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Join "Simply Music Live!" as author/editor, Bernadette Ashby, of A World Where Everyone Plays shares her excitement about her newly released book - a collection of inspirational breakthrough stories and impossible dreams that have come true through the medium of music and piano playing.

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A World Where Everyone Plays.  What would that look like?  What does that mean?   How would it change us?  “World” and “everyone” is all encompassing – all human beings.  “Plays” insinuates action.  Am I saying that every single human being should become piano players?  Play a musical instrument?  That would be an ideal world, but, alas, we don’t live in a perfect world.  But there is a way…

When they find out that I’m a piano teacher, most adults say, “Oh, I took piano lessons as a kid…but I hated doing scales…It was boring…It wasn’t fun.”  Occasionally, I’ll run into a person that still plays mostly as a hobby.    By my estimates, one out of ten people I meet continue playing the piano from childhood.  This average tells a “story”.  The irony of it all is that many parents who have taken lessons as a child, despite their failures, insist that their children take lessons.  Why?  Because they understand the intrinsic value that music can bring into their very lives – how it can form character, increase intellect, and lay a foundation for so many skills.   Unfortunately, the “story” that is being told is that piano lessons are not working.  Too many students become a piano dropout. 

Perhaps, a new approach is needed; one that could ‘rock’ the piano world. A method that is so simple, that it’s confounding the current system, an approach that is so much fun that it is attracting thousands of students around the world.  A system that is so powerful that it not only can teach you how to play the piano easily but also change a life; reaching for impossibilities, creating breakthroughs, and making dreams come true.   

Music is such a wonderful conduit for so many things.  Taking lessons teaches us the values of discipline, perseverance, and excellence.  Music can touch our souls in ways nothing else can.  And through music we can enter into another world ‒ a world of creativity, passion, exploration, discovery, and joy in learning.  Through music as an art form, we can truly express what’s inside of us – contribute to the world in such a way that we can affect change – a fulfillment of the fundamental need to express ourselves.  So the real question at hand may not be “should everyone play?” but, “What would the world look like if we truly expressed ourselves in our own unique way, that which we were meant to do and be?”   Our world would be different.

The world needs more individuals that are self-expressed.  Self-expressed people are a creative people, dynamic in culture.  They are critical-thinkers, problem-solvers, trouble-shooters, contributors to the greater good.  Self-expression creates generations of inventors, designers, entrepreneurs, consultants, engineers, leaders, analysts, pioneers in their field, etc.  A self-expressed culture applies creative solutions to any problem.  Our jobs and tasks are seen rather as a love than obligations because we are working within the realm of that which we were created for.

Self-expression is an inherent need for all human beings.  It gives us purpose because we are living within our calling.  It gives us joy because we are fulfilled.  Without it, life can feel meaningless, empty – like the office worker who goes through life day in and day out, or the mom who longs for more than picking up after her family, or the student who is absorbed in the rigors of academia, or the CEO who is tired of the rat race.  Life is habitual, automatic; it takes its daily course for years.  Where in life does a person like this have an opportunity to invent, create, or design?  Where are they allowed to pursue and express their passions so they can make the world a better place?

In a consumer culture, music is not owned by us; music is done to us.  The onset of technology has contributed to this.  When the radio entered the world, all of a sudden, we could take music anywhere with us – in the kitchen, in our automobiles, at work.  However, it also limited our musical activity because it initiated the move away from making music.  The plethora of ipods, mp3s, and musical mediums proves this. 

On the contrary, the ability to produce empowers us, encourages us, and gives us life.  By giving people a venue to become self-expressed, it just may be the spark to awaken them to the potential within.  And that spark cannot help but grow and translate into other areas because of the confidence it gives.  It cannot help but affect work and relationships.  It can change us for the better. 

Through music, this is possible.  Through the right approach, it’s achievable.  Through the right system, it’s doable.  Through a method where “everyone can play”, the world can be a different place.  Given the right tools, abilities, and attitudes, where there is a safe environment of freedom and creativity, no judgment, a place where students can explore and learn from their failures, where success is experienced, and where learning is fun, we can tell the untold “story”.  Here are some of them.

                                                               Bernadette E. Ashby

                                                               August 2010