Meet Jenie Song.

Unlocking the Musical Mind: A Parent’s Mission to Transform Music Education

Most children never get the chance to become truly musical — not because they lack talent, but because the window to nurture it closes before anyone realizes it's there.

I spent much of my life chasing musical excellence, only to realize that true musicianship had quietly eluded me. As I continued on my path to becoming a classical pianist, I excelled at the external markers of success. I won first prize at my first piano competition at 9 years old playing a Mozart sonata. I could sight-read complex scores, perform Beethoven and Chopin with fluency, accompany and sing in virtuosic ensembles with precision. Despite decades immersed in piano and vocal performance, I was missing its very heart: the ability to hear and understand music comprehensively. I heavily depended on reading notation and could only play minimally by ear. I struggled to improvise. And when I attempted to create music freely — as jazz musicians do — I was creatively paralyzed.

The struggle to learn jazz piano and voice — to improvise, to truly create — became a defining part of my journey. It exposed the missing pieces that years of classical training had overlooked. 

The Breakthrough

Studying and taking a deep dive into Music Learning Theory (MLT) changed everything. It provided the key that connected all the fragments of my musical experience, allowing me to synthesize my performance skills, theoretical knowledge, and creative instincts into a cohesive, living musical understanding. For the first time, I could compose music confidently — not by imitation, but by creating content rooted in developmental and cognitive understanding. I began writing original music for children — music grounded in true musicianship.

Teaching from the Inside Out

My parallel work as an educator only deepened these insights. With over 20 years of experience teaching thousands of children across school and extracurricular settings, I saw the same heartbreaking pattern: students arriving with remarkable potential but little to no meaningful musical foundation. Not because they lacked ability, but because no one had reached them with what mattered most — when it mattered most.

True musical development doesn’t start in the school years, but in the very first years of life — ideally from birth — when a child’s brain is most primed to absorb music like a language. Waiting too long to surround a child with rich, developmentally appropriate musical experiences means missing a critical window of brain development that can never be fully recovered later.

Even within music education itself, I came to recognize something deeply troubling: most major approaches skip the essential step of teaching students how to audiate — to truly hear, imagine, and comprehend music internally. Students are taught to read notation incompletely, follow conductors and perform, rather than embodying music from within and given the fundamental tools for real literacy and to become independent musicians. But true musical independence — the ability to think musically, make creative choices, and express with depth — is rarely developed. They may perform successfully, but rarely are they making intentional, creative, or artistic decisions rooted in true musical understanding. This disconnect strips away the very heart of music-making.

A Personal Transformation

Then I became a parent.

No longer was music education just a professional pursuit — it became deeply personal. I committed to giving my own children — and the next generation — what I had missed. I immersed them in diverse musical content with activities grounded in MLT from their earliest days.

What I witnessed was profound: music was no longer only something external to perform. It was something internal to express. I saw how rich, developmentally appropriate musical experiences from birth laid the foundation for creativity, confidence, and deep comprehension far beyond what traditional methods could offer.

Today, my work focuses on two transformative pathways for families:

Early Childhood Music Empowerment

Equipping parents with the tools and confidence to nurture musicality from birth through early childhood — using developmentally informed practices that build the foundation for lifelong musical growth.

MLT-Informed Piano Pathway

Helping young learners begin piano through audiation, not premature notation — by hearing, moving, singing and creating music from the inside out — ensuring authentic expression from their first notes.

By teaching piano in this way, I’ve healed my own musical wounds. What once felt limited, rigid and disconnected is now joyful, intuitive, and deeply meaningful.

The Bigger Mission

By helping children internalize music first and express themselves naturally and meaningfully from the beginning, I am building the musical foundation I always longed for — and ensuring that the next generation experiences music not as a rigid task, but as a living, breathing art form.

Through these programs, I empower families to lay a musical foundation their children deserve — one that cannot be delayed, outsourced, or replicated later — and that will echo for a lifetime.

This is more than music lessons.

It’s about giving children a lifelong relationship with music — one of joy, creativity, understanding, and self-expression.

Want to Start Your Family’s Musical Journey?

If you're ready to give your child the kind of start that fosters deep musical understanding and lifelong creativity…

I’d love to connect.

Let’s create a rich, developmentally informed musical journey for your family — together.