ABOUT US

Hi! It's a pleasure to welcome you to this website. I'm John M. Honeycutt, better known to my students as "Grampa John". Along with my talented associates, we hope that your visit will be a pleasant and productive one.

What is the Music Innovator's Workshop?

The Music Innovator's Workshop LLC is a research and development project that aims to  provide effective alternatives for teaching and learning keyboard music through innovations in music notation and teaching methods.

A Visual Art. Along with our desire to make music notation easier to learn is the conviction that music notation is a worthy visual art-form as well as a practical means of conveying what sounds to play. Every effort has been made to make these music notation alternatives beautiful and interesting - a joy to see as well as to hear.

This site is a way of sharing the benefits of these innovations with my students - and with anyone else who may have an interest in them.   

Origins. Some 50 years ago, as an industrial engineering educator with a music degree from Wheaton College in Illinois, I was commissioned to write a textbook, The Basic Motions of MTM, about the ways that we move our hands and fingers to build things. This led to thinking about how reading musical notes guide your hands and fingers on the piano and other keyboards. I've been thinking and experimenting about this ever since. I thought that if there are better ways to learn and play the keyboard - let's find and develop them. Now, it's 50 years later, and results are in. You will find  innovative and effective keyboard notation, learning materials, and sheet music on this site.

.