Music Energizes Your Brain, Michael Hemsworth

I think it would be very hard for me to have done this

journey if I was doing it for the money.

Obviously, we do our things to earn a living, there are

easier ways to earn money.

But this was one of those things that even as a. A 19, a 20-year-old, I

knew at least, what I wanted to give to the world it was a chance to then

create our own school from the ground up.

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What's your pi?

Today I am thrilled to welcome my guest, Michael Hemsworth, who is an

accomplished author, talented piano musician, and dedicated business owner.

His journey began in a challenging environment, having

lost his dad at a young age.

But he grew up unaware of these remarkable talents that he's going to share today.

He firmly believes that creativity is a vital component of happiness

and joy, as well as a means to leave positive imprints on the world.

He is the author of Mr. Michael's Music Maker Manual, A Parent's Guide to

Growing Creative Children which we will explore further in our discussion today.

Additionally, he is the founder and owner of New Songs, a thriving music school

that serves over 1,300 students each week.

Michael's vision is to nurture musical talent in everybody who

walks through his doors, and I admire his core values of curiosity,

acceptance, respect and expression.

Michael Hemsworth, welcome to your positive imprint.

So thrilled to have you.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

You have this background, which is not unfamiliar to others.

You grew up in a household, you had a musical talent, but.

didn't really know you had that talent.

Yeah, I think that's great.

Really, my earliest formal music education, you'd actually

think it was gonna be a disaster

'cause the first thing I, I. Did as, as a fourth grader was join band at school.

, so I'd always been, you know, relatively artistic, you know, that,

that was always pretty evident.

, there were some things I really wanted to be a ventriloquist for a

while when I was a kid, which I tongue tied and that was never gonna happen.

So my kids now still make fun of me.

Dad, do the ventriloquist thing, you know, because that was not my talent.

But, you know, lots of artistic bits there.

In fourth grade, uh, my dad had played the trumpet.

You know, he had a trumpet.

I joined band, I tried the trumpet, and I actually hated it.

It was, it was terrible.

So from that standpoint, you know, if that was really my journey, so many

kids, you know, I tried music and I didn't like it and I quit, that could

have really easily been the end of the story, which for many, many people it is.

, because it feels , well.

We tried that.

, but it was just such a mismatch.

You know, it wasn't that I didn't like music, but I was on an

instrument that I wasn't engaged with.

I was in a format of learning, in this big group early in the

morning that wasn't right for me.

I was connected with a teacher that was not a good personality match.

And so all of those other surrounding things were contributing factors.

And so it wasn't that I was unmusical at all, but on surface, you know, I

tried music and I quit it as a child.

So fortunately that wasn't the end of the story.

It actually is, you know, quite incredible because, , I didn't grow

up in a, a terribly well off family.

I mean, I had a, a wonderful household, but, you know, didn't grow up with

lots of money or any of those things.

And so, , we had gotten a piano into the house at some point.

I think it was probably somebody giving it away for free.

self-teaching there and then.

My first and primary piano teacher in my life was somebody that my dad ran into

that, , at, at a meeting he was at and had been a friend of my aunt's 50 years

prior to that in Southern California.

She was a piano teacher and made the connection there and they actually worked

out a barter arrangement where I bartered for piano lessons, pretty much my entire

upbringing until I got to college.

There's a little bit of mystical nature to it, you know, like what,

How do you become a cat person?

You know, you can kind of point to some things you like about dogs,

but there's part of it too that it's just kind of in you, you know?

, While I'm very committed to the idea about playing within groups one of

the things that I really love about the piano is how much you can do as a

solo player as well too, you know, , as opposed to some other instruments

where you have more of that solo line.

There's a complexity to piano music where you kind of get to have all the

parts and, , and that kind of complexity I think also really appeals to me.

And so being able to.

See all the pieces all at once and be able to control them all is actually a

really fun thing you can do at the piano.

I really like the word complexity

yeah, I'm, I'm a classical music nerd at heart.

You know, I have definitely

branched out at, you know, working with lots and lots of kids and adults,

really being able to appreciate all the different angles that people come in from.

