Episode 274: Cheers to The Moments that Made Beyond Measure (Cheers to Six Years!)

Well hello there, studio teacher friends! Welcome to a very special episode of the Beyond Measure Podcast.  So special, I guess, it’s launching a week late. In case you’re new around here – Hi! My name is Christina Whitlock, and I’ve made it my mission to remind studio teachers that other studio teachers are their colleagues – not their competition. Today, we’re celebrating SIX YEARS of this show. Six years of calling myself your Anytime Piano Teacher Friend. Six years of sharing experiences together. Six years of embracing humility and rejecting the temptation to act like I have this whole Piano Teaching Thing figured out. So – with that in mind – let’s get on with the show!  Whether you’ve been here for 6 years or 60 seconds, thanks for listening to the Beyond Measure Podcast.

As we sit on this milestone of 6 years of Beyond Measure, I thought it might be fun to look back on key moments that made this show what it was. In true Christina Whitlock fashion, there are plenty of Teacher Lessons scattered throughout today’s episode, so don’t write it off as a navel-gazing episode just yet. I often think of that old adage, “Little hinges swing big doors” and I think it’s a fitting analogy as I look back on the history of this show.  Meaning – oftentimes the smallest thoughts…the most flippant decisions… end up leading you somewhere big. I met my husband as a result of one seemingly-inconsequential decision. One choice ended up opening the door to everything that matters most to me in my life. Small hinges; big doors.

ANYWAY: that’s another story for another day. Today, let’s talk about the moments that made Beyond Measure. Shall we?

When tracing back the roots of this show, I have to state the obvious: I wouldn’t be hosting a piano teacher podcast if I’d never started piano lessons. For that, I have my mom to thank. I wasn’t driven by a deep love for music early on. My mom said I should take piano lessons and I did. My teacher told me to practice, so I did. I fell in love eventually, but at first I was simply following directions because I was an obedient kid. I say this to remind you that it’s OKAY that some of your students are only there because their parents are making them be there. You can still make a lasting impact on their lives. And – if teaching has taught me anything – it’s that we NEVER know what our students will end up doing with their musical training. Things like potential or motivation … those are all things that can change on a dime. You just never know.

It’s fitting to start this journey with a shout-out to my mom because we lost her last week. Mom fought a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease, complicated this past year or so with Lewy Body Dementia. Many of you have followed and supported me on this difficult road and I want to say thank you from my whole my heart. Saying words doesn’t feel like enough. I am positively mind-blown by how many Teacher Friends have been holding space for my brother and I. My philosophical self is sitting here having a chicken vs. egg kind of moment: Do I have all this support BECAUSE I started this show 6 years ago? Or was this show somehow ordained 6 years ago so I would have this massive outpouring of support in this moment? Who knows. Small hinges, big doors, my friends.

No mention of my piano teaching origin story would be complete without ALSO talking about my Dad. Dad, who went into the city to buy a new washing machine, stopped by a music shop, and came home announcing he had also purchased me a small Kawai grand piano. It was by far my Dad’s best impulse purchase, and quickly led to my first offer to begin teaching at that store. I teach on that Kawai to this day, and I often wonder what life would look like had I not been handed a full roster of piano students at age 14. That door swung on a pretty expensive hinge, but nonetheless, no one could have predicted that move would jumpstart to my life’s work.

I’ll throw in a BIG shout to my teachers: My first decade of piano study was spent with a lovely teacher named Karissa Merrick, who was young and growing up every bit as much as I was at the time. Karissa always treated me like a serious musician and that’s something I try to carry into my own teaching. If you treat students as though they are capable and interesting and expressive – rather than waiting on them to prove it somehow – you will end up with a studio of capable, interesting, and expressive musicians. It’s a wonderful thing.  

I moved onto lessons in High School with my treasured Rose Valdez-Pham. Just like my first teacher, Rose treated me like a musician from Day One…but she also started the very difficult task of overhauling my piano technique and filling in some important gaps in my understanding.  We only had two years together, but I treasure the memories of those days in her tiny studio at Mount Union College.

