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| Music to young ears Frances Balodis began teaching music at her home in 1980. Now, 900 teachers around the world embrace her system
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The highlight of Frances Balodis' year always begins at the end of February as, each day, Canada Post trucks deliver big envelopes filled with short musical compositions, scrawled neatly in pencil by thousands of children on three continents, to the Kanata headquarters of Music for Young Children, the music education company that Mrs. Balodis founded 28 years ago. Then, through the end of the first week in March, the giddy, chaotic, serious fun lasts until Mrs. Balodis and her colleagues have picked the best of a batch that totals almost 12,400. In between, culling occurs as songs such as I Wish I Could Fly So High, Shooting Star, and Playing on the Swings pass through a gauntlet of reviewers who must, perhaps above all, heed Mrs. Balodis' guideline No. 17, which is to take breaks as required. "By the time you've reviewed a ton of compositions, you can't remember your name," Mrs. Balodis says. Guideline No. 18 is "Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!" But it's unlikely that her 15 or so reviewers would agree to their slog if they didn't relish prolonged exposure to the works of budding composers between the ages of three and 10. They share, after all, Mrs. Balodis' love of teaching music to children. Come this fall, she will have done just that for 50 years, having begun giving piano lessons at the age of nine. She never dreamed then, however, that she would develop a music program that would be embraced so far by roughly 900 teachers in North America, South Korea and New Zealand. She never could have imagined that roughly 24,000 students from Ottawa to Singapore would opt for Music For Young Children, which at its core is a family business, over giant corporate rivals such as the Yamaha Music School and SuzukiMusic. Frances Balodis is a small and quiet woman, but a focused and energetic teacher who naturally motivates the international empire that has arisen from her ambitions. Her commitment sets a striking example because it is so consuming, leaving no part of her life untouched. Teaching music to children has helped define her marriage -- her husband, Gunars Balodis, is MYC's business manager. Teaching music to children will be her legacy to her youngest child, with Gunars, 61, and Frances, 59, passing the family business to their 31-year-old daughter, Olivia, and her 34-year-old husband, David Riddell. The younger couple abandoned corporate careers in Toronto because both felt the opportunity presented by MYC was too good to pass up. "We will decrescendo and they will crescendo," says Mrs. Balodis. All of them say that the company is less about profits and more about quality. "We're not focused on making a lot of money," says Mr. Balodis. "We're focused on doing a good job. We're focused on doing something for the students and teachers and parents." The case in point is the annual composition festival. It could have been a cash grab with entry fees, but instead it's free for teachers and students, "intended to enrich the program," says David Riddell. By mid-morning on the first Monday in March, the reviewers were settling into their routines. Each had a stack of compositions by Ontario children between six and eight years old. Each happily set to work, at keyboards scattered throughout the company's headquarters. Snippets of music, simple cadences and four- and five-note melodies were wafting from behind office doors. There was silence only as each reviewer paused to place a song in his or her "yes," "no," or "maybe" pile, marking the best compositions with a colour-coded check mark in the top right corner. "Listen to the music," says Mrs. Balodis. "It's everywhere." *** There was a moment during Mrs. Balodis' life when she might have opted for a career in something other than music. That was in 1971, when she graduated from Queen's University with a triple major in biology, chemistry, and, well, music. In her hometown of Cookstown, Ont., she had grown to love music early. Her father was an "old-time fiddler," she says. Mrs. Balodis remembers that when she was just four, she played piano while sitting on her grandmother's knee, learned to harmonize melodies and accompany her father. At 10, she completed the Royal Conservatory's Grade 8 level for pianists, which is the level that MYC's teachers must themselves attain to be accepted as program instructors. Before she was 10, Mrs. Balodis was already teaching piano to younger children in Cookstown. Still, after university, she thought she might become a pediatrician. But Mr. Balodis -- they were already married -- questioned whether Mrs. Balodis really wanted to endure all the lab work of medical school. He suggested she pursue teaching instead, although not necessarily in the