FLUENCY & FREEDOM
THROUGH DAILY CREATIVE PLAY ON PIANO
sparked by Paris
🤍
Life, Love, Art,
& Café Culture
BONJOUR & BIENVENUE—
MUSIC MAKER & DREAMER OF CREATIVE DREAMS
MUSICAL FLUENCY IS YOUR PASSPORT TO
UNDERSTANDING THE MUSIC YOU LISTEN TO, LEARN,
PLAY, & CREATE
PLAYING AND IMPROVISING WITH COOL CONFIDENCE & EASE IN EVERY KEY
CONNECTING WITH AND CULTIVATING YOUR INNER WORLD & MUSICAL VOICE
MAKING NEW MUSIC MAGIC EVERY DAY IN YOUR HOME & YOUR LIFE
Whatever your musical dreams are,
and wherever you are on your path to realizing them,
Internalizing the language of music
through creative exploration on the piano
will transform your musical life—for Life.
YES, MUSIC IS A LANGUAGE.
And it is made from simple elements we have all
experienced and responded to
since before birth.
Yet it is common
for musicians, at all levels,
with years, or even decades, of formal musical training
(or years of learning on apps or youtube),
to lack the practical understanding of harmony
to just sit down
at their instrument
and express a simple thought or feeling,
instantaneously, and without apology.
To just play.
The way we do with words.
When we just — talk.
As a human,
there is music in you.
Just as there are infinite thoughts and ideas in you,
There is infinite music in you.
And you are meant to express, and connect with, yourself musically.
Daily.
With your very own musical thoughts.
Not on a stage.
Not to impress your friends or family.
For you. To connect you, with you.
Wow.
HOWEVER:
As the music education culture largely consists of teaching music through and for the purpose of,
ultimately, reciting other people's musical creations,
music making feels like a spectator sport,
even when we are totally alone.
For many of us, learning music, or just living, in a performance-driven culture causes us to diminish
our original musical utterances, judging them as silly or childlike.
Often, we hold back, or choose silence.
Even when we are alone.
We end up sticking to the script—other people's musical ideas.
But this is not
what music was made for.
Just as learning to perfectly recite Shakespeare sonnets
or lines from The Tempest
is not what language was made for.
These are worthy pursuits you can take on if you like.
But if you aren't fluent in English yet,
these won't just feel impossibly frustrating,
Shakespeare's genius will be lost on you.
The wordplay, meaningless.
And no amount of decoding and tediously memorizing
even more Shakespeare
will result in your fluency in English.
(Alack.)
But what it can do—
is make you feel like learning and understanding English
is insurmountable, something that will always evade you,
forever out of your reach.
Something other people just seem to get, almost effortlessly,
but you...just don't.
CONSIDER THIS:
In Language,
you are considered fluent when you are able to freely and clearly express your original thoughts and—equally—understand what you hear when you are spoken to,
and respond easily.
Spontaneously & with zero hesitation or googling!
And with Music,
also, you are fluent when you can express your original musical thoughts cohesively with ease, and, equally, easily understand the music you hear and how the
musical elements are organized to communicate meaning and emotion.
Also—on the spot—no hesitation, googling, or cheat sheets.
(And it is NO big secret: it's all numbers!)
To become fluent in language,
one needs:
repeated exposure to real, relevant, comprehensible language with
time & space
to absorb, ponder, experiment and PLAY creatively with the language,
expressing thoughts, feelings, and desires
without scrutiny or pressure to perform or say anything profound
within a living, breathing, authentic, and responsive environment.
This is the experience
language educators strive to create to foster
real-world fluency in second language learners.
(yes, I used to teach language, in case that’s not obvious.)
Does this sound like the learning environment of your childhood music lessons?
Or your children's now?
Is this what your daily music making in your home feels like?
And, if you teach music, does it feel like this in the space your create
for those in your care?
These are questions I have asked myself, and that, for two decades, have haunted me, and for which I have taken myself to task to reconcile in my music teaching studio, in my home life with my child (now 15), and in my own musical trajectory.
Hi! I'm Hollie.
The Paris Creative Piano Café is the continuation of my Austin, Texas independent piano studio, and is also the confluence of my lifetime of experiences and experimentation (so far) as a composer, classical and pop pianist and as both an English language and music educator for the past 30 years.
When I opened my piano studio in 2003, after having taught Intensive English to international students at the University of Texas for many years, I knew my experiences with crafting language learning environments would help me make the creative music studio I knew should exist, but never dreamed of how much. Having raised several generations of young musicians over 2 decades continually challenged my skills and creativity as I increasingly sought to give them the fluency and freedom I had, alone at my piano, developed before I had ever had my first real piano lesson, that had empowered me to venture into all kinds of quirky music making collaborations with confidence.
As my work with my curious and creative students transformed me year by year, I learned over and over that the way to teach is not to teach at all. And I let go, they were able to grow their own independent musicianship, and forge their own musical paths in ways that continue to surprise and delight me.
Below you can explore what I am concocting now going forward, which will be in a laboratory of sorts, and also beta for about the next 5 years (I mean how else can one go about it?), and if you want to jump in, I invite you to join us!