I chose my Undergraduate program because I felt an overwhelming pull towards studying with Tommy Otten – opposite in almost every way from any teacher I’ve studied with. Lessons were intense and thrilling and emotionally-exhausting, but he really helped get me on the right track technically. He left to teach at UNC Chapel Hill at the end of my sophomore year, and I originally planned to transfer there to continue our studies, but I ultimately stayed and finished Undergrad with Donna Lee, who was wonderful and supportive and imaginative. She continued to open my eyes to advancing skills. I have such fondness for those Undergrad years.

Grad School was another small hinge/GIANT door situation. I talked about this WAY back in episode 016 of this show, but during my Junior year of Undergrad, I agreed to turn pages for a visiting guest artist accompanying a clarinet recital.  That pianist was Jim Helton and we hit it off and – through a much larger story – I ended up in graduate school studying with him and learning so much about piano and music and life in general.

Look: those are just my PIANO teachers. I could talk to you all day and still not cover the teachers who got me here today. My 4^th and 6^th grade teacher, Mr. Bennet, who made me fall in love with writing. My high school choir teacher – Kristie Call – who entrusted me with responsibilities far beyond what I thought I could handle. Theater teachers, vocal professors, THEORY professors… I’m such a product of educators who made me feel like what I had to say was important and worth being listened to.

…which I guess is a pretty big reason I’m here in your ears today, right?

So let’s talk about small hinges that got me podcasting, shall we?

First of all – when people ask me if they should start a podcast… or a YouTube Channel… or whatever… I always suggest they look for a way to prove their voice. Make sure your ideas resonate with the profession. For me, it was through Conference presentations and posting replies to people’s questions in Facebook Groups. My first national conference presentation was a session called The Varsity Musician’s Playbook. It was concepts taken from team sports psychology, applied to studio dynamics. That session was SO popular. It scored me a lot of speaking invites… my pal Amy Chaplin had JUST launched her Piano Pantry Blog and she had me write a three-part series based on that presentation for the blog. That was so fun because, for awhile, that series got a lot of traction on her site. I was encouraged that people really liked those ideas. I started developing more topics for presentations, and as I offered advice in Facebook groups, it became evident I had a perspective that people resonated with and appreciated. That is a really great way to prove a concept, though I will argue that I was posting to those groups with the primary intention of helping, not actually trying to build a following or a fanbase in any way. That was so NOT the goal at that time.

Anyway…

I’ve said it a million times: I wanted to start a podcast for YEARS before I got this started. I was constantly filled with ideas for episodes, and these scripts would run through my head constantly. But – I also had young children and a gigantic studio… so I kept convincing myself this project was not for me. I didn’t have time. In fact, there was a point I declared to myself, I WILL NOT EVER START A PODCAST. GIVE IT UP, CHRISTINA. And I did. I stopped hosting episodes in my brain. And then one day… out of the blue, I was drying dishes and putting them away in my kitchen cupboards… I still remember the mug I was holding and exactly where I was standing… but somehow the phrase Beyond Measure popped into my head and I thought, “oh… if I was going to start a podcast, that would be the name.” and then a few minutes went by and I thought, “Shoot. That’s a really good name. And it totally fits my personality.”  And then a few hours went by and I thought… “Shoot. I’m going to have to do it, aren’t I? It’s too good.”

So then I was back on the podcast wagon. I bought a comically cheap microphone, and I halfheartedly attempted to record some episodes while my kids were at school. Everything I listened back to was garbage. And – I thought, who is going to listen to me? My voice is SO annoying. I’m too energetic; people will think I’m disingenuine. They’ll think I’m annoying. They’ll think I’m faking all this. So I went back to giving it up.

Here comes another small hinge, are you ready?  I was in a lesson with a student and – as I often do – I took a quick recording of his playing and was preparing to play it back for him. He said, “PLEASE don’t make me listen to myself. I can’t stand it.” I told him, “look, I get it. I can watch myself play fine, but listening to my voice on recording? UGH. I can’t do it.” And this precious child… my buddy Karter… he was probably 8 years old?  He looked at me and said, “Well you SHOULD listen to yourself because your voice is AWESOME.”

