The Sound of Gold with guest classical pianist Madison Yan

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0:51 Hi, welcome to the Sound of Gold. It is good to be back and we are airing on Memorial Day weekend, and so hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and having a great time and taking time out just to relax. It is still a Monday and some people are working, and even if you are, I'm hoping it's a relaxing day for you. Today. I would like to focus as always I focus on music, musicians, music venues, music teachers, and music schools. And my mission, my passion of doing this is to keep music alive. We are going into this world of greater technology and AI and it's so exciting what we're developing and coming up with. However, instruments I believe will always be and the musicians will always that exists now and that continue to thrive and be motivational in support of or to be a musician themselves.

1:58 Playing an instrument is authentic, and it's just I want to keep that alive. There's a great authenticity to being a musician and playing an instrument and just being original. There is so many different ways to go about this, and I know a lot of my audience out there you are musicians. You are tuning in to learn more about different approaches or different ways of learning, or different places to perform. I am also, as some of you may know, a music teacher. I teach piano. I'm also they call me the instant composer. I perform, and I have this show and I absolutely love doing this for the fact that this show is not about me. This show is for my guests. And today I have a very special guest from Palm Beach Gardens, which is not far from where I'm where my home music studio is.

2:56 I have Miss Madison Jahan, who is a professional classical pianist, and I know she's sitting backstage and I'd love for you to meet her. Madison, please join us. Hi, Lisa, Hi, thank you so much. For making the time today in your schedule to be here. Of course, I'm so excited for this. Now we had met. I happened to be on the board of the MTNA, which is the Music Teachers National Association, and we had met because you had come to Hamilton Piano to perform and you played. You played beautifully, and it was I was in such awe listening to you play, because not only do you just sit and play like you're connected. And there's so much conversation we can have about this for my listeners that are perhaps taking lessons, want to take lessons, or even for musicians that have been doing this for a really long time. I think we learned from each other. And yeah, give us a little story about your journey in music and where you began and how you've got to where you are.

4:08 First of all, thank you for your kind words. So right now, I'm twenty two. I just graduated last year from the University of Miami. Congratulations, Thank you as a piano performance major there. And my professor there was Kevin Kenner, and he's been a big inspiration for me. My journey started I think in two thousand and nine. I was five years old and my parents were the ones who had me start lessons and this was in Wisconsin, Okay, which is where I was born.

4:49 And then I grew up for a few years. That's why my name is Madison. It's like a little fun fact in Madison, Wisconsin, Okay. And then at that time, I didn't really take pianos very seriously. You know, I was still young, so it was just a lot of practice, maybe fifteen minutes or whatever hover long. I just want to go outside and play. And then I came to Florida and around twenty eleven and found my teacher, a private teacher here, Arena Kaufman. And she was the one who like she was the one who pushed me and inspired me.

5:29 And bring me the great foundation. And she had me to competitions and she introduced me to like what piano could be. And then in high school, I also began taking lessons with Professor Kenner along with doctor Kaufman. So yeah, and he such an amazing pianist. So yeah, he. Was a big, big inspiration for me and completely changed the way I listened to music. And so I decided to stay with him for music school for college. And and yeah, that's pretty much yeah my history.

6:14 So you played beautifully, you play where you classically trained. When you played for US, you played I believe it was a chopin a piece by Chopin m Yeah, I've. Been classically trained. Yeah from the beginning. Yeah, excuse me, so, Madison, I've been playing for over forty five years and I started when I was five, And it sounds like you've gotten some great support in your life starting at the age of five as well. However, I think you might you might have a different yeah, maybe different influences. I wasn't. I admire you. I'm a most envious that you've had such a great background. I'm not knocking the teachers on my experiences. However, I didn't have like an inspiration other than my mom and dad saying, oh, we never got to do this, So you're going to live out our dream and be the piano player. So I really admire you for you, you know, sticking with it and moving forward with your experiences. And now you're teaching as well. Is that correct?

