When Jan Muzik's piano students haven't practiced, she understands.

She was guilty of the same thing when she was studying music in college.

"That's when I became a pretty decent sight reader," she said with a laugh.

Luckily her professor, Dr. Landen, was understanding. If she had had the other instructor, Muzik is sure she would have flunked.

"She was just old-fashioned from the word 'go,'" Muzik said of the other professor.

Muzik has tried to keep from being old-fashioned herself after teaching piano for roughly 40 years. She also teaches music part time at Southgate and Banfield elementaries and has taught in the Austin School District

and at Pacelli in the 1960s and 70s. She also taught at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Adams for a brief time.

Flexibility is the key to reaching students and helping them enjoy music, she said.

That's, after all, what got her hooked.

She grew up in northern Minnesota, in a small town called Colerane. A graduate of the Toronto Conservatory of Music gave her piano lessons. Muzik became interested in jazz and improvisation, but her teacher discouraged it.

"She was about as square as they come," Muzik said. "She said I was jazzing the classics. That's all she could offer me, the classics. She wouldn't listen to me play anything else."

In high school she began taking lessons from a Minneapolis instructor, Oscar Bellman. He encouraged her to play music she was interested in and she learned that she still had a lot to learn about music.

"He taught me how to play the things I wanted to do," she said.

Muzik encourages her students to play what they enjoy. Her philosophy is that as long as her students enjoy music and enjoy playing the piano, it's fine if they do not practice all the time or play the music she likes.

"That's a very important philosophy to go by," she said.

She tells of a student who doesn't have a piano at home and tends to not practice. She has a learning disability, but Muzik can tell she likes playing.

"I give her things to sight read," Muzik said. "She can read. She may take three times as long to get through it, but I don't baby her."

She knows her strengths as a teacher, and her weaknesses, she said. She doesn't have children practice for competitions, she wants them to know how to read music and play to the best of their ability. Other piano teachers in town do a wonderful job, as well, she said.

Just giving children a chance to learn piano is her goal. So many times she's heard adults say they wish they would have had piano lessons.

"If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I could have retired at 35," Muzik said.

She thinks the number of students learning to play piano has decreased over the years. Children are involved in many activities, such as sports, that don't involve music. But she thinks it's possible for them to do both.

A student she has at Pacelli played baseball, sung in choir and took piano. One of her high school-age students plays basketball and takes piano.

She is able to keep up with what children and teenagers are interested in when she teaches. She may not like their favorite music, but she tries to find ways to relate to her students.

"You learn from the children," she said.

Teaching music has helped her become a part of the community, she said. She's seen the students she had in choirs and piano lessons grow up. Former state representative Rob Leighton was one of her students.

Muzik's husband, Conrad, taught band for the Austin School District. Her husband, her son and she have a small band that plays 40s and 50s music for small gatherings called "The Muzix."

She has taught the children of her former students and met many people through her involvement in music.

"Teaching has been such a wonderful experience," she said. "The thrill of teaching has been to keep that link with the community."