Motivation for Musicians with Ruth Meints

On this week’s podcast, we’re talking to Ruth Meints. Ruth is the Executive Director of the Omaha Conservatory of Music and creator of String Sprouts, a program that connects over 1200 students in her community to music lessons. Ruth has a new book out: The Music Teacher’s Little Guide to Big Motivation and I can’t wait to dive in and talk to her all about it.

My Takeaways:

1. Understanding what motivates us (or our children or students) is so important.
2. We tend to try to motivate others the way WE are motivated, so learning about many types of motivation is important when motivating others.
3. Every little bit of practice counts. It’s all important and we can and should celebrate all along the way.

Highlights from Ruth Meints include:

“I’m motivated by achieving things. So if I had goals, like I was going  to play at a recital, or I was going to be a part of a show in the pit orchestra, or whatever it was that I  was doing, that was very motivating to me to practice, to get ready for something. Now, if I didn’t have  anything to get ready for if I didn’t have any goals that had been set by my teacher or that kind of thing,  I might be less likely to be as motivated to practice. And just in the course of practicing, like a general  day, I always thought it was hard to get started, but once I got started, it was great. You know? So I think  getting past the hurdle of getting started in practice is a really big deal. And if you can figure out a way  to do that, you’re going to be on your way because usually time goes past and you’ve done the things  you need to do or at least some of them, and that’s a successful practice. “

“Every motivator is cool. Every one is a  great way to be motivated, and we just have to figure out how to diversify our tools of motivating so  that we can maximize the impact that we’re having in the engagement that we’re having.“

“They have Brainvolts Lab at Northwestern University. If you go to BrainVolts lab website, they have all of  this documentation that they’ve done. They’ve done so much studying of music and its impact. They  have all these great slides and and, you know, it’s very accessible information about what music actually  does. And I think, with their work, they’re doing a lot of testing on adults, but they could tell if you were an adult and you studied for two years, any musical instrument when you were younger, and they hook  you up to their brain machines, they’ll be able to tell that you studied music by what they see, even if  you don’t tell them. So that’s pretty interesting to know; you get maximum impact with five years of  study. But with two years, you’ve made significant connections in your brain that will be very beneficial  for out your life. So that’s a fun place to look and get more support and validation. “

“I think the most important thing is every little bit counts. I think a lot of times, we get caught up in this  idea of perfectionism, and we’ve got to do all of the things that our practice session. And if we don’t do all the things, then I didn’t do it, or we failed or something like that. Every little bit counts. It’s all  important. Even getting that one little bow hold made or just that practice on that one tricky section is  progress. You did it! That should be celebrated, right? Every small step counts.” 

---

To Listen to the full Episode click the link below or find the podcast on your favorite podcast platform

---

Links from this Episode

String Sprouts http://www.stringsprouts.org/

Omaha Conservatory of Music https://omahacm.org/

Ruth’s Book: amzn.to/3uNhZxO

Brain Volts Lab: https://brainvolts.northwestern.edu/

Our next Time to Practice Pep Talk on October 16th https://suzukitriangle.com/resources-2/events/