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Mark Miller has been teaching Blind and Visually Impaired students to play piano for nearly 20 years. Distance learning is nothing new to Mark Miller and his students as he began teaching through just audio phone calls using his ears. Now with Skype and Video calls, Mark has brought his teaching abilities around the world. Through chord patterns and minimum movement Mark’s students learn songs and music theory.
You can find out more about Mark’s piano lessons and contact him through his web site at: https://blindpianolessons.com
Give him a call or text 847) 401-1721.
Start learning or enhance the skills you already have through Mark’s piano lessons today from the convenience of your own home and a time that works for you. Contact Mark today and bring music into your life.
Contact Your State Services
If you reside in Minnesota, and you would like to know more about Transition Services from State Services contact Pre-ETS Program and Transition Services Manager Sheila Koenig by email or contact her via phone at 651-539-2361.
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Full Transcript
Jeff:
From blindpianolessons.com, meet Mark Miller.
Mark:
It’s so rewarding. I teach a ten-year-old, Louise, she’s completely blind and she’s fantastic. I could teach her 12 hours a day and go home refreshed.
Louise:
My name is Louise. I am 10 years old. I am totally blind and I am going to play “Lean on Me” on the piano.
Jeff:
Check out his website at blindpianolessons.com.
Mark:
Now for free, no obligation, 30 minute lesson. See if it works, but it really does work well. It’s just such a joy for me to bring music to people who wouldn’t ordinarily think they could play.
Jeff:
And now here’s Mark Miller. Hope you enjoy.
Jeff:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson. Today in the studio, we have a teacher of piano, who gives piano lessons to the blind. His name is Mark Miller, and I’m glad to have him on the show. Mark, welcome to Blind Abilities.
Mark:
Thank you very much, Jeff. I’m really glad to be here.
Jeff:
So tell me this. How did you get started or interested in teaching piano lessons to the blind and visually impaired?
Mark:
Sure. Back in the late ‘90s, I thought to myself, you know what, I could send a lead sheet, melody and chords in a PDF form to someone in Russia or China instantly, and if they could read just one note in the treble clef, they could probably learn my system or learn how to play jazz or popular piano. So then my brother turned me on to a telephone company in the late nineties. It was like $2 an hour. I’m like, you know what, this could be something. So my first student was actually from Ramsey, England, and his name was Ron. He was with me seven years, and that was kind of the genesis of it. And then basically, over three or four years, probably in 2003 or ‘04, I got some calls from some blind students and I thought, let me see if I can refine my system here. Basically they couldn’t read notes, and so therefore I had to think about, okay, let’s look for songs that are very patterned, melodies that they know by ear. And so that was kind of the beginning of it. And then of course, you know, the internet took off, Skype became, you know, pretty ubiquitous in maybe 2004 or ‘05, so I could see the students’ hands. Although in the beginning I just did it over the phone, believe it or not.
Jeff:
You did it by ear.
Mark:
I did it by ear, exactly.
Jeff:
So let’s get into the process of signing up for lessons. First of all, your website, blindpianolessons.com, very accessible. I navigated it really easily. I went to the contact, filled out the form that you have there, told you a little bit about my experience with piano, beginner, of course, a little bit about me and boom, I sent it off, all in less than two minutes. So there, we started the conversation. I showed an interest in piano lessons and I expect I’ll get a response from you.
Mark:
Yeah. And I offer a free, no obligation, 30 minute lesson. See if it works, but it really does work well. It’s just such a joy for me to bring music to people who wouldn’t ordinarily think they could play. I have a student locally here in Barrington, Illinois. She lost use of her left hand, and I’m writing right-hand only arrangements for her. That’s extremely wonderful to see her have music back in her life. She practices like two hours a day. You should hear her play, you’d swear it’s two hands. It’s very rewarding. I mean some of the best pianists in the world, George Shearing, Stevie Wonder, are blind, you know, Marcus Roberts, I believe he went to the Florida Deaf and Blind School. So there’s some great musicians. I mean, it is an oral art, Erroll Garner who wrote Misty and was a fabulous jazz pianist couldn’t read a note. So for me, it’s like, okay, how do I find, for example, here’s a song, here’s several songs that use the same chord pattern. This is “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”
[plays “Chim Chim Cher-ee”]
Same chords, “Blue Skies.”
