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Magid's own keyboard growth created teaching style
By Brooke Leister/ Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 20, 2004

As a young girl growing up in Ukraine, Inga Magid showed a natural aptitude for the piano. So much so, that at age 4 she was accepted into a music school where she studied ear training, theory, music appreciation and music ensemble.
     It was intense, and the young girl was not often interested in practicing. A few years later, when her grades began to slip, her parents thought maybe she should stop. Instead of quitting she began to study with a new teacher - an instructor who not only changed her technique, but ignited a musical fire within.
     "I could not understand what she wanted," recalled the Lexington resident. "What it gave me is that now, when I'm teaching kids, I know how to understand. It helps me now to understand my students, especially the ones who are having a hard time. She [her teacher] really did what not too many people can do. She took a kid who really hated music and turned her into a kid who really loved and appreciated it."
     Through her program Keys for Kids, Magid, a mother of four, hopes to teach children not only how to play music, but to instill in them a real understanding and deep appreciation for music. She launched a Keys for Kids branch in Lexington last month.
     "They really have fun with it," she said. "They compose and improvise. You'd be amazed at what 6-year-olds can play. They get all of these blocks of music in their fingertips."
     Her program, which began 10 years ago, includes 15 textbooks written by Magid as well as teachers' guides and flashcards.
     "I think I found, I hope I found, ways to explain the most difficult things in a way that's easy to understand and is fun for kids," she said. "I make associations in their minds that they can't forget. That's how I learn."
     Continued learning has been a theme of Magid's life for the past 15 years. In 1989, she, along with her husband Mark, young son Natan and her mother left their homeland for a new life in the United States. After spending nine months in Italy, the family was granted permission to emigrate to St Louis, Mo. where Magid's brother lived.
     The first priority was to find work.
     "It was a downtime in the economy. My husband, he is a physicist. He couldn't find anything then. In Russia, he would've worked in computers, but the technology is different [here]," Magid said. "We didn't have money to send him to school, so someone gave him books and an old computer. He taught himself. He got a job as a computer technician."
     When Magid told people her background, many said she would not be able to make a living as a musician. Rather, they told her to become a beautician. Her husband, having heard her play, encouraged her to continue her musical pursuits. In Ukraine, she earned undergraduate degrees in piano performance and musicology, as well as a master's degree in music education.
     She decided to continue her education at Webster University in St. Louis where she enrolled in the master's program in piano pedagogy. Her first year there she also worked as a piano accompanist. By her second year, her English had improved and she began teaching.
     With her college students, she taught in the Russian style she had learned. No one earned an A and many failed. After receiving mostly negative reviews from her students, another professor suggested she try teaching them in a different way. Since then, 90 percent of her student evaluations have been positive.
     "It was lots of thinking, lots of experiments and lots of thinking about how I'm taught here," she said. "You don't put the child down for any reason. You're always supportive. The bad thing I found was very little was expected from the student."
      While in St. Louis she continued to teach at the college level, as well as privately in her own home. It was here that she decided, with encouragement from her husband, to create Keys for Kids, designed for beginning keyboard students. Classes include Mini Keys for 3 1/2- to 5-year-old beginners, Kinder Keys for 5- to 7-year-old beginners and Super Keys for 7- to 11-year-old beginners.
     "I treat music as a language, which it is. In English, we don't read every letter of the word. We learn to grasp them as a word - a similar approach is in music. We learn musical grammar. What kinds of combinations make sounds, what it looks like," she said.
     Courses are taught in small groups, and parents attend with their children. Each classroom is equipped with keyboards for each child. All of the courses help develop a wide range of musical skills including ear training, rhythm training, keyboard playing, music reading, ensemble playing and beginning composition.
     "Originally it was my thing I wanted to do with my students - what I visualized would be right. I just don't want to teach them ear training or music theory. I want it to be all together. I want them to be good musicians and people," Magid said. "... I think it's just how you do it. When older kids make all of these amazing things on the keyboard that people with master's degrees can't do, it makes my heart jump."
      Inga Magid can be reached at 781-274-9729 or via e-mail at inga@keys-for-kids.com. For more information visit her Web site at www.keys-for-kids.com.
     

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