And I kid you not: this child’s vote of confidence in the timbre of my voice flipped a switch. It did. Quite literally, in that moment, I decided I was going to go for the podcast. And I definitely got more serious about it at that point.

…but Beyond Measure was FAR from being up and running. I recorded versions of the first episode over and over and over and over. I couldn’t get it right. I couldn’t nail the vibe. I hadn’t yet settled on the Anytime Piano Teacher Friend angle yet. I fell into a trap I see a lot of content creators make; it felt too much like, “Here I am. I know things. Listen to what I have to say.”

It took me awhile, but I finally realized this was never going to be the show I wanted it to be if it didn’t feel like a joint effort between you and me. I started thinking about how energized I felt any time I got to hang out with my real life teacher friends. Conferences, coffee dates, meeting for lunch… all the things. I wanted to capture that energy and provide it for you. That’s the key to good content creation: it has to genuinely be about the audience; not the host. I have an episode from last year – I’ll link it in the shownotes – about Look at Me energy vs. Look at You energy. It’s so important for us as teachers… and it took me awhile to realize I was falling prey to the same “look at me” attention problem we all struggle with from time to time.

From there, Your Anytime Piano Teacher Friend was born, and I started to hit some serious momentum. I ditched the junk microphone and realized I got better audio recording straight to my iphone from my closet. (which I did for a long time, for the record!) I was feeling like this thing might actually happen…

But then, a global pandemic hit. My kids were home 24/7. We were all anxious and needy and – oh yeah – I was working my tail off to keep my business afloat online, just like a lot of you were. Very suddenly – for a long period of time – I was never, ever alone. There was no opportunity to record.

In fact, there was a day in September where I looked at my husband and I said, “I know this makes NO SENSE. But I need you to take the girls somewhere for SEVERAL HOURS because if I don’t record this first podcast episode, I am going to lose my mind.” And it’s TRUE. I can’t for the life of me explain why I felt so compelled but I felt like my head was going to spin off my body if I didn’t get this thing off the ground. He took them to Indianapolis to pick up some fancy donuts and, lo and behold, I finally recorded what became Episode 1 of Beyond Measure.

Phew. Was that at all interesting? There are obviously MANY more details to these stories, but you know… this is not meant to be a longform show.

There is SO much more to say about what this show means to me. I didn’t even get to chat about my SuperFriends crew on Patreon. Oh my goodness. Those teachers. That group. Oh, their support is such a gift. But I’ll save those shoutouts for another day.  Lets wrap up with a toast, my friends!

Studio teacher friends: Today I thank YOU for listening to this show. It wouldn’t still be here without you. The last six years have helped me cultivate my perspectives on this important work we do, and I’m thrilled to have helped you in the process. We’ve laughed a lot… we’ve learned a lot… and, again, the way you’ve supported me through my mom’s extended illness and recent passing? I just can’t, friends. I can’t tell you. Some of you even took time to send my mom beautiful cars on her 75^th birthday. I mean…what?  What podcast host gets that kind of treatment? I’m so lucky. Thanks for letting me be your Anytime Piano Teacher Friend…. even if I gave myself the title before you even knew me.  Cheers to us, my treasured teacher friends!  Hear, hear.

SO FRIENDS, I think the powers-that-be might revoke my Podcaster Card if I don’t say the following:  If this show has made a positive difference in your life, please consider leaving a written review over on Apple Podcasts, or you can rate it and leave a comment over on Spotify. Come follow me on socials, just search Beyond Measure Podcast, and lastly… if you want to offer a small financial THANK-YOU in celebration of 6 years of podcasting, check out the SuperFriends Community on Patreon. All those links and more can be found in today’s shownotes. Of course they can.

Until next week, my friends… onward and upward we go. Will we make it 6 more years?  I wonder…