But, but yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, give me a book of Beethoven Sonatas

and I'm, I'm happy Actually, this past year, Spotify listed me as in the 0.2 top

percent of fans of Franz Joseph Hayden.

Based on my Spotify listening.

Yeah.

My kids again, I think you should be number one.

, Nobody could be listening to that stuff more than you.

But yeah, that was, oh, that's so funny.

I was very, very high in the fan list of, of France, Joseph Hayden last year.

Oh, that's funny.

So do you have a favorite of playing

a favorite, uh, to play?

Mm-hmm.

Yes and no.

I, I do really like the diversity.

I mean, again, piano lends itself so well to a broad, broad spectrum.

, but I am obviously a big fan of Hayden, who you'll be an

early classical era composer.

Uh, and I'm also a huge fan of George Gershwin, so, oh,

that's interesting.

They're so different.

Completely different.

I actually have, , uh, Gershwin sheet music, , tattoo.

So, , so I, yeah, it, you know, depends on the day, and again, that's one of

those wonderful things about music is, pick the mood, pick the mood that you're

in because it's, it's not all one thing.

That kind of gives us a segue here to your book.

So let's talk about the title of your book and why you decided to write it.

Thank you.

I started teaching music when I was 16.

, I actually finished college really early.

, I finished college when I was 18.

I got married when I was 19.

I had kids by the time I was 20.

I'm, I'm 42 now and ready to be a grandparent already.

You know, I'm not yet, I'm, I'm already in that, , in that zone here.

, and so I've been, I've been teaching, . My whole life.

My whole life.

And, , and so I've worked obviously with lots and lots of kids, lots

of parents, lots of families.

And , I really got to this point where, , I wanted to reach out to families and

help students specifically, get over that one year marker that I think one

of the hardest spots is , I was in band,

you started and something doesn't go really well and instead of being able

to tweak it or find another way, we just pivot off of music or the arts or

whatever and, and, and kind of get shelved and we don't get back to that, but.

I have talked to, literally thousands of people that, as adults that

say, oh, you know, I took piano a little bit when I was a kid and,

and now I regret, giving it up.

I wish my parents had been meaner and forced me to do it, or I, you

know, I mean, literally, I, I've, I don't think I've ever met a person

that's , I took piano lessons for five years and I regretted it completely.

People just don't say that.

But the reality is it's, it's hard.

It is really hard to successfully put a child through that journey,

, because it's, it's different.

It's, , it's not a team sport, although I think that there's elements

that we could learn from that.

It's not seasonal.

, it, it doesn't always have necessarily some of these social elements.

And so, , the real benefits come.

After you've already been taking a year or two years where you've been going

to lessons every week and you've been practicing at home, and the payoffs

are huge, but they're so delayed in many cases that, , so many people just don't

make it over that first speed bump.

And so writing this book, I, really want to help parents,

first of all, just be encouraged.

If you don't see it, if you're in your first year and it looks like nothing's

happening, that's not really true.

Stuff is happening.

It's just happening under the hood.

I can see it, but most people can't see it.

So trying to lift the hood a little bit and explain, it's

gonna be worth it in the end.

And then also just the encouragement of, if one thing is not working,

there might be other solutions.

If you are my parent and I hate band and I don't wanna play the trumpet.

That's actually okay.

Maybe you can quit the trumpet, but here are some other things

that might work instead.

And so getting, , a wider range of possibilities out

there because unfortunately we're in a generation now where

we are two generations deep, where a lot of the parents I talk with also

did not get access to music education.

So they're feeling disadvantaged.

I don't, I don't know anything about the piano or the violin or whatever.

I don't know how to help them.

And so it's a feeling of very, very lostness and

it doesn't have to be hard, it doesn't have to be competitive.

There's plenty of competition out there in the musical world and people

will tell you , oh, if you're not gonna commit to practicing an hour

a day, then you're a bad person.

Or, you know, there's, there's a lot of landmines to navigate.