7:27 Yes? Now, do you teach privately or do you teach in a local school? I teach privately, and also my high school I went to Dreyfist School of the Arts. Yes, West Palm Beach, So sometimes I go and teach some like masterclasses there. Wonderful. Now, if somebody wants to sign up and take lessons with you, do you travel to their home? Do you have a studio in your home? I have a studio in my home, so usually they can come to me. I also a company for violinists and whatever instruments. Yeah, that's really good to know. So for musicians that are tuning in, that have bands or that are playing out, how would they contact you? If they're looking for an additional pianel player.

8:19 You can find me. I have Facebook. If you just type in Madison Yan my name maybe at a piano and maybe I'll come up. I also have Instagram, same thing. You can search Madison Yan and should come. Up y A N. Madison, Yes, y An. My Instagram handle is y A N dot m A d I so Yean dot Maddie. You can message me on on those and yeah, let's get in touch. Wonderful. So for a music enthusiasts out there, and myself included. When you teach your mask your class, what is your what is your love? How I say this right? What is your what you love?

9:06 To teach? When it comes to music, because there are so many different branches within the music world, and there's so many different focuses. There's so many different it's like learning a language, but there's so much to it. And you understand this, I know, But what is your main focus, what you love to share? Yeah? I agree that teaching is so now that I'm. Doing it much more, it's so sophisticated and it's almost like a different world from performing. Okay. I think for me, the thing I focus on the most is as early as possible show my students the expression and creativity in the artistry behind music. I think it's so easy to teach.

9:52 From the notes. You know, let's get the notes, let's get. The rhythms, and like fix your technique and things like that, which are very important. And but I think something. That maybe I I wish I discovered earlier, And it's not really the fault of my teachers or anyone, but I think as a young student I was I've kind of treated piano like like a task, like homework. Maybe when I was younger, Like, okay, I just do what we talked about in the lessons, I get the notes, I get the. Rhythms, I do the phrasing, my teacher told me to, but I never.

10:33 I never started to really apply my own creativity, in my own voice to the music until much later. So I think that is like what makes music so fun and so you know, cathartic, and it's where the artistry is. So I tried to from a young age, like I asked my students, what do you feel about this section? Like what is the character here? Like what is the story here? And try to get them to think of it in a fun way, not to think of it as work. And I try to. Have that ideas originate from them, so it's kind of their story, their interpretation, rather than I'm telling you what to do, I'm telling you yeah.

11:21 And I love that. I love that approach and I understand going back to what I mentioned before, I started playing when I was five, and on my mom's side, my family's one hundred percent Sicilian, So my mom loves to cook and she would always love to have families over, family over and friends, and every time she would do that, she'd got list to play for us. I want you to play for the family, and the practicing before that, I was just like I could think of a hundred other things I'd rather be doing than practicing piano. And I had several different teachers over the years, and I mean i've really I think they quit on me, although one did get sick. But yeah, you know, it's just early on those lessons and that that understanding it's so important. However, or in addition to I also teach with a focus on creativity, because if you give me a sheet of paper black and white, my approach to teaching is this is boring, right, how can we make it exciting and fun?

12:31 And like you said, let's let's talk about the story. What does the story mean? And let's be creative with it? And then I usually, for me, I usually go into like almost like a language or yeah, I would, I would say, like a grammar, a grammar lesson because it's the dynamics, right, So what are the dynamics and how do we express that? If we're just speaking language, how can we understand it? So I love that. I love that you focus on the creativity of it. Now with Okay, for example, what's the last piece that you worked on personally? For the most recent I should say.

13:11 I'm working on the rock pan off second concerto. Okay, So when you're working on that piece. What is your approach now? Now I'm jumping way ahead, right because we went from beginning now we're going to more advance and I'm going to jump around throughout our conversation because we have different listeners at different levels that are tuning in and it's just kind of how my brain works. Also, so when you're working on your piece, what is your process? What is your secret to breaking it down? Because some musicians will look at that and be like, oh, yeah, I think I'm just going to have to pass on that and pick something easier. What is the secret to breaking it down so that it is not We welcome the challenge, however, we don't want to scare ourselves into its learning how to play right?

