"birthright" to "be able to communicate and interact musically with others." In the same degree, Simply Music declares musicality essential to human nature. Adherents identify many everyday activities as fundamentally musical because these activities thoughtlessly fall into patterns of rhythm and pitch. As examples they cite speaking, walking, and brushing teeth. Simply Music seeks both to draw on and to nurture this natural ability by distilling musical concepts into simple patterns. Students use these patterns to begin playing songs in their first lessons. This method is modeled after primary language acquisition, where learners begin by speaking. Many other music education approaches—including Orff Schulwerk and the Dalcroze, Kodály, and Suzuki methods—engage students physically first and teach notation later. The complete Simply Music program aims to teach music for generalists, who may or may not later choose a specialty such as performing classical music, playing keyboard in a band, or accompanying soloists or theater performers. The program attempts to prepare students with a solid music background that can take them where they choose. The primary goal is for students to keep music in their life, most often for relaxation and enjoyment at home or with family and friends. As such, Simply Music includes a wide variety of musical genres, such as classical, blues, jazz, and popular. Simply Music does not focus on mastering classical concert performance technique. Instead, Simply Music teachers encourage students to play expressively and comfortably, without tension. Pedagogy The Simply Music approach contrasts with many other music learning methods, where the ability to play music depends first on learning to read music. Moore terms these traditional methods reading-based and his approach playing-based. The core playing-based piano pieces are presented in the Foundation Program, a series of 9 levels of 7-10 songs each. The pieces are designed to provide experience with many musical styles and genres, to build students’ physical dexterity at the piano, and to give students hands-on familiarity with fundamental musical concepts. Alongside the Foundation Program, and often using concepts from the Foundation pieces, students learn arrangement, improvisation, composition, chord-reading, and theory. Teachers are required to present all these programs, as they are considered essential to a well-rounded music education. Simply Music maintains that their approach—based on learning to recognize patterns inherent in music—is distinct from learning by rote or by ear. Students learn through patterns on the keyboard, in their fingers, and in the music itself. Students