striking the right chord
For 42 years, Anna Jeanne Flesner has taught kids to play the piano, and there are many more years to come
“Music is my life,” says Anna Jeanne Flesner while sitting in her piano studio.
This year marks her 42nd of teaching lessons, although she herself has been playing much longer.
Beginning at age 12, Flesner became an accompanist for choir groups and churches alike. Then, when her eldest daughter turned 5, she began her teaching career, but she wouldn’t quite call it that.
“It’s really more like tutoring,” she said. “You have to meet each student where they’re at.”
After 42 years, you might think she has a routine by now. But in reality, it’s always changing.
“Piano is different for every student. It’s not an assembly line,” she said, adding that before she takes on a new student she sits down with them to discuss their goals. And with her variety of tools and methods, combined with her years of experience, she knows she has something that will work for every student.
In her studio, which she’s used for the past decade, she has an upright piano that
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Piano is different for every student. It’s not an assembly line. — ANNA JEANNE FLESNER students spend half an hour playing on each lesson. But that’s just the beginning. She also has an online piano lab where students learn music theory, and two electric pianos students can use to create different sounds for different pieces. She even tries to supplement their learning with history lessons on different musical eras and composers.
She’s a member of the Minnesota Music Teachers Association, and their annual conventions help her continue to learn new teaching methods. Flesner also helped start a branch of the National Piano Guild in Tracy, which was open for 30 years. Her students currently have the option to participate in annual competitions that she and a colleague run and hire judges for.
She says despite the cultural changes that have occurred since she began teaching in 1983, music and piano is just as important. Fewer children are taking lessons these days, which means piano students have many opportunities to put their playing abilities to use, accompanying choirs, churches or other ensembles. Flesner also said the musical skills are only part of the benefit.
“Piano teaches kids coordination, which is helpful no matter what. It also helps with discipline,” she added, citing that the time management needed to find enough practice time is a valuable skill for college-bound students.
And the benefits aren’t only for her students. For Flesner, teaching has expanded her world.
“Music is an international language,” she said. “It’s universal.”
When her husband, Bruce, was in the U.S. Air Force, the young couple lived in Gunsan, South Korea, near where he was stationed. Flesner remembers an experience in one of her husband’s friend’s homes in Seoul where she was able to sit down at the family organ and play, because despite not being able to read the title or any of the words on the music, she could read the notes.
She’s also been able to teach exchange students, learning how music is taught differently all across the globe.
Flesner has kept plenty busy throughout her years of teaching, having up to 30 students at one time, assisting on the farm and working at Habilitative Services in Tracy on the weekends, all while raising her four children. The past decade things have slowed down a bit, with her husband stopping his farming operation in 2014, but Flesner still has 17 students from all over southwest Minnesota.
She sees most of them in her studio in the Milroy area, but also teaches in Slayton once a week.
And she isn’t slowing down yet. “I’ll teach as long as I can. If I quit, what would I do with all this music?” she said, laughing.
Her four children have scattered across the country, and she admitted that if she had her grandchildren close by she most likely wouldn’t be teaching. Instead, she says, her students become like grandchildren to her.
“After I teach them for 10, 12 years, I tell parents, they’re a little bit mine,” she said.
And although she can’t begin to count the total number of students she’s had, she said it doesn’t matter. As she puts it, “Music is for everyone. Everyone can find a way to enjoy it.”