field of music. Mrs. Balodis earned two teaching degrees at Acadia University, while Mr. Balodis, who had attended Royal Military College while Mrs. Balodis had attended Queen's, was posted at CFB Halifax with the Canadian Forces. In the late 1970s, in Dartmouth, N.S., Mrs. Balodis, the mother of two small children, began teaching teaching group lessons for a Yamaha music school. She says now that under Yamaha's yoke, she was pressured to get students to buy keyboards and organs and pianos. She says she couldn't stand that pressure -- and the stress-related asthma attacks -- and she quit. She considers March 7, 1980 -- the day after she quit Yamaha -- MYC's birthday. With knowledge gained from her Acadia studies, and in particular from her master's degree specialization in working with children that had learning disabilities, Mrs. Balodis began to write her own music program. All the while, Mr. Balodis, who has a master's degree in physics, was the commanding officer of the acoustic data analysis centre at CFB Halifax. By night, he provided support and encouragement to Mrs. Balodis. "I was manning the three-hole punch," he kids now. For several months, they worked into the wee hours to develop MYC's first curriculum. Subsequently, Mr. Balodis even took a second job as a computer programmer to make enough money to pay back the bank loans. "We were fairly energetic. We were running on adrenalin," he says. "In hindsight, if I knew how much work that would have taken, I'm not sure I would have done it." The business slowly expanded, as other teachers embraced Mrs. Balodis' curriculum, which she contends remains unique after many years of revisions. Mr. Balodis calls his company's materials "the best ideas of nearly 1,000 teachers." The Balodises and others at MYC say that while some of their more celebrated competitors stress learning by ear, Mrs. Balodis' program stands alone in introducing children to sight-singing, composition, the keyboard, movement and rhythm, thereby providing a broad and recognized foundation for subsequent study in the Canadian conservatory system. Mrs. Balodis contends that the complexities of music theory and even composing can be simplified so that pre-schoolers can begin to grasp them. "I find little children so anxious to learn when you present it to them in a positive way," she says. "If you slice that thin enough, then the children learn it, which is so wonderful for their self-esteem." Run during its first decade or so out of the Balodis' home, MYC spread, sometimes as teachers moved to different parts of Canada and propagated the system once they had settled down. By 1985, the Balodis' networking efforts had led to 112 teachers embracing the MYC system, paying for the program's materials, with more than 2,700 students were under their wing. Still, the business lost money in its first five years. It only became profitable in 1986, when the Balodis family moved to Ottawa as Mr. Balodis retired from the Forces to work for what was then Computing Devices Canada in Bells Corners. Over the next five years, MYC roughly tripled in terms of the number of teachers and students, although it was still a home-based business. But in 1991, MYC moved to a rented Carling Avenue office. Also, Mr. Balodis left Computing Devices to become Music for Young Children's full-time business manager. Soon after, following the move by one teacher to the U.S., the company attempted to crack the American market. In 1995, MYC moved to its Leacock Way headquarters, which more than two decades earlier had been the home of Mitel Corp., then the fledgling company of Michael Cowpland and Terry Matthews. MYC later bought the 5,600-square-foot building. There has been one setback since. The company lost money in 2004 after efforts to grow in the U.S. bore little fruit. However, recent years have seen the rise of the U.S. National Music Certificate Program, which is associated with the Toronto-based Royal Conservatory of Music. Given that Music for Young Children is the sole business of its kind recognized by the Royal Conservatory, Mr. Balodis says that his company is at last poised to take off in the U.S. Over the next 25 years, with the business in the hands of the next generation, MYC "will certainly double in size," Mr. Balodis says. Meanwhile, student growth in percentage terms has been in the single digits for nearly the last decade. Growth could have been greater, Mr. Balodis says, but only at the expense of quality. MYC's teachers are effectively franchisees, recruiting their own students, retaining all tuition fees from students and setting their own rates for the one-hour group lessons. The company, Mr. Balodis says, has revenues of more than $2 million a year from the sales of teaching materials. MYC profits, he adds, are "somewhat less than that," because the company, which employs 12 in Ottawa and 15 regional co-ordinators across North America, above all re-invests in itself