Meet the newest member of my studio: Mikey, by Blue Microphones. Mikey is quickly working his way into my heart as a where-have-you-been-all-of-my-life kind of tool.
Mikey is not my only recording friend. I have loved my Zoom H4 for the last few years. The Zoom is a handy companion. I loved being able to record accompaniments for my students, record them performing to burn CDs for presents for their parents, and record myself playing their repertoire pieces at different tempos to practice. But the interface leaves much to be desired, and the process from the first step of making the recording to handing a CD to a student or emailing them an MP3 file just took a few more steps than I would have liked.
Then Mikey entered my life as a thoughtful Christmas present from my husband. What do I like about him (Mikey, not my husband…)?
He’s plug and play. You plug him into an iPod (check this site for compatible iPods), and use Voice Memo or another recording application such as Evernote or Blue FiRe, check the gain (there are three to choose from. I’ve been happy with the lowest for recording at the piano), and push the record button on the iPod. Whammo. Done. If your students bring their iPods, they have a recording ready to use at home. If your student doesn’t have a compatible iPod, you can easily download the track to iTunes to burn to a CD or put in Dropbox or email.
How am I using Mikey? So far, my main use of Mikey so far has been to record festival pieces at different practice tempos. I don’t always encourage students to play with recordings rather than metronome, but some of them respond better to a performance than to the tick tick tick of the metronome. I have also recorded an accompaniment for an informal audition and recorded a student composition to burn a CD for a festival entry. I envision using him to record concerto accompaniments at different tempos and playing backgrounds for students to improvise with at home. My soprano friend records warmups onto her students’ iPods. I also may consider asking parents to think about buying a Mikey for their own homes, allowing students to record their own compositions or even portions of their practice sessions for me to check or for their own benefit.
Does Mikey take the place of the Zoom? No. The Zoom’s recording quality is higher end and will definitely be my recorder of choice for recitals and most CDs. But my husband bought Mikey for just under $40, and I see that the Zoom’s newer cousin (the H4n) is running around $300. For a low-ish price, great ease of use, and a decent sound quality, I highly recommend having Mikey come to play at your studio.
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Posted in Music & Technology, Teaching Tips, Uncategorized
The last day of the Christmas holidays in London was unexpectedly sunny, crisp and breezy. After the departure of some visitors, my husband Robert and I were about to go out for a walk and some tea and cake, when he suddenly pointed to a patch of light on the wall behind me. The reflections from the garden of waving branches and the wrought iron of a clothes post were casting flickering shadows onto the wall in an astonishing fashion, almost like a silent movie. Robert grabbed his iPhone and captured some video. “You could use that for a film-poem, “ I remarked, thinking about the beautiful short videos some friends had made recently.
When we got home from our walk, I began improvising to the footage on the piano, while Robert, listened and wrote. Within twenty minutes, we both had something. Remarkably, when Robert read his poem aloud, it was exactly the same length as the video footage. He recorded it, using the free application Audacity, and then I recorded my part onto a different track so that we could experiment with individual volume and color.
I’m not a recording engineer, but I know what works when I hear it. In this case, I knew we needed to take the ‘edge’ off the sound on both tracks. It took a little while to find the right effect for the piano part. It wasn’t until Robert added a little reverb that it harmonized with the imagery. It sounded as if it had been recorded many years ago in a dusty, cavernous ballet studio on a slightly tinny upright. Perfect. Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music & Technology, Performing
I am completely fascinated with online networking. It’s such a fun way to interact
Are you a social media expert?
with people you know and meet people you don’t. In fact, social media is all the buzz in advertising in today’s market. It’s free, it’s fast, and you can hit a large market. Big companies are even hiring social media experts whose full time job is to tweet you, text you, and message you about hot deals and cool stuff. It’s the next big thing in marketing. But should you use it for your private music teaching studio? I do.
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Posted in Customer Support, Music & Technology, Music News, Press, Promoting Your Studio, Site Announcements, Studio Management, Uncategorized, Using Music Teacher's Helper
R&B vocalist Kira Small and her husband, bassist Bryan Beller, was in our area this summer to perform at a house concert that I was hosting. After the concert, Kira was selling CDs at the merch table. She was taking credit card purchases with this tiny white box that plugs into to her iPhone.
She told me about Square, and I decided I would test it out and see how it worked for my teaching studio. At this point all my credit card transactions were happening through PayPal, so it seemed wise to develop some alternatives.
Square has been fantastic so far, a huge step up from Paypal in many respects. The transaction fees are lower (we will look at data shortly), I have the ability to take payments anywhere quickly, I can provide receipts on the spot, and all the money is automatically deposited overnight in my bank account.