[plays “Blue Skies]
Lots of songs, here’s [unintelligible]
[plays song]
Those all use the same chords and believe it or not, the left hand is playing chords that are just a half a step apart. So it’s minimal movement, but also let’s find the songs that have basically the same harmonies, so now we can kind of focus on the melody. You know what I’m saying? It’s hard to focus on chords and the melody. So if we can make one much easier or more patterned, then I think it makes for a more expeditious way of learning.
Jeff:
So walk me through this, say someone calls in and says, okay, I want to take piano lessons and they’re a beginner. And they’re sitting in front of their keyboard and you are there. How’s it start?
Mark:
Sure. Basically I would teach them all of their three-note chords. So for example, the first three would be all white notes, C major [plays C major]. And then F major [plays F major]. And G major [plays G major]. So that’s what I call them, group one fourths, and they’re all white. And then we go to group two, D major has a black note in the middle [plays D major], E major [plays E major], A major [plays A major], etc. So there’s basically five types of three-note chords. But once you learn all the majors, which is 12 different ones, [plays chords] C major, F major, G major, D major, E major, A major, you can just change one note and you get the minor. So if you know C major, like your name, you just change the middle note [plays chord] down a half-note, and you get the minor. So I make the analogy when we first learned to read, maybe Dr. Seuss, right, cat, sat, rat, bat, we’re just changing one letter, but we’re getting a whole new word. Same idea. Changing one note, and you get a minor, [playing chords] or you get the sus-four, or you get the augmented. So four of the five triads, so-called three-note chords are just one note away from each other. So once these become second nature, [plays chords] C major, F major, G major, D, E, A, D flat, E flat, A flat, F sharp, A, B flat, then you pick up the other three or four types by just moving one note. So that’s how I would start. Now, you say, that’s a lot of chords. Yes. But even if you learn one a day, right, you’d have them all in two months, and that’s very easy.
Jeff:
Mark, what’s it like for you to see someone improve? I mean, through the eyes of a teacher.
Mark:
Oh, it’s so rewarding. I teach a ten-year-old, Louise. She’s completely blind. It’s just fantastic. I could teach her 12 hours a day and go home refreshed. Actually, I’m home when I’m teaching her, she actually comes to the studio.
Louise:
My name is Louise. I am 10 years old. I am totally blind and I am going to play “Lean on Me” on the piano [plays chords]. I’m going to play all 12 major chords, [playing chords] C major, F major, G major, D major, E major, A major, D flat major, E flat major, A flat major, F sharp, B major, B flat major.
Woman:
Three, four, three, four, three, four, pinky, four, three, four, three, four, three.
Mark:
Excellent. The thing about the chords, Jeff, is for these three chords, C, F and G [plays chords], you can literally play dozens and dozens of songs just with those three chords. Another idea would be, let’s say, reinforce the chords by doing [plays chords], C, F, and G, all white, “Louie Louie” right? Or “Lean on Me” [plays chords]. All white note chords. So it’s all about as a teacher, how do we get the biggest song as quickly as possible? But also learning the series, that you just put your finger here, my students understand that we’re playing in the key of C. These are the seven chords [playing chords] in the key of C. Now let’s play some songs, melodies that you know, “Puff the Magic Dragon” or more popular songs. It’s very, very rewarding. And I love the challenge because, you know, you might be into jazz, or pop or into hymns. I teach a 14 year old, Owen, in Tennessee and he’s playing “Happy Birthday” in multiple keys, which is really hard to do, even if you have sight. So it’s so rewarding.
Jeff:
So how do you work out, like you’re just doing it with audio. How do you work out their left hand position to start out, like, C.
Mark:
Sure, well, you know, I noticed with my blind students, you know, they’re feeling where the two blacks are, right, then the three blacks, but I’ll ask them, you know, are you sure you’re using pinky middle thumb? And they’ll say yes, right, or actually I can see their, in some cases, I can see their hands because they have a camera above their keyboard. So occasionally I’ll ask them the fingering, but basically I hear what they’re doing. And I have over 5,000 arrangements that I have written for 10 different levels. So if you’re a beginner, intermediate, advanced, it just depends. Basically, it’s all about, as I say on my website, chords and concepts, I say chords, right? Here are your six triads, here’s all the songs that can use those. And depending upon how well you grasp certain chords, I’ll customize the arrangement and say, okay, this person is struggling with chords that have black, so let’s do everything in the key of C, all white.
Jeff:
When someone starts out, what is required from them? You mentioned a camera, I suppose the internet really helps to get connected and stuff like that. So where does someone start?