14:03 Yeah. So I think actually recently after graduating and working with another two amazing mentors I will drop their names, Richard Bosworth and Sasha Starsavig, they've really like changed kind of the process by which I learned. Because I agree. I think I've also faced like frustrations, frustration feeling like I never get a piece done, or or I run into a wall and I feel really uninspired. I don't even want to finish the piece, you know, and things like that. Sure, So now my process is I think, first of all, I think it's important, especially when tackling a big repertoire that's maybe a little stretching your comfort zone, not to expect for perfection the first time. Usually for pieces, like big substantial pieces, I on the first kind of go through of it, learning it. It's not going to be perfect and it's not going to be completely comfortable.

15:13 And only after maybe a year I pick it back up or a few months it becomes a much more comfortable. And then if you do that several times, let it, let yourself forget it, come back to it, and relearn it. It'll like become easy. It's kind of a strange process because it's like the hardest passages that you once struggled with now like it really is internalized. M And I think in terms. Of more detailed how I go about learning a piece. Nowadays I do a lot of site reading, so I think it's important. And I made this mistake in the past. I would go page by page and just try to get a page down and then move on to the next one. But now I try to do the full piece, So reading through the full piece kind of immersing yourself into the full piece and then from there choose the most difficult sections.

16:14 And attack those. I think another like kind of rule of thumb is precision. So I feel like it should feel like you're getting to the root problems with like a laser focus sort of and always breaking down problems into the easiest unit. If you can't play like let's say six notes, break it down to four and then three and then two. Like I'm sure everyone can play two notes from the hardest passage, right, So after that feels easy, you add a third note and then it seems like a slow process, but it's kind of exponential. It'll really build up. I think the biggest mistake is trying to tackle everything at once, you know, and then get frustrated nothing's happening. It should be it should feel easy, nothing should feel kind of like impossible. It should always feel maybe slightly challenging, but after a day or two I can get it, and then you add more and more.

17:11 So that's kind of my philosophy with learning. I love that, and either it's I teach do you well? First off? Do you have a range of students that you teach age wise or do you teach all ages. Right now, my students pretty small. I do. I have a student who's my age, and then I have a few younger ones like in school. Yeah, what's your favorite or do you have a favorite? Ooh, I think someone I'm sure you can relate to this, but someone older is always going to be easier to communicate with, and maybe it's easier for them to for you to kind of trust them to do what they need to do and like practice well, you know, and then also they're there because they enjoy playing. Because some younger students, you know, it's like their parents or they don't really they haven't found the patch in yet. But honestly, I've found that, like at any age, everyone's so different.

18:16 It really feels like I have to be a psychologist as well as a teacher, piano teacher, you know, like everyone's so different you have to figure them out a little bit, like their personality and what makes them click. And I think oftentimes like there's the stereotype of the student being forced to have lessons, but I found that almost everyone like if you showed them like we were talking about the story, the creative part of it, and you treat it as like a game to solve together. They like are very much engaged. I don't think that hasn't really been a problem for me, that, like someone doesn't want to be there, there's always I think a place to kind of lead them in.

18:57 That's that's wonderful. I love that approach. You know, I still even though I played for forty five years, I still take lessons for me as as a performer, for me as a teacher. It just helps me just to grow, right because no matter what our ages were always growing, We're always learning. There's never like Okay, I'm done, I've learned this piece. In fact, I teach a class of piano students and I'm like they're like, okay, Misscold, we finished. What's next. I'm like, wait a minute, that was like three minutes. You need to practice it and we you know, we need to talk about the time values and what that means. What I guess what I want to focus on is that no matter what our ages are, for our listeners out there, like you can start at any age.

19:47 I have a student who's ninety five years old, she's been with me for a couple of years. I have another newer student who's eighty five, and then I have my youngest student who's five, So it depends on it depends on. Yeah, they're there to learn, and either you know it or you know, there's a conversation of you know, maybe wait six months or wait a year and have your student try again if they're very young. So I love that, you know, you work with all ages, And what I wanted to share with you is that I've learned with taking lessons, especially in today's day and age.

