The Transposed Musician Teaching Universal Skills to Improve Performance and Benefit Life

Music teachers know their students don’t just learn to play music; they are also exposed to universal life skills along the way. But that’s just part of the story. Currently, most students are largely left to learn these universal skills—like problem-solving, patience, focus, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication—on their own and often not very effectively. The Transposed Musician not only empowers students to better confront the challenges of the twenty-first century, they will also significantly improve musicianship—a double benefit. Author Dylan Savage spent two decades refining his approach to teaching universal skills through music, and he shares them in this book. Each of the eight chapters of The Transposed Musician focuses on a specific universal skill and shows how students can apply that skill to music. He then shows how teachers can guide those students to “transpose” that skill to life and back again to music with far deeper understanding and musicianship. With practical examples and clear writing, this book is for music educators wishing to help their students become both better musicians and also better-equipped citizens of the world. Students truly become “transposed musicians” for life and for music.

Dylan Savage is Associate Professor of Piano at the University of North Carolina–Charlotte. He is also a Bösendorfer Concert Artist, a Capstone Records Recording Artist, and a winner of the Rome Festival Orchestra Competition.