Read more…
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Posted in Financial Business, Music & Technology, Studio Management
Based on a Novel Idea by Wendy Stevens.
In her recent website newsletter, Wendy Stevens described a holiday project she designed. She asked her piano students to learn the theme of the “Jingle Bell” chorus and create a variation. Each arranger was filmed debuting his/her arrangement and made into a lovely video.
Fortunately, Wendy shares her marvelous teaching ideas and inspirations on her unique website www.composecreate.com. Subscribing to her free newsletter provides me with numerous ideas and resources. I must give full credit to her for the subject of this blog and am so thankful to find her as a continual resource of inspiration.
The Plot
When preparing for the upcoming holiday recital, lesson time can be zapped by ironing out wrinkles in performance pieces or drilling the performance etiquette routine. Little time is left for covering new concepts or new pieces. This calls for an assignment that captures the students’ attention, challenges their creativity and that can be accomplished in a short amount of time.
The Production
The following steps were taken to prepare students:
1) A lead sheet featuring the melody and chord symbols was reviewed. Early level students were provided with a simple LH version.
2) For inspiration, students were asked to listen to Mozart’s Twelve Variations on “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman” and follow along with the score. Next they watched the youtube video of Wendy’s students. (As I offer 30-minute lessons with a 30-minute lab time, this was assigned during the lab time and did not take away from lesson time.) Read more…
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Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music & Technology, Music Theory, Performing, Promoting Your Studio, Teaching Tips, Using Music Teacher's Helper
Right now, teachers are gearing up for end of semester recitals, benefit concerts, holiday school concerts, and holiday gigs. And then there’s the additional blur of holiday shopping trips and social commitments. But it’s definitely time to make plans for the January 2012 NAMM show if you haven’t already done so. NAMM is taking place from January 19th to January 22nd, 2012 in Anaheim, California. Music Education Days is Jan. 21st to 22nd. About 1,400 exhibitors are participating and over 90,000 people will attend.
Read more…
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Posted in Financial Business, Music & Technology, Professional Development
I recently was requested to review a site called LYRICSnMUSIC. I was told that the site had lyrics, band bios, tour dates, and useful links one one page. This sounded interesting to me, as I frequently search for music, lyrics and backgrounds on the internet for my students. When teaching a student a new song, I find they are more interested if they have knowledge of the artist, history, etc.
I decided to give the site a try, so I went to www.lyricsnmusic.com and was impressed by the homepage. I saw several tabs at the top for Lyrics, YouTube, Touring, Buy Song, Images, and More. Below the tabs was a search box as well as icons linked to popular music players, such as Pandora, and music news sites, including Billboard and MTV. It was now time to try a search, either by song title, artist name or words in the lyrics. I tried each and, to my surprise, was taken to the appropriate page. Read more…
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Posted in Music & Technology, Music History & Facts, Music News
Recently I set the challenge for some of my students to find what they thought was the most useful free music iPhone app. A recent focus in my studio on developing aural skills was evident when multiple students came back raving about a free app called ‘Ear Trainer Lite’ (the full Ear Trainer app costs $7.49). Read more…
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Posted in Music & Technology, Music Theory, Practicing, Product Reviews, Teaching Tips
by Guest Blogger Lindsay Wright
Web-based learning has been called the next step in education, and it seems that every aspect of learning has its digital angle. Learning through the Internet isn’t just the exclusive domain of online college courses anymore: even studio arts, with their inherent requirements for hands-on instruction and demonstration, have joined the Internet revolution.
For owners of dance studios, instructors of music, and teachers of art, this new digital dimension of arts instruction can be intimidating. From designing a website to posting videos to engaging new students, the digital medium requires providers of studio art instruction to develop new skills. However, when done properly the addition of distance learning to your educational repertoire will allow you to recruit new students, market new ideas, and reach people around the globe. Read more…
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Posted in Music & Technology, Teaching Tips
During the last decade, the music scene on the Internet has transformed. Now we can legally listen to just about anything we want to, whenever we want to, for a small fee, or we can choose the genre and stream our own personalized radio frequency (such as Pandora, in the States) for free.
Several years ago, when I moved to California, I began to subscribe to Rhapsody, which at the time cost around $15 a month. Previously I had been living in London, and a member of not just one, but three specialist music libraries with CDs available to borrow. Now this opportunity was not available to me, I was feeling deprived, not only personally but professionally, as I was not easily able to share the vast world of classical music with my students (apart from my own private collection). With Rhapsody, I was delighted to have the opportunity to listen to a wide variety of classical music again. It had some bugs, to be sure. Some days it would decide not to play, or not to sign me in, and it could be difficult to get online support. Then too, there was the problem of the catalog. Read more…
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Posted in Music & Technology, Music History & Facts, Professional Development, Teaching Tips