20:28 Let's say forty years ago or when I started playing piano or over forty years ago, there was no nothing. This makes me sound really old, but I got to say it. We didn't have computers, we didn't have cell phones, we didn't even the beeper wasn't even existing yet. You know, we didn't have the amount of we didn't have Amazon, we didn't have the amount of distractions that we have today. And so it's almost like we've adapted as adults, as grown up in myself, my age group, we've adapted to the changes. However, the authenticity of having to learn a piece sheet music doesn't really change. However, it's evolving. And I'm saying that because I recently had a discussion with my eighty five year old student, and I said, you know, I said, and he's more of a newer student to me, so I don't know his learning behaviors or his practice behaviors.

21:29 So we're having a conversation last week and I mentioned, you know, he's like, should I play for three hours? Should I be practicing? You know, I go, well, if you want to. However, if we're working to someone piece what they're finding, And I wish I say this many times, I wish I had more time to study the brain because I would love to understand they're finding that. The more we chunk sections which you kind of mentioned, and focus on that and take frequent breaks, your brain will retain those sections more than if you sit for three hours and you play the whole piece. And like you said, and I encourage it, don't always start at the beginning, because you're gonna play the beginning so well that your brain's gonna be like, yeah, well I'm not finishing the rest.

22:16 Why bother because I already know the beginning, So yeah, checking it in patterns and breaking it down to understand portions of it, and just instead of looking at it like a mountain to climb, look at it. As I mentioned to my students, look at it as like a puzzle. So you got the puzzle pieces and you know you're gonna make your shapes on the floor or on the table to get an idea of where these pieces are going to go. And so the same concept with the music. Cheat music. There is patterns in every song. So for the patterns, break them down and focus into different sections. Your brain doesn't freak out if you're not starting in the beginning, right. We're just trained to like play from the beginning to the end. However, the practice is just that we're practicing sections. And I don't mean to speak over you because you have your own teaching techniques. And that's what makes every teacher special is we bring something new to the table. We learn from each other. I agree on from the four teachers you've had that have inspired you, what are some of the techniques or tips that you can share with the audience that we have today that might inspire them to think a little differently when they sit down at the keyboard or where they sit down at their instrument and they have sheet music in front of them. What are some little nickna or some nuggets that you've learned along the way that you could share.

23:44 This is such an interesting topic. Honestly, I could talk for hours about how to practice and me too. Right, Yeah, let's see. I think that I'm going to interrupt you for a second. And that's another thing I've learned to teach because I was not taught how to practice. Practice is so important, and you know, it's like, Okay, here's the assignment for the week, see you in seven days. However, you know then my teachers didn't say, Okay, let's let's create a practice regiment and an agenda that you can go by. So when you're home and I'm not there with you, you know what to practice. You know how to go about it. And that's so important because you know, it's like giving I don't know, you understand, it's just structure your life. When you have an agenda, you can manage your schedule, you can manage what you're doing when you have a focused list of what to do.

24:41 Yeah, exactly, Yeah, Because if you think about learning any other skill, if you go to let's say dance classes, you're going to have the class two or three times a week with always with a teacher there. You won't they're not going to give you like, oh, just practice the whole week by yourself, you know. And in the past, like maybe this is something that could be brought back to piano and to music in the past like Moztar and Chopin and these like great composers and pianists, they they would have lessons with their students several times a week, you know. And as for nuggets of.

25:24 Tips and tricks, I think I think, like you were basically saying, the most important thing is to have intention and be conscious of what you're trying to do right when you sit down in practice. And for me, I found this is kind of maybe. I don't know if anyone else. I'm sure people do it, but I haven't really talked to anyone about this. I like to talk to myself out loud when I practice. Like it's funny. My family like. Knows about this because it's almost like it's hard to focus when you were just silently sitting there. Everything's going on in your head, right, So for me, it's I. Like to be like, okay, so let's try to get this like I don't know, left hand part, Okay, that was pretty good. I just felt a little tense here trying this, so it's like I'm teaching myself and yourself.

