam Music is a Seattle-based piano studio founded by Payam Khastkhodaei. The CEO is Hadi Partovi, co-founder of code.org, and their investor list reads like a Silicon Valley highlight reel: Hans Zimmer, Mark Cuban, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Cloudflare co-founder Michelle Zatlyn, and Dropbox CEO Drew Houston.

Their pitch? Most kids taking piano lessons hate them, 80% quit within a year, and Khastkhodaei has cracked the code: getting students to "diploma-level" playing in four years instead of the traditional twelve, producing award-winning pianists along the way.

The Issue(s)

While I have a ton to say about all of this, I am not going to bother litigating everything that was said in the 60 Minutes piece or is claimed by the founder or CEO. There are a couple of folks who have already done a very thorough job of this.

Instead, I will focus on a couple of the central tenets mentioned in the piece.

"Most Kids Taking Piano Lessons Don't Like Them"

The 60 Minutes piece starts by the reporter saying, "It's a fairly safe bet that most kids taking piano lessons don't like them."

Presumably the reporter took a cue from Payam Music's website/messaging, the Our Story section of which states in huge letters "We know what it’s like to quit piano" then goes on, "Our founder Payam Khastkhodaei lost his passion for piano as a child, but while at university he stumbled into a new way of teaching piano inspired by his study of language and developmental psychology."

The issue here is that quitting piano is not a problem. Nor is not liking piano lessons. There is no evidence to support either of these ideas. So why push so hard on these?

Well, the 60 Minutes piece reads less like a news story and more like an advertisement. A pitch. And every good business pitch starts with a problem statement. The bigger and more relatable the problem, the more convincing the pitch will be.

But what happens when you don't have a good problem statement? Well, in the case of Payam Music, you make one up! You create a problem where there isn't one, you over-exaggerate an existing, but small, problem, or you create a sense of scarcity where one does not exist.

Ultimately, I don't have a problem with Payam trying to promote itself. What I do have a problem with is this paper-thin problem they're claiming to solve. They're weaving a false narrative that is trying to convince people, who otherwise might be taking piano lessons from a real studio, that they have solved "it." They've cracked the code that the huge masses of piano teachers and studios out there just don't understand.

In fact, this whole "most kids taking piano lessons don't like them" idea sounds A LOT like the nonsense the Suno CEO was spouting about "the majority of people don't enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music".

Starting from a false premise is deceptive at best and borders on fraudulent at worst. It's a straw man argument.

Get Rich Quick

In describing how Payam Music is different, Khastkhodaei says:

"In piano we have this thing called the diploma, which is sort of like the black belt of the musical world...Traditionally, about 1-2% of students reach diploma level, and it takes them about 12 years. In our school, 96% reach it and it takes them about four years."

Immediately this sounds like every fad diet and get-rich-quick scheme you've ever heard of. "There's this thing out there that's really hard to achieve, but we've figured out how to make it easy! In just 4 easy installments/years, you too can have your very own diploma!"

Putting aside the greasy sales tactic, the real problem here is this achievement carrot that is being dangled in front of customers. It is great and amazing and wonderful if a student earns their ABRSM diploma or gets a perfect score at NYSSMA or does anything that shows how hard they've worked at something.

But using this idea of achievement, excellence, or mastery as the primary reason to take piano lessons or as your differentiator as a piano studio is missing the whole point. It sets up this idea that piano (or music in general) is a game to beat or a contest to win. It reduces music to a bullet point on a resume.

Just Do It

Lots of people play music. Lots of people take piano lessons and other music lessons. Some of them stop. It happens. Why do they stop? One reason, from what I've seen, is that people start out with the wrong idea. Ideas like the ones that Payam Music and their tech-bro CEO/investors are promoting: music is a contest, a test, a game to beat, a checkbox... This often leads to apathy, burnout, and eventually, abandonment.

Here's my take: music is just something you do. Yes, there are skills and techniques and advancement. But it never stops. You don't earn some piece of paper or finish some performance and then get to say "I'm a musician!" If you study and practice music, you are a musician. It is who you are.

If you're doing it to earn a diploma or get into college, there's a real risk that once you hit that milestone, once you check that box, you'll just stop. It happens all the time.

We need more musicians, more artists, more art. We need people who continue to learn and practice for the rest of their lives, not to earn something but just for the sake of doing it.