to improve quality and support for teachers. Frances and Gunars are the company's only shareholders. In recent years, applicants from Shanghai, Nepal, Hong Kong and Taiwan have inquired about licensing with MYC. All learned about the company through Internet searches. The Balodises have turned down the applicants because they felt that the Kanata headquarters would be unable to provide proper support. However, the company could not turn down applicants from Singapore. "We told them we were not expanding," says Mrs. Balodis. "They were insistent -- 'When can we come to Canada for training?' After a while, you just get sick of saying no, right?" In January, she and her daughter Olivia travelled to Singapore for 10 days to train more teachers there. In Kanata, both mother and daughter teach roughly a half-dozen classes for children too. At a recent Tuesday morning class given by Mrs. Balodis, there was perfect attendance by a group of six-year-olds and their parents despite the freezing rain. The class was a non-stop flurry of activities, filled with singing, rhythm work with castanets, tambourines and triangles, homework checks, singing, music history, games, composition and piano technique. "What does D.C. al fine mean?" asks Mrs. Balodis. Most of the six-year-olds remain a bit unclear of the concept. "What are the three most important numbers in every key?" Mrs. Balodis asks. This time, children respond "one, four and five," referring to the degrees of the related scale that yield the tonic, sub-dominant and dominant chords. The children play games, including one that involves placing a plastic "#" symbol in its proper place on a plastic music staff. They are exposed to Johan Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz -- Mrs. Balodis plays the piano while the children, guided by their parents, play tambourines and triangles. There's a bit of show and tell, when Mrs. Balodis displays her father's violin. During the last 10 minutes of class, the children take turns at keyboards, playing their works-in-progress compositions for Mrs. Balodis. "That's a great composition. I love it!" she says. "That's beautiful." There's no telling how far these children might progress musically, but there have been MYC grads who have distinguished themselves. Mrs. Balodis says that, two years ago, a former student achieved the highest mark in Canada for Royal Conservatory Grade 9 piano studies. "He had started private lessons, but gotten totally turned off. The boy hated music," she says. The parents tried to turn him back on to music by enrolling him in Music for Young Children -- and clearly they succeeded. "That happens a lot," Mrs. Balodis says. *** It is MYC's 28th birthday -- and the composition festival's last day of judging. In the MYC basement studio where Mrs. Balodis teaches, 14 reviewers are gathered to hear a playdown of the regional finalists so that international winners can be chosen. Among them is Christopher Norton, the leading composer of music for children and beginning musicians. The reviewers are seated in a circle, listening to Ottawa music teacher Tania Granata play a set of compositions by four- and five-year-olds in MYC's Sunshine II level. Snowflake Dance is a micro-waltz. Donkey Song features clusters and echoing motifs. Dora's Sad Song is a minor-key trifle, with a Celtic touch. Jumping Frog is a long, staccato melody. "Wow," says one of the reviewers. "This is Sunshine II?" asks another. "Did you make a phone call?" asks a third, half-joking. Calls are made to teachers if there are any suspicions that a parent unduly helped a child with a composition. After a show of hands, Jumping Frog is declared the unanimous winner. Soon they are evaluating the finalists in the Moonbeam II category, with composers who are eight and nine years old, picking the best from Shadow, When to Pray, Stormy Night and Sweet Sounds, a major-key waltz in Eb with distinct sections. "How about they all be first because they were all so good?" says Ms. Granata. At one point, Mrs. Balodis asks for a tissue to dab at her eyes. Sweet Sounds has moved her to tears. "I don't know why that song makes me cry," she says, before thinking a bit. "I love the harmony in it and how it flows." "Music just has an impact on people in ways that nothing else can," Ms. Granata says. By noon, the evaluations are over and it's time for birthday cake. Some of the year's winning compositions are likely to stick with Mrs. Balodis. After all, she can clearly recall winning compositions from years gone by. She begins singing a song with lyrics, a winner from eight or nine years ago: "Peanut butter, peanut butter, honey and jam, I make sandwiches, yes I can." She taps the rhythms on her lap, and takes pleasure in singing the song again. "Some of the compositions never leave you," Mrs. Balodis says. © The Ottawa Citizen 2008 | |||||||||||
Ottawa Citizen
16 Mar 2008
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