The Unstoppable Musician

How do you get to a point where nothing stops you?

The French School of Music in Plainfield, NJ USA was a music school founded by Mlle. Yvonne Combe in 1927, who had studied at Paris Conservatory from 1905 to 1908 when four famous French composers were alive. The school taught primarily piano and solfege (singing named pitches using “do re mi” while conducting time - basically the musical equivalent of learning the alphabet) for nearly 90 years. The book titled “The Unstoppable Musician” describes the history and methodology.

Mlle. Combe’s methodology externalized the relevant metrics associated with understanding how sound moves through time, so that students could understand music deeply, and teachers knew immediately what students did and did not grasp. This is because she understood: What you do not measure, you can neither understand nor improve. Her four-prong solfege methodology involved:

  1. sightreading named pitches while

  2. conducting time,

  3. ear training, and

  4. music dictation.

Resources:

  • The Unstoppable Musician - free PDF in Dropbox, last updated 11/28/2023. Previously published as “Solfege Teaching Guide” (first edition) on Amazon. This now contains more biographical information and both the original French and English translation of a book written by Mlle. Combe’s mother.

  • The Unstoppable Musician (Chinese translation) - this was done by Cathie, an astronomer in Shanghai, using ChatGPT. Thank you!!!

  • On Amazon - original first edition of Solfege Teaching Guide in Kindle and paperback (will be discontinued when the second edition is officially published)

  • Free workshop introducing online training covering Dannhaüser Book 1 (all 171 exercises)

  • Unstoppable Musicianship Book 1 Bootcamp - covering Dannhaüser Book 1, taught the way Mlle. Combe taught solfege at French School (plus some critical additions from exposure at Juilliard)

    • Part 1 covers exercises 1 - 100

    • Part 2 covers exercises 101 - 171

Useful resource links related to topics discussed in The Unstoppable Musician:

Origin Story

  • L’Étude du Piano (The Study of Piano) - Mlle. Combe had a very wrecked copy of this book, with many areas marked in pencil. This is a work in progress and contains both the original French text and English translation (using an online translator), as well as the areas she highlighted. This is the origin story for my dad’s book Fundamentals of Piano Practice. Last updated 5/12/2023.

  • L’Étude du Piano (Chinese translation) - also done by Cathie using ChatGPT, of the portions highlighted by Mlle. Combe.

  • L’Art de Développer Le Sentiment Musical Chez l’Enfant (The Art of Developing Musical Sentiment in Children) - referenced in L’Étude du Piano and highlighted by Mlle. Combe.

  • Conseils d’Un Professeur (Advice from a teacher) - referenced in L’Étude du Piano, OCR, translated, no clean up.

  • Les Timides et La Timidité (Shy People and Shyness) - referenced in L’Étude du Piano, partially translated, more for therapists, mostly out of scope.