Mentor Interview Write-up

I met with Dr. Robin Hancock, who was my piano teacher for four semesters, and

asked the questions as given on LearningSuite, as well as some other ones. While

much of what he said wasn’t particularly surprising, much of it was helpful. He also told

me to say hi to you from him, so hi! Listed below are some of my thoughts from the

conversation.

● Of course, the number one contributor to his success is his unbelievable work

ethic. When talking about past experiences it became clear that he usually had

about five jobs at a time, involving accompanying, playing solo piano, teaching,

and other music-focused jobs. He still has that same work ethic; when I asked

him the question about what a day looks like for him he shared with me his

schedule from the day before, and it included teaching a few classes, a large

number of private lessons, practicing, and working on a number of other projects

amongst other things. Hard, consistent, smart work is an easy thing to say you

want to do, but a very hard thing to actually do, especially when life seems to

always get in the way. My takeaway from Dr. Hancock’s work ethic is to work

first, relax later; If I put off all the work I want to do, inevitably other things will

crop up and I will find myself not working at all, but if I work first then when things

crop up they won’t interfere with work, study, practice, or composing time.

● Dr. Hancock explained that choosing music as a career was an obvious choice to

him; he didn’t feel very good at the sciences and maths, he loved music, and he

grew up with a concert pianist as his mother who she trained him well, especially
 in sight-reading. In fact, he credits much of his professional success to his

sight-reading ability, so as a pianist, there is a lesson there to be learned all on

its own. However, my main point here is that my experience was quite different; I

didn’t start taking piano until middle school, and I didn’t start composing until

much later, and there was a lot of pressure on me to pick a career that would

earn a lot of money and land me a stable job. I think that though my choice

wasn’t perhaps as clear as his initially, I still ended up pursuing music because I

couldn’t see myself doing anything else and being happy, and ultimately I think

that was the deciding factor for Dr. Hancock as well, and many other musicians

too. Though there isn’t really an application for this realization, I still feel like this

was an important thing for me to realize.

● Dr. Hancock stressed the importance of making connections with mentors and

professors, naming several times when he landed fantastic jobs and other

opportunities because he had kept contact with a professor who suggested him

to others for various roles playing solo piano and accompanying, amongst other

things. It’s also great to have good letters of recommendation as well. I am

really bad about keeping in contact with people, partially due to some social

awkwardness, but as a composer that is a very important skill to learn, because

ultimately unless I write music that I can play by myself then my music is kind of

at the mercy of others (and I mean this in the best way possible; there’s nothing

like having skilled performers interpret your work.) I have learned from other

composers that having a relationship with the performer often results in a more

meaningful performance due to that human connection, as well as the chance to

 work together through the piece with some level of familiarity with the way the

other approaches music.

I feel like I learned so much more from this interview, but I don’t want to make you read

through more than you have to, so I’ll end it here. Thank you so much for being a great

professor this semester!