Mark:
Most students take over Skype, but again, they don’t necessarily have to. I’m like, Owen in Tennessee is 14. I don’t even see his keyboard. Okay? So I hear what he’s doing. So actually for the blind students it’s not really necessary, right? I could do it over the phone. But, you know, I have one hand, the students I teach can see my hands and vice versa, but Skype works really well. And again, the first five years of me teaching distance learning was over the phone. So you don’t really even have to have a camera if you’re blind.
Jeff:
So they can go to blindpianolessons.com. I went there, pretty simple. Click the send button and boom. There you go.
Mark:
Yeah, exactly. I plan on putting a lot of podcasts on there. You know, things, what I call keyboard, geography, etc, etc. What I notice with the blind students is, and again, I made a list of songs that have minimal movement. In other words, let’s find songs that only span the melody, only span maybe an octave, right? So for a blind student to do ragtime or to jump around a lot, that’s probably the hardest. So again, if I’ve got a pattern of chords [plays chords] where I’m just dropping my left-hand pinky and I can play 10, 15 songs with that, let’s do that at least in the beginning. So it’s minimal movement and find chord patterns. That’s kind of my teaching philosophy.
Jeff:
I think that’s the most important thing, is just because you take the lesson doesn’t mean you know how. It takes practice. How much practice do you suggest for someone that takes a lesson?
Mark:
Yeah, I would say minimally half an hour a day, but if you’re into it, it goes by very fast. I would say if you can do an hour a day, that’d be fantastic. Basically, it’s much better to do an hour a day than to do three hours one day a week, you know. You want to have what we call space repetition. Much better to do even a half an hour every day then two hours twice a week. As my teacher said, you don’t give yourself time to forget, you’re doing it every day. And once you get those chords down, wow. Musical world is you. I mean, if you play guitar, I think the popularity of the guitar is that you’re playing chords from day one basically, you’re getting a big sound, right? I took guitar classically as a kid, but it’s years and years to play classically ‘cause you’re reading all these dots and it doesn’t really have concept. It’s just dots on the page. It’s really kind of rote learning. But if you understand chords, you realize that this is [plays “Eine Kleine Nachtmusic”] not six different note to me, that’s one chord, E minor, being broken up, but at the classical level, you don’t really see the overall picture of the harmony. You just see these dots. And so chords are, if you look at anybody playing professionally in a band, hotels, cruise ships, they all basically know how to play from- with cords, you know?
Jeff:
Oh yeah. It really helps to have some chords because I know an hour of chopsticks is not gonna do it for me. I did learn a chord a couple of times, and it’s like, it’s really neat because you can hold that. And then you can play with your right hand just a little bit and then move around a little bit. So this is really something and, you know, with the pandemic happening, you probably didn’t even skip a beat because you were already doing this.
Mark:
Yeah. I was telling my wife, how do I say this humbly? The world’s kind of catching up to me, honestly. I was featured on, oh gosh, LA Times, London Telegraph, and I would call them up and say, I’m teaching piano over the phone. This is 2002, 2003. They were like, what? And it automatically sold itself. And now obviously with distance learning becoming pretty ubiquitous, and then like you said, with COVID and it’s like, you do this? Oh, I believe you can do this. Well, I’ve actually been doing it for 20 years almost to the day.
Jeff:
Yeah, that’s great. So MarK, we deal with a lot of transition-age students, 14 to 21 years of age and their counselors and all the people involved in the education of students. And I think this is really something for a lot of people to have, the parents, the counselors, the educators, as a means for them to get piano lessons. And I’m just glad that Blind Abilities can be part of bringing awareness to the services you provide. And there’s a lot more to it than that, transportation, getting around. This is virtual. This is distance learning. This is right in the home. You can do it right- anytime of the day. Well, I don’t know if you’re up all night, but it seems like convenience and efficiency is built right in.
Mark:
Thank you. I’m super excited, the whole idea for me is I want it to be one of my legacies, honestly, you know, I want people to say, you know, Mark Miller brought music to my life and not necessarily the traditional way. If I may talk one minute, I’m actually developing my own, I’ll call it the Mark Miller Braille System. My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that Braille notation, and Braille is one thing, Braille music notation is slightly different or kind of apples and oranges. So very briefly, I’m developing my own system whereby, you know, there’s only seven different letters on the musical keyboard, right? So why reinvent the wheel? So for example, a capital A, it would be, let’s say a quarter note, a smaller lowercase A would be an eighth note. And then we deal with, you know, how to add a dot or how to add some timing to it. But I think my system could be a little bit easier to learn in terms of, you know, the student feeling the dots and transcribing that, or translating that into letters.