Welcome to the très nouveau
Daily exploration and creative play on piano,
in every key, for everyone.
Slowly, artfully, & delectably!
for as many years as you like!
FIRST THINGS FIRST:
ABOUT PARIS CAFÉ CULTURE
historically, & as une métaphore parfaite (a perfect metaphor!)
Since their emergence in the 17th century, Paris Cafés have evolved as places to think, connect with others and exchange ideas, and equally connect with oneself, observe and reflect on life, art, culture, the world, plot revolutions, and, of course, nourish body and soul with hot food and one's creative mind with coffee!
By adopting the Paris café culture and the role it plays in Parisian daily life as a model and metaphor, the Paris Creative Piano Café's mission is not just to grow and deepen your understanding of music, but also to transform your relationship to how it feels to simply be at the piano, exploring harmony, with curiosity similar to how you might also wander the streets of Paris on a sunny spring afternoon with no destination in mind, and in no hurry to be anywhere else in the whole world.
Whichever way you go, you find something beautiful or intriguing you had never noticed before. (Like your next Paris Café crush).
And through this, learn music from the inside out. (And Paris, too!).
What
the Paris Creative Piano Café
is exactly. And why.
The Paris Creative Piano Café is an vibrant, responsive online piano studio where you can develop your chord fluency as well as explore your musical voice and thoughts on piano, the way you first developed language fluency:
naturally, slowly, expressively,
with time to tinker, ponder, and explore freelymaking your daily life a culture of music making joy.
Through rich, meaningful and authentic musical offerings on the "menu" (daily creative challenges), the relationships and connections between the chords in the context of each and every major and minor key are internalized.
So that—in your life, no matter how you encounter or learn music—by listening, reading notation, playing from chord charts, or even making it up yourself—you can unlock it, get inside of it, and it can then become part of your ever-expanding inner musical universe. Your own harmonic language, your musical voice, will emerge.
(Am I exaggerating, or romanticizing?
No. This is music I’m talking about. Big magic.)
What this isn't.
The Paris Creative Piano Cafe offers:
No copycat, "watch me and learn", playing.
No chord hacks or cheat sheets.
There is also no music notation or roman numeral analysis.
Also, there will be not even be any circle of fifths chart "showing" you which chords are in a key.
It dose not offer pre-made/pre-recorded/self-study classes lessons, or courses.
Au Contraire—
everything in the Paris Creative Piano Café is crafted daily and weekly,
in collaboration with your own creativity, questions, ideas, and thoughts, the seasons, the weather and Paris itself.
Mais bien sûr!
This is modeled after a Paris Café, after all!
No Costco danishes (or music classes) here.
No! Instead:
Viennoiseries baked early in the morning
while you and yours were still in dreamland!
Is it a drizzly day in Paris?
Then our piano day will be extra cozy.
You will daily grow your understanding of harmony, your piano skills,
and your ability to understand the music you hear,
by
LISTENING
exploring, wondering about, experimenting with, playing, playing with, and creating
MUSIC
connecting what you hear to what your hands play.
(Notice how I am saying "you" and "your" a lot here.
Ultimately, to gain freedom and fluency, you have to declare your independence—
against reliance on being shown and told what to play.
Put away the maps, the apps, and take a long walk daily with your ears and mind wide open!)
How it works.
YEARLY
Each year, in the Paris Creative Piano Cafe,
we will travel around the Circle of Fifths
through every major and minor key,
each paired with one arrondissement of Paris!
(Generally: Flat keys in Fall/Winter, Sharp keys in Spring/Summer).
This gives us time to hang out in each key (and neighborhood) for two weeks
(with room for a few holiday side quests that might entice us off our path!)
FORTNIGHTLY
The Café offers a balanced "menu" of
structured and open, creative play and challenges across the 2 weeks we spend in each key to progressively
help you build your fluency and ease in your hands, mind, and ears.
This Café also features our own private social space (not a facebook group) where you can connect with fellow café patrons if you like, and also ask me or anyone questions or just share something cool you discovered, day or night.
PLEASE TAKE NOTE:
The Paris Creative not a SCHOOL, ACADEMY, or
INSTITUTION OF EDUCATIONAL INSTRUCTION.
It is a CAFÉ!
You can come, nourish, caffeine up, sit and stay, or grab and go.
There is not a wall of daily classes you need to attend to build your fluency,
but instead, one weekly lab and creative weekday short challenges,
with fun weekend specials to excite & entice your musical imagination!
No overwhelm, no "practice plan" to make sure you are "using your time at the piano effectively".
Come and play.
With time and space, you will find new things you never realized about music, and about yourself.
This is how we learn.
Here you may view
The Basic Fortnightly Menu
which will grow and evolve without doubt.
Times listed are Austin/CDT, but more can be added if this means you can only attend the Monday Labs at 3AM.
WHEN YOU POSSESS MUSICAL FLUENCY
THE RESULTS
ARE LIFELONG.
And you have a long, beautiful, musical life to live!
Everything gets easier.
When you easily understand the music you listen to and play, and how it is constructed — it's thrilling!
