Sometimes, you can’t really understand a problem...
Freescaling is a program five years in the making, a collaboration with my father, the jazz pianist Michael Katz. My dad grew up improvising; he started sitting in (on sousaphone!) in the jazz clubs of Chicago at age 12. He wanted to introduce beginning pianists to what he called “the sensational fun of fooling around” — creating music in real time. It’s a very human endeavor; we’re designed to improvise. Watch any baby — we literally play to learn.
But we struggled with how to market the program. Teachers were interested but resistant; improvisation seemed out of their wheelhouse, too daunting. So our work on Freescaling became more than just the technical development of the tool. Equally important was figuring out how to talk to teachers about it, how to present the concept in a way that felt inviting and possible, rather than indimidating.
How could we make the idea of improvising less overwhelming? We thought and thought. We came up with catchy taglines. We tried rebranding the program as something different, marketing the concept of “music theory in action” (most music teachers are comfortable with theory) or “make scale practice fun.” But it wasn’t quite landing. Teachers did want to incorporate improvising into their lessons. They just didn’t believe they could teach it.
... until you use the solution yourself
The breakthrough came when I myself started to use the program, not just build and market it. Because it was only then that I really understood Freescaling’s effect. The program didn’t transform me into a brilliant improviser overnight. But something radical DID change: I stopped being scared of making mistakes. It became fun to put my hands on the keyboard and just dive in, not knowing where I was going. What shifted wasn’t my playing; what shifted was my thinking... which, of course, then shifted my playing.
Turns out, the teachers were right: They can’t teach improvising. The good news is, they don’t have to. Improvising is something you teach yourself, a personal exploration that takes time. A teacher can help you begin, and help you carry on.
So we stopped marketing Freescaling as a program to help you improvise — which can take years — and started marketing it as a program to help you think like an improviser — which you can do right away, starting now.
Play to learn.
You can read more about Freescaling at freescaling.com