But but really if we can take the encouragement to say there is a pathway

that's gonna work for you, and if you can get over some of that early, humps

where it doesn't feel like it's making progress, you're gonna start to see

the benefits then compound after that.

Yeah.

And in your book, and by the way, it's Mr.

Michael's music Maker manual, right?

Oh, there you go.

It's, it's got my kids.

They're older than this now, but it's, it's modeled after them.

Oh, that's so cute.

Oh, I love that.

So one of the things in your book you talked about.

That everybody has creativity.

Mm-hmm.

And unfortunately in education in United States, much of that

creativity is not fostered.

There's not a lot of fostering these talents in schools themselves because

we've had so many programs cut.

I know when I was teaching at one school, we had an absolute magnificent

band, and this was middle school and they all had instruments they.

Rented them.

They borrowed them, but they didn't have to purchase them.

And it was absolutely fabulous.

Yeah.

And unfortunately I was one of those you're talking about.

Yeah.

How do you foster it?

Yeah.

Well I think first and foremost, I mean, you really accept the

idea that everybody is musical.

, really let that sink in.

I, I think that culturally it's changed and instead of community music

producing, we tend to be producer consumers., Taylor Swift makes music,

I listen to music, as opposed to.

We all make music.

A lot of churches have it best still.

It's still different, and maybe we're all singing, but, but you

can't necessarily hear us all.

The idea that we all are creating the music is, is really powerful.

I mean.

Sing in the car, you know, even if you feel like I'm not a good singer,

you, you're, you're giving permission to other people to also participate.

And almost this expectation that, again, it's not that we just listen

to music, but we can actively create and, access to instruments.

Yes.

Play the drums to the song.

Yes.

Experiment with sounds and see how this instrument works.

Really having the permission to be an active participant is, is

a really great foundation there.

And, and then folk songs are great because they're these little bits where,

where we can experiment with, one of the, uh, things I love about folk songs

is they use a small range of notes.

And so at, even without formal instruction on it, you can play Old McDonald

with the five black keys on a piano.

So even with nobody showing you, given the access and time, if you sing Old

McDonald a whole bunch and I can dink around at the piano you will find a

lot of kids have some of those innate abilities to unlock that just given

the the time and permission to explore.

Yeah.

You were talking about the singing.

I think singing is a fabulous way to foster joy, foster rhythm and.

Love for music and the understanding that there's a tune to also carry, , and

there's words, what do the words mean?

Yeah, and I, and I'll add to that with singing

as well too, is to make the adjustment for kids to be the singer.

There's something that, the early childhood program, you know, called

that, split second singing where we're always singing along to something, the

radio's on and I sing with the person on the radio, which is not a bad

thing, but there is an extra step there where then instead of singing along

sing on my own.

And that's something that I do as a music teacher.

In kindergarten classes all day, every day is we start to hand it off instead

of, we always sing Old McDonald together.

We get to a point where I, we all sing.

Old McDonald had a farm and.

You by yourself get to sing E-I-E-I-O and there's a, there's

this learning that happens when you get to do it all by yourself.

You can hear yourself, you can correct.

That's, even a subtle shift there, but sometimes turning off the guide,

whether it's the CD or the teacher or whatever, and letting a child do it

themself so much learning happens there.

When I look back.

On my childhood, that is how we sang in the classroom and we loved it.

We were a part of it.

Idea how your music teacher was.

Right.

I work also a lot with students with learning disabilities.

My son has, , auditory processing disorder work with a lot of dyslexic

students, and it's amazing how many activities that work with, some of these

cognitive issues overlap with some of the things that we do as musicians.

So let's talk about that.

There's all sorts of ways to use music to help with certain disorders.

So I had someone on the podcast, Mac Bailey, and he is a musician who has

retreats for veterans with PTSD and he uses music to rewire their brain.

Yeah.

So now you have music to work with the.

Students with special needs or certain disabilities.

Sure.

Well, and I'll preface this, I am not a licensed music therapist.

I am not a neuroscientist.

There are definitely people that I respect highly that can

work even deeper in this field.

