A few weeks ago, a student walked into her lesson with a list.
Not a request. A list.
Some Broadway numbers she wanted to learn on piano. A folk song she’d been singing at home that she wanted to figure out on ukulele. A classical choir part she was working on at school that she wanted help solidifying with her voice.
Three instruments. Four genres. One student. One handwritten list.
She started with me ten years ago, when she was 6. She came in wanting to play Let It Go. That was the goal. That was the whole horizon. Let It Go on piano, please.
A decade later, she’s the one curating her own musical life. I’m just helping her execute it.
That arc — from “I want to play one song” to “here’s my list” — is the entire point of the second letter of the ADVANCE method.
It’s called Decide. And the goal is to slowly, deliberately, hand it over.
What Decide actually is
After we Assess — after we know who you are, where you’re starting, and what’s exciting to you — we have to figure out what you’re actually going to work on.
That’s Decide. Choosing the next goal. Picking the next song, the next skill, the next stretch.
Most music studios make this decision for the student. The teacher knows the curriculum. The teacher knows what’s next. The student plays what they’re handed.
That’s not how we do it.
At MJS, Decide is collaborative from day one — and the longer a student is with us, the less the teacher leads it. By the time a student has been through a few cycles of ADVANCE, they’re walking in with their own ideas. By the time they’ve been through many cycles, they’re walking in with lists.
That’s not us getting lazy. That’s us doing exactly what we set out to do.
The non-negotiable
Here’s the rule we don’t break: whatever we work on, the student has to be excited about it.
Not “willing to tolerate it.” Excited.
If a student is six and they want to play Let It Go, we don’t say “well, you should really start with Mary Had a Little Lamb.” We figure out how to teach them what they want to learn, in a way that builds the skills they need. Excitement isn’t a bonus on top of good teaching. It’s part of good teaching.
That’s also why the Assess questions about what music you love and what music you might love but haven’t heard yet matter so much. The deciding isn’t just “what skill do you need?” It’s “what skill do you need, in service of music you actually care about?”
The first one without the second one is school. The first one with the second one is a music life.
What Decide looks like at different stages
The first time we Decide together — usually around your second or third lesson — the teacher leads more of the conversation. Because you don’t have all the vocabulary yet. You don’t always know what’s possible. You might know you want to “get better at singing” without knowing what specific skill would unlock that for you.
So in the early stages, your teacher is offering options. Here are three things we could work on. Here’s what each one would unlock for you. Which one feels most exciting?
You’re still choosing. We’re just helping you see what the choices are.
Six months in, the conversation shifts. You start coming in with ideas of your own. I heard this song this weekend, can we figure that out? Or I want to feel more confident with my left hand. Or the kid in my class is playing this thing and I want to learn it too.
Now we’re collaborating. You bring the want, we bring the path.
A few years in, something even better starts to happen. Students show up already knowing what they want next. They’ve been listening more deliberately. They’ve been thinking about their own playing. They’re starting to act like musicians, not students.
Ten years in, you get the list.
Why this matters more than people realize
There’s a common belief that kids don’t know what they want and need adults to direct them. There’s some truth to that. But there’s a much bigger truth right next to it: kids don’t know what they want yet, and they only learn how to know by being asked.
Every time we hand the deciding over to the teacher, we’re telling the student: your taste doesn’t matter, your instincts don’t matter, just play what’s put in front of you. And then we’re surprised when those kids grow up to be adults who don’t trust their own musical voice.
Adults who quit lessons as kids almost always say the same thing: I just played what they told me to play. They never developed the muscle of deciding. They never built a relationship with their own taste. So when the lessons ended, the music ended too. They never learned how to be musical without a teacher in the room.
We’re trying to build the opposite. We want our students to leave with the muscle to keep going on their own. To know what excites them. To trust that knowing. To walk into their adult life with a relationship to music that doesn’t depend on us.
The hand-off is the whole point.
What this means for parents
If your kid wants to learn something specific — a song they heard on TikTok, a song from a movie, a song their friend can play — the right answer is almost always yes. Even if it’s “too hard.” Even if it’s “not what beginners play.” Even if it’s something you’re tired of hearing.
A great teacher can build the skills your kid needs through the music your kid is excited about. That’s a lot of what we do at MJS. The song is the vehicle. The skill is the destination. And the excitement is the fuel that gets you there.
When a kid gets to choose, they practice more. They quit less. They develop taste. They start to think of themselves as a musician instead of a music student. All of that compounds.
Trust their want. Trust the teacher to translate it. The path almost always works.
What’s coming next
Next up in the series: Validate. Once we’ve decided what to work on, the next step is making sure the student knows why it matters. This is the step almost every studio skips — and it’s one of the most important things we do.
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— Kristi