26:15 That's wonderful. Yes, yeah, and it keeps me kind of I know what I'm trying to do. I think too often people sit down, they don't know what they're trying to do. They just practice like it feels like I'm practicing. It feels like I'm playing something. And then another another thing is I think practice should never be frustrating, or if it is frustrating, that's normal, but not to keep pushing it and kind of feeling like you're hitting against a brick wall. I think, and this is something that it took a long time for me to realize, Like you were saying, it does not have to be you do one piece for three hours and then you move on to the next piece for three hours. Oftentimes what is better.

26:59 And I think this is something that pianas struggle with because we tend to be maybe more perfectionist types, you know, we want to do things correctly, We want to get this done and then get the next thing done. But sometimes a more spontaneous approach can be very helpful. So doing a little section and then as soon as you get something like as soon as it's a little bit better. Jump to a different piece and work on something completely different. If you feel tired, jump to another thing. Read, read something fun like. Always keep it spontaneous, don't limit yourself like you if. You're preparing a piece for a teacher for a. Lesson, don't feel like you can't play anything else for that week. You can always jump to a song that you like, pop song that you like and you've always wanted to learn. Just look at the first line of it as a little break and then come back. So yeah, I agree that it's never do it one hundred times in a row. It's always, first of all, diagnose the problem.

27:57 Take it first of all, take very small section. Diagn knows the problem, come up with solutions, and experiment. Don't be afraid to try different ways with what your teacher has told you, what you think, what you've observed, Try the solutions, find something that seems to work, and then maybe go through it. I like to do seven times as like the magic number. Just do it seven times correctly and then and then leave it. Don't don't keep you know, pushing something and then and then leave it. Go to a different spot and come back tomorrow. And then last thing, if I can say, is like not to worry if it feels like your progress is like from day to days is kind of wavering. So for example, for me, if I am learning a piece I learned maybe like the first I don't know, some like one page of it, let's say the next day and it's it's good. And then next day I come back and it feels like, oh my gosh, I can't play anymore.

28:57 But I think it. It's easy to get frustrated. I know I would get frustrated by that, but instead to recognize that's a normal process. Actually, forgetting is good because as soon as you relearn it, it's gonna stick much better in your in your brain. That's like kind of like a psychological thing as well. Let yourself forget and then and then the effort of bringing it back is the thing that is strengthening your brain. Same with memorization, right, and you don't want to look at the music, play it, and then take. The music away and play and be like, okay, I gotta memorize. Actually you have it because you just saw that you just saw the music. Instead, don't freak out if you instead test yourself, like go a day without looking at the music. Try to play like just cold turkey without the music, and you're gonna find the sponsor that you need to work on.

29:48 And that's okay, Like it's it should be. Whenever you find something you can improve or something that maybe isn't going how you want it, to treat it as like thing to be excited about that here I can discover something new rather than something that's like like a bad thing, you know, because I think it's always about the process, not necessarily the results. It's just the process of discovering and exploring and stretching your limits. So yeah, that was I know that's. Kind of long, but yeah, and it's so true. And another thing that is so important or in addition to is I know, for me, when I was growing up and I was taught how to play and read and learn or how the lesson would go, it would get so frustrating and my teacher would be like, no, you have to learn this. However, being the teacher now, it's like, okay, Well, if I have a student that's like that, it's like okay, well let's yes, let's take this. Let's look at this like a problem or a problem. Solving this Let's not look at it like a task like you know, we're taking out the trash, we're we're you know, we're doing something because we want to learn something. And one of the greatest things I think I've learned over the years is that the thing is that frustrate me most, it's because I don't understand it. So let's break it down.

31:16 Let's understand what you're doing, because that is a great time for you to learn something. Instead of looking at it like putting the walls up and saying this is just too much, this is too hard forget, I'm not gonna learn. Instead of going about it that way, it's like, okay, well, let's let's play detective. Let's see how we can break this down and make it easier for us to understand so that it becomes easy and not difficult. So now the beauty I've said this, I think I said this last week in my show The Beauty or one of my shows in reading music and sheet Music. And I do say this to my students is that there is consistency right there is as human beings, no matter what our ages, no matter what our life is like, we love expectations. Even though they say don't you know, don't have expectations for human beings. We kind of do have expectations.