But I also say that because I don't think that if I'm not a music

therapist, then I should not touch it.

You know?

I do think that the more we all represent that, the opportunities, the, the better

off we all are, , so if we just say, well, I can't work with special needs because I

don't have a, a doctorate in this field, then we're just cutting off access again.

So, so just to, to preface that there a huge, huge foundational

brain skill is synchronization.

You know, the ability to find the beat.

Keep the beat and keep it in in tandem with other people.

And sometimes we just take this for granted.

, and it's true that for many, many of our neurotypical brains, , we

will be able to synchronize and do that, but not everybody does.

So it's just starting with.

The opportunity to build or fine tune, synchronicity is just one of those

foundational platforms that, this is where people talk about music and reading.

You know, it, it's not a one-to-one thing, you know?

, oh, you learn to play the piano and now you know how to read, it's not literal,

which is why oftentimes it gets cut because there's no literal link there.

But it's one of those things too, where it's Synchron, for my son.

Sound waves look like this, and you want the brainwaves to look the same way.

That's that synchronicity.

There's a match between what I hear and how my brain processes it.

And, and conversely then what I can do with it.

And for him, some of those links didn't develop normally.

We, we joke because the sounds that are were most out of sync for him, were the

letters i and e and o. And know this when we named him Gideon, a name that contains.

i and e and O, so, so we really poor kid.

Fortunately he's got it now, but some things as a parent you look back

and think, oh, if only I had known.

So that being said, , by learning music we're also helping the brain develop that

synchronicity and and that conversely will help us learn to read because then

when we're hearing a says, ah, our brain is more consistently able to recreate

and process what's happening there.

So I, that, that concept, figures into so many things, working with

different sorts of neurodiversity, being able to do things to a

metronome is actually a huge skill.

And guess what we do with music?

We do things to the beat.

We do things with different fine motor skills.

What do we do when we're playing the piano work with fine motor skills?

It's, it's so sneaky because it, it looks , oh, I'm just,

I'm just learning how to play

maria had a little lamb.

Cool.

That's awesome.

And then all of a sudden I'm building my fine motor skills and my synchronicity,

and I'm building a musical memory and I'm developing a, a more finer sense

of pitch and discriminated listening.

And one of my favorite stats is that, some of the discriminatory

listening that you learned as a child stays with you for life.

So, you know, when I get to 70 and if I have suffered hearing loss, I actually

statistically will be better equipped to still hear and communicate with other

people comparative to a 70-year-old that did not have the music background

and did not suffer hearing loss.

So it, it combats things , loneliness in

older age because I actually can better stay connected to the world

through my listening skills that I got just from taking two years of

piano when I was seven years old.

I mean,

yeah,

that's amazing.

It's, it touches us in so many ways, you know, cognitively, emotionally, socially,

The work you did as a 7-year-old and the payoff when you're 70

is such, is such a long game.

Yeah, I, I often wish that people could just follow me around because it is

such an inspiring job.

I mean, whe whether I've got 5-year-old with autism sitting on my lap and

trying to play guitar with me, or whether, we're doing advanced piano

sonatas with teenagers, I, I get to do really, really awesome things every day.

Yeah.

This is amazing.

There is that cognitive part and the creative part, the disciplined part,

now you have , new songs, music.

It's been a while since you started your own business and you were young

when you started and it was a struggle.

Yeah.

And look where it is today.

How did you do it?

And such an incredible journey, Michael.

So join us next time for part two.

Go to Amazon for his book, Mr. Michael's Music Maker Manual, A

Parent's Guide to Growing Creative Children, and it is available on

Kindle, Hard copy, paperback, as well as audible.com, which I really enjoy

audible, and I believe you are narrating it.

I did.

I did.

It was hilarious actually.

This, again, where I wish people could see it.

I mean, I literally stuck myself inside of our barely walk-in closet

with my laptop and a microphone.

I'm basically nestled in the in the coats and just reading away.

Everybody can pass on that gift of creativity

thank you for those last wonderful inspiring

words, Michael Hemsworth.

Again, new songs music.com,

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