From Bach to jazz and pop, everything is crafted with chords within a certain key, at the core, and it is a great WEATLH in life to be able to explore the creative minds of music makers, and to be able to trace their steps and follow their trains of thought.
Again, am I romanticizing? No, I contend, there is no greater romance than this.
Everything locks into place when chords are at your command.
You will start to "just know" things.
What is called "boring" or complex by some, music theory comes alive when you internalize it as you create and play with music in each key. Things like:
- what sharps and flats each key has
- what chords belong innately t each key
- chord symbols.
- what the underlying chord progression is in the music you are playing and listening to (in numbers!), as you start to hear, predict, and play, without having to think
- what is happening when a chord pops up that is NOT part of the key in that Beatles song, or Bach Prelude. (it's not random!)
- how to transpose the right way
- how playing and thinking in each key feels, like when you learn a language and your thoughts AND YOUR DREAMS start shifting to your new language.
All of these results will happen organically as you explore music truly as a language. But,
THE TRUEST THING I CAN SAY IS
MUSIC WILL BUBBLE UP
INSIDE YOU.
As we open up to our creativity, as I said, big magic is waiting. It's already inside of you.
When you have clear KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING of music within you,
your battle station becomes fully operational.
Your imagination and the opportunities that it brings are not limited when music doesn't seem hard to understand.
You can take on unexpected musical paths with confidence.
I've never once had any teacher (music or otherwise) talk exactly about creativity or music like this,
(it is always about mechanics, practice, and the fastest path to technical accomplishment--all external and measurable. Testable).
But I am here to talk about it, explore it,
and to experience profound and fantastical music making with you.
I am making the Paris Creative Piano Café for this purpose.
Count Me In!
LOVE FROM
STUDENTS & COLLABORATORS
CHELSEA SMOCK
Hollie is an absolute genius with all ages.
She understands deeply
pedagogy, technique, theory, child development, art, craft, discipline and fun.
She mixes all these elements together into an experience that
draws forth pure magic.
SARAH TEALE
Louis would sit at the piano for several hours a day tinkering with how different notes and chords sounded.
It wasn’t long before we traded our old piano for a better one because his playing was quickly becoming the soundtrack of our family’s life, and the quality of his creations were outpacing the quality of his instrument.
Because of Hollie, Louis will grow up not only knowing how to play music, but what it looks like to be a creator and a lover of music for the rest of his life.
ROBERT HARRISON
COTTON MATHER | FUTURE CLOUDS & RADAR
I met Hollie when she joined my band Future Clouds and Radar in 2006.
Straight away, she set the standard for what I wanted henceforth in collaborators.
Her knowledge of music is surpassed only by her enthusiasm for it.
I doubt I’ve met anyone in my life who loves music more--or is more the committed to sharing it.
I invite you!
OPENING
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2024
Follow your curiosity. Let music fuel your life!
Feed your soul. DAILY.
(as you rock every chord in every key & grow your musicianship exponentially)
NOTE FROM HOLLIE
This is not a membership, but it does happen responsively in real time, live, with me and a vibrant private community of creative music makers. If you join anytime in this first year (2024) you receive lifetime access to the café, as it grows and changes for many years to come.
(It will always be in “beta”; always adapting) .
Life is busy, and I want you to always be able to drop in and make music,
and not feel like you need to "pause" a subscription until you have more time.
You are always welcome. You won't be behind.
If this program and the approach to learning music is not a fit for you at this time,
let me know within 7 days of purchase,
and you will receive 100% of your money back. No questions asked!
YOU CAN TRY THIS
Spontaneous Weekend Music Brief Example
RIGHT NOW
As I write this, it is Fashion Week in Paris! Hmm…I just got a text from my connections there at the House of Dior, and they need a 30-second pensive/hypnotic piano spot for the ending of their runway show, using the same 3-chord loop (A minor, F, E) as the pulsating synth dance music that opens the show.
Are you in? Can you come up with something?
P.S. These in the photo are not actually Fall 2024 designs,
which I was underwhelmed by, tbh.
Look it up and see if you agree.
QUESTIONS?
What ages is this class for? Is it for children or adults, or both?
In this program, are we learning just the basic chords, or jazz chords?
What musical level should I be at in order to do this?
So what's so wrong with learning music by reading, or by watching someone and copying? Everyone has different kinds of brains.
Do you actually live in Paris, or is it just a dream?
MUSIC
(like Paris, and even more so)
IS A MOVEABLE FEAST.
Hemingway (altered slightly by me, with permission, of course)
Music is meant to feed and fuel your soul, imagination, and your life, daily.
And not just as a consumer/spectator of other people's music making.
It was made for you.
And I invite you to STOP starving yourself.
(Like, stop getting by on mass-produced fast food, musically.)
YOU HAVE TIME
to develop your musical understanding AND your connection with your creativity,
as you grow your piano skills.
Once you possess chord fluency,
you can truly go any musical direction you dream of, freely.
The PARIS CREATIVE PIANO CAFÉ is here for you!
I can't wait to hear the music you make.
xo, Hollie