32:11 So I think if we're going to have them and we're going to be musicians, we can really grab those expectations to know that when we're playing somebody else's music, we know what to expect because there's a consistency there. Now, you know, there's a discipline in learning the format and the consistency of somebody else's work, and then to step in and do improvisation is something totally different to a certain degree because you can take once you learn the foundation, then you can kind of paint the canvas any other every other color you on around it the foundation. When you're teaching foundation, do you focus on like scales and boards and hand and exercise or do you have like a curriculum a program in mind that you like to work with when you're teaching your students that come to you.

33:11 You know, I don't, of course a five year old we started the very basics, But do you have something that you like to stick with when you teach? To be honest, I'm still figuring it out because this is basically my first year officially teaching. Like, yeah, but I think I've been reading a little bit into some like curriculums. But the way I was taught was kind of we did like competition. We would prepare for you know, like the FFMC, the Florida Federation, like they have repertoire to choose from. But for the most part, it was kind. Of my teacher just free form. So I think I would obviously want to learn more about those, but in terms of like foundations something.

34:04 And I like to reference. Like I've been thinking a lot about, you know, how I myself was taught and how I started things like that. I actually didn't do many technique exercises as a young As a young student, I learned my technique from my pieces, and actually recently, because I felt like there are still parts of my technique that could be improved on, I went back and started playing hand in journey scales every day and they've been really, really helpful. So I think that's definitely something I want to encourage my students to do. But I think it's the most important thing with those is to is how you do them, not just like it's not enough just to play through like get the notes down, you know, but rather like use those as a tool to show them like how to use your arm, how to use your fingers, how to important your exactly. Yeah, so I think maybe there's like many ways that you can do it, but like ultimately, like, yeah, to be precise with what you're trying to show them rather than just assigning. Oh just do like the hand in one, you know, but like to be precise, okay, hand in number one. What are we trying to work on with this scale or with this exercise?

35:26 And it doesn't have to be that way. I've said to some of my students that have had other teachers before, like every teacher is special. Every teacher brings something to the table. So you know, there's no really wrong or right. It's just kind of take it all in and what aligns with the student or what the student can understand and grow with. And there's no like like the way I teach might not be the same way you teach, but that it's okay, Yeah, exactly, it's okay. I want to I have a big audience out there, and a lot of my audience loves to hear me improvise and play a little bit. So it is a Monday, I do want to play a little something just because people including me, like to relax to the music I play.

36:16 And when we get back, like in a couple of minutes, you'll still be here. I'll still be here. I want to talk a little bit about your competition and the FFA if I said that right, a little bit about your experience for listeners out there that might want to step in that direction. But I'm gonna so hold that thought. I'm going to play for a couple of minutes. If for my audience is out there, if you're driving, enjoy, do not close your eyes. But if you're home or in a place, in a space where you can relax, sit back, close your eyes, do so. And I don't have sheet music. I just kind of play what I feel I channel in the energy that I'm picking up for my audiences as well as in my home studio. Here.

37:05 So show your name, Many.

38:31 Lady, many company, the man man.

39:19 That was a Monday something that's so pretty Thank you, thank you. So it's just stuff for my listeners out there. I hope you enjoyed that I used to play. I don't know, we haven't spoken much, Madison. I used to play consecutively for several years. I used to have online shows and do that for a couple hours every week, and I miss doing that because my schedule has changed. But I get to do that a little bit here. So so thanks for being a part of my live audience as well. The question I had for you was that you have played in competitions. How has that experience been for you? Yeah, so.

40:01 I escaped you as a musician as a teacher. Good question. So I've been competing. I think most of my kind of piano life since maybe I was eight, started with like local competitions, and then most recently, I had the honor of being in the. National hip competition in Miami. Congratulations, and I. Made it to the semi finals, which is I was already happy to be there, so yeah, I was. Yeah, that was a really great moment for me. I've also competed in Japan and around the US. For me, I think sometimes there's a sort of or at least recently, I've been like thinking about I've stopped competing for a few months just so I can.

