Bill Cowher's Piano Lessons

A colleague of mine forwarded me an article by Frank Fitzpatrick, a Philadelphia Inquire Staff Writer, about former Pittsburgh Steelers coach and current CBS - NFL analyst Bill Cowher.

The article is attached to the sports page as you might imagine, but the title was intriguing, 'Bill Cowher's Piano Lessons'. Most of the article talks about Bill's life after football, his gruff exterior, 'defiant under-bite' and jutting jaw; a sharp contrast to someone playing chord progressions at the piano (in most cases!).

But Cowher says 'It's something I really enjoy' admitting... 'One of my daughters played the piano...and I'd be thinking, 'How neat. Wouldn't it be great to be able to do something like that?'

I wish all adults had this kind of attitude about studying music and I wish music educators would work more on promoting our craft to this market rather than dumping all of their eggs into the El-Hi world of academia. At DSM, we find adult students to be an amazingly rewarding group with which to work. And the profession as a whole would do well to address this largely untapped resource of new and willing learners.

So we congratulate Bill on his decision to learn piano and encourage him to keep at it until he reaches his goal 'to get good enough where I can put out a tip jar'.

Don't forget to enjoy the journey too Bill!

Click here to read the full story. And special thanks to Frank Fitzpatrick for allowing me to post this article.