Jeff:
Yeah. Kind of like a Braille tablature for the piano.
Mark:
Yeah.
Jeff:
Well, I went onto your website and I saw the videos there, and a person with only two lessons was going through 12 chords. And that other thing, three and four note patterns going right up the scale.
Mark:
Yeah. Again, when I was a kid, I took classically, all these dots on the page, I’m like, what? Hey, every major scale can be broken up with either a group of three notes, [plays a scale] then you slip your thumb under, and then the next is a group of four [plays scale]. I just did a group of four. The next one is three [plays scale]. So all my students learn six of their 12 major scales in one lesson because it’s basically, if I just did a three [playing a scale], the next one’s four, three, four. So again, it’s all about patterns, we learn by patterns. You know, I love classical music, because I can see the harmonic chord patterns. But when I was a kid, it was just dots on a page and that’s, I was a terrible memorizer. I went to Grand Cayman Island with a band, I’m 23, I couldn’t play a song from memory, Jeff. But I could sight read. I could play classical. I knew my cords, do a little improv, but no one showed me, let’s call it the true circle of fifths, chords move in certain patterns. Okay? For example, if you can spell the word “bead,” b-e-a-d, like a jewelry bead? That’s how chords move, so give me any starting chord, and I’ll play “Fly Me to the Moon.”
Jeff:
C.
Mark:
C, okay. So I know C goes to F [playing chords throughout], goes to F, now the next four chords spell the word “bead,” B flat, Edward flat to Alpha flat, to Dog flat. So if you go on the internet, you’ll see a hundred or a thousand videos on the circle of fifths, and they’ll say, okay, it’s a circle. Do you go clockwise? Do you go counterclockwise? Forget it, if you can spell the word “bead,” b-e-a-d, you can memorize music. No one taught me that.
Jeff:
Well, you just taught me something as you did the three notes, and then you said, slide your thumb under, that actually is a marker. So then you move your hand up again.
Mark:
Right, yes.
Jeff:
That makes so much sense.
Mark:
Yeah. And if you just did a three segment, the next one is fours. I have my students say, literally, three as they’re doing the three and the four.
Jeff:
Oh yeah. On your videos on your website, blindpianolessons.com. I saw them calling out those numbers as they played.
Mark:
Yeah. We retain 90% of what we say and do. So I have them count out loud. I have them say the chord names, and you know, six scales in one lesson is ridiculously quick.
Jeff:
Yeah, they were playing “Lean on Me” after only a couple lessons. Good song.
Mark:
Like I said, if you’d like a free 30 minute lesson, no obligation, I’ll send you all the good stuff.
Jeff:
All right, well, check your email. I already went to the website and signed up, looking forward, and I suggest to any of the listeners out there who have an inkling or an idea, or thought that they may want to shake off the dust off their keyboard, their piano, that’s been sitting around for a while, this is your opportunity to get some lessons, take advantage of the 30 minutes free and then check it out. See if it sparks your interest. See what the possibilities are. Mark Miller, thank you so much for coming onto Blind Abilities, we’re going to put some links in the show notes, people, check it out, if you’re interested in piano, this is a way to really find out. I got a keyboard returned to me and it’s been sitting here for a month, and when this landed on my plate to do this interview I was like you know what, I’m going to do the interview and then I’m going to sign up.
Mark:
Thank you, Jeff. I mean, just say, if I may, we did a survey of adults in America and they asked what was one thing you always wanted to do. And they didn’t say sports, theater, music, number one answer? Play the piano. I mean, it’s so rewarding and it’s therapy, it’s everything. Music is so powerful.
Jeff:
Mark Miller, thank you very much.
Mark:
You’re a hard man to get ahold of, I’m looking on LinkedIn, I’m looking everywhere. I’m going, he doesn’t have a phone number! I got to get ahold of him!
Jeff:
Well, you got my number now. I’m glad we’re connected and looking forward to the lessons.
Mark:
Thank you very much, Jeff.
Jeff:
Such a great time talking to Mark Miller. Check out his website, blindpianolessons.com, all one word, blindpianolessons.com. You can also give him a text, give him a call at 847-401-1721 and start playing music today. A big shout out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music, and follow Chee Chau on Twitter @ lcheechau.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff:
For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities, download our app from the app store, Blind Abilities, that’s two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com. Thanks for listening.