40:53 Focus on repertoire. I think after the big competition I needed some time to, like, yeah, to reassess my career. Okay, and then but in terms of how or my relationship to competitions, I think most musicians kind of feel the same way that you know, at the end of the day, like it's sort of unnatural for us to be pit against each other in these competitions, you know. But on the other hand, I think my parents have always given me a very like positive and growth mindset towards competing. They've never pressured me to when they never focused on the results, so they've always said, just to your best, like this is just a learning experience for you, and then whatever happens happens, and they're always.

41:43 Happy no matter what. So I think that was really helpful for me, and that gave me more positive like view on competitions. And I think nowadays, at least for classical like if you want to be if you want to have a concert career, I think competitions is kind of like the main way that people do that for better or for worse. So that's why I'm doing them. But also I think having like a deadline per se or something to work towards with your repertoire is like it helps me a lot to keep me structured sometimes, like it sounds nice to have a lot of time to work on stuff, but it's also nice to be able to perform in front of people, and competitions are a great way to do that. So uh yeah, So it can be like a source of pressure for me, but I'm very grateful for like all the experiences I had, and ultimately I think they really helped me grow and push me outside my comfort zone a little bit, but always in like a positive way.

42:56 So awesome, awesome, And what what do you feel? Is what? See? I don't everybody is different. I don't know. Everybody has a passion that that is heartfelt and a mission that we we are on. And I so admire you at twenty two years old with so much talent. What what drives you to want to continue to compete? We have to we actually have to make it short because I have one more question than because we're getting close to the too.

43:40 Okay, very deep question. I think for me, like my ultimate goal with music, And I've thought about this a lot. It's about I think competitions and things can be external, you know, but but coming back, it's always coming back to myself. Like this music that I've listened to since I was a baby, you know that has always touched me and given me this in your world and in like my loniest loneliest times, my darkest times, that they are there. The music is there for me. It can express things that like it's so difficult to put into words, all these things that I'm sure everyone feels when they listen to music that touches them. Ultimately, that's like what keeps me, bringing me back, and then competitions and career that's external, Like it's great I want to do.

44:36 I want to always get better. I think, like you said, music is a language, and if I am to learn this language, I would want to become fluent in it and be able to express myself with it. So that's ultimately, I'm just I want to be better at piano, better at expressing myself through the piano, and always returning to like my own connection, my personal connection to the music, not think too hard about things like success outside success achievements. Yeah, I love it. I love that, and it's so true. I mean, I continue to learn so much, and I'm probably twice your age, and I continue to constantly grow and learn, and it's like I can never learn enough. And as a musician, as I mentioned, earlier, like you never get to that plateau of like, okay, I'm going moving on. That's the beauty of being a musician is that you never like you know, you're building a shelf with a hammer and nails. Okay, great, it's built. We can put the books on. Okay, it's there.

45:36 Music is not that way. Music is always evolving. And then the beauty of it is that it's energy and vibration of sound, and we as human beings, we don't realize how important that vibration is to our human soul as we grow and how as we evolve, the music evolves with us because we're always we're always expressing more or we're having a different way to express ourselves. So thank you so much, Madison, Madison Yan. If you're watching this, your your name is on the screen, if you're listening, as you mentioned, you can be found on Facebook or Instagram Madison yon y a n And you teach as well, and so best to luck to you and all that you do. And I look forward to maybe hearing you play again and and keeping in touch with you.

46:31 Let's let's you know, yeah, let's keep in touch. Yes, let's keep in touch. We have we're like minded. We have so much to understand each other about, and I do look forward to keeping in touch with you. Thank you, Madison. Thank you so much, Lisa. This felt very short. I would love to keep talking. Well, we can do this again. I would love to have you on again and we can talk about this even further because there's so much to teach. There's so much to learn. Yeah, and that's that's the fun part, right. Yes, absolutely so. For my listeners and viewers out here, thank you so much for tuning in today. Tune in next week. I have a very special guest next week that will be with me and I'm not going to say who it is, but I just love doing this show.

47:19 I love all my guests, and every one of you that are that are on my show are very special to me, and I feel that we have a great connection and I'm so happy to shine the light on you. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I look forward to tuning or having you tune in next week. Thank you,