Meaning Based Teaching: Engaging the Heart with Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose

Over two decades ago, my wife, Wendy, and I saw that traditional music teaching wasn't serving our students' needs. In particular, we recognized that the private lesson model of going to the teacher's house, practicing at home and playing in a recital once or twice a year just wasn't providing the deeply meaningful experiences that we ourselves had appreciated in college and our musical careers. This is exactly why we started Orpheus!​

According to self-determination theory, the three most powerful motivators in human learning are:
1. Autonomy
2. Mastery
​3. Purpose
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​Unfortunately, most traditional music lessons fall short on all three. ​

1. Autonomy: The ability to make meaningful choices in your educational experience.

At Orpheus, we have built a one-of-a-kind educational and motivational system called the Musical Journey. At the heart of this process is the opportunity for each child to select a musical project that is deeply personal and meaningful to them. Recent examples have run the gamut from a benefit concert, to performance videos accompanying family vacation photos, to a set of musical clues that unlock an online "escape room" where the player gets to hear a performance every time they solve a mystery! 

While many motivational systems exist, others in music unfortunately tend to be extremely standardized and not at all customizable: Go in front of a judge and play a set of scales and predetermined pieces only to receive a certificate in the mail a few weeks later. 

2. ​Mastery: The ability to perform a skill to an objective standard and experience a flow state that results from high levels of skill.

In traditional lessons, the approach of learning to read music first and then translating those symbols into actions (push down this key for this long) tends to result in a very long period of mechanical, disjointed and unmusical experiences until finally, after many many years, the student is able to piece these actions into an actual piece of music.

​At Orpheus we use a sound-to-symbol approach called the Kodaly method in which the student immediately begins making music with their whole body and then translates those experiences onto their instrument. Only when they themselves have experienced mastery of the song, the sound concept and the technique do we have them translate that into music notation. In this way, students master both the music and the ability to read music without having to needlessly struggle through years of unmusical performances.

3. Purpose: The "why" behind the learning objective.

Purpose is something that seems woefully lacking in much of education these days. Instead, the "one day you'll thank me" approach predominates with activities from endless scales, to theory books and beyond. At Orpheus, we not only make each lesson immediately useful in playing music the student loves but also provide opportunities for deeply purposeful musical experiences. A few of these include:

• Theo's Practice-a-thon: A motivational practice experience in which students share their practice goals with friends and family in order to raise money to fight pediatric cancer. To date, we have raised over $30,000 for the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation!
• Multiple Ensemble Opportunities: Students love playing with their peers! Having a band or ensemble to prepare with gives students a powerful reason to practice and an even more powerful sense of reward when they accomplish a major performance together with their friends.
• Group Musicianship Classes: Learning the essentials of ear-training, rhythm, theory, ensemble playing and more in a fun group setting with kids your own age can be an exciting and transformative experience! By relating these normally dry topics to the goal of making music together, students find purpose in what they are learning and are extremely motivated to do well both in their home practice and on the stage.

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These approaches to learning didn't happen by accident at Orpheus. When we first opened our school 23 years ago, we deliberately sought out the top experts in music education in Texas and around the world to join our faculty and advise us in the creation of our curriculum. As a result, everything we teach is founded on research-based approaches that lead to joyful learning experiences for the student, the teachers and the parents alike!

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Dr. Klondike Steadman

Dr. Steadman is the executive director and co-founder of Orpheus Academy of music with his wife, Wendy Kuo. In addition to teaching guitar at Orpheus, he is the father to a teenage daughter,  who is also an accomplished musician. He has authored several books including The Complete Guitar and The Complete Guitar For the Older Beginner, as well as Loving Practice, Developing Discipline. In his spare time he enjoys spending time with his family, playing tennis, and hiking with their corgi dog, Momo.