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.

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.

We both could hear that Robert’s voice was also cutting through the texture in a way that sounded too immediate, modern and dynamic. When he equalized it, using an effect called RCA Victor 1947, it all came together. He then exported it as a wav file, and dragged it into iMovie, an easy-to-use Mac application.

Result: a film-poem in one evening. If only making art could be this easy and graceful every time.

During the following week, Robert discovered that there were free time-lapse applications available for the iPhone, and shot some footage from his office window high over the city, using an app called Gorillacam. As he wrote on his blog, www.robertpeake.com,  “Yesterday, with the help of an iPhone app, I propped my phone by the window for several hours and set it to take pictures six times per minute. I composited these images into video at 24 frames per second using Quicktime, then looped the clip back-and-forth, adjusted the colour, and added a panning and zooming effect using iMovie.”

Meanwhile, I was thinking about how best to reflect the images in sound. As I watched the flickering footage at the weekend, I realized that what one often hears accompanying time-lapse cityscapes are minimalistic, repetitive, fast-moving patterns. I wondered what it would be like to go for the polar opposite. I created a slow chord sequence aiming to mirror at once the golden light of the buildings, and the creepy effect of the looping footage.  When Robert read the poem simultaneously with the music, the rhythm of the chordal sequence tended to pull at the poem. However, when we recorded them on separate tracks, they worked beautifully when juxtaposed. Hey presto, another film-poem!

Click to watch “Upon Arrival”

So why am I recounting this on a music teachers’ blog? Well, it seems to me that there are new opportunities here for us to work creatively with students. Imagine a student shooting video footage on their phone during the week, bringing it to the lesson, and then using it as a basis for improvisation. Or, equally, bringing a poem to record on a separate track. It is so easy now to use these applications to create something convincing. This could then be posted on youtube or easily shared on Facebook with their friends. So much of what we do as musicians is temporary, created in a moment and then disappearing once more. Preserving these creative events can be immensely satisfying.

What kinds of creative collaboration inspire you? What kind of applications have you discovered to use with students?  I’d love to hear your experiences.

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.

Facebook.  I love Facebook, mostly for its ability to quickly and easily connect with a ton of people, specifically my friends, family, high school classmates, and even my piano students. You can quickly and easily get messages to all or some of the people you know, advertise your studio, and share tips and tricks for practice times.   But Facebook is rife with privacy issues.  If you’re going to post personal items on Facebook, you must be vigilant about using discretion and privacy settings.  After all, some, if not all, of your posts may end up in Google searches.  You also need to watch that some distant relative doesn’t tag you in an unflattering photo from your third cousin’s wedding.  It might reflect poorly on the image you are hoping to portray to your private lesson students.  Avoid posting anything that you don’t want the entire world to know or see.  Don’t post rants about people or places, instead, keep your posts positive, fun, and inspiring.  Better yet, create a separate page based on your studio website.  You can invite all your students to visit, as well as post events, ads, or information that you want your students to see.  It’s a great place to offer an incentive for referrals.  You can also join Facebook groups such as your local high school band page or church page.  From there, you can meet new poeple and make new connections.  Don’t forget to ask people to ‘like’ your page so they can find you later or share you with their friends.

www.facebook.com

LinkedIn.  LinkedIn is a more professional venue, and a great way to network with other private teachers, businessman, and other professionals.  It’s a great way to get your resume and credentials out there, as well as advertise your studio website.  You’re not likely to find young students on LinkedIn, but you will be able to network with people who can lead you to new students (such as their professionally employed parents).  Be wary of attaching your Twitter and Facebook accounts to LinkedIn.  It’s much safer to keep this account strictly professional with no personal references.  Include a great looking head shot so people remember you as a person, not just a name on the computer screen.  You can also join various discussion groups through LinkedIn, so you can find job openings or people looking to find a private music teacher.  Don’t forget to link your profile to your free Music Teacher’s Helper website.

www.linkedin.com.

Twitter.    The key to Twitter is in being succinct.  You only have 140 characters to get your message out there, so the more concise you can be, the better.  You can invite your friends and family to follow you on Twitter, and you can gain followers by following people you like.  Whenever you tweet, you should add a hashtag that compliments your tweet.  So if you tweet about piano practice, you may want to end your tweet with #piano or #musicpractice.  A hashtag is like  a keyword.  Other Twitter users can search for keywords, and hopefully, your tweet will come up.  Again, make sure to link your account with your Music Teacher’s Website.  Be careful of privacy issues, and keep an eye on your followers.  It is polite and expected to follow back appropriate followers on Twitter.

www.twitter.com

Google+.  Google plus is like Facebook without all the fancy bells and whistles (and with less privacy problems, too).  It’s a great networking tool, and I’m sure it will be gaining popularity as time goes on.  Invite your friends and family to join, and create ‘circles’ to categorize them in.  You can then associate with people that are in their circles, and thereby expand your own.  Being so concise will inspire your creative writing, too. www.google.com.

There are a few tricks to good, social networking.  First, post often, but don’t spam.  I love hearing what local business men and women are doing, but I get annoyed by the people that post every half hour.  I just don’t have time for that!  If your are networking to advertise, post things that are relevant to your studio, such as practice tips, composer tidbits, and available lesson spots.  It’s also a great place to offer incentives or advertise specials, if you have them.   Routinely look for new people to connect with by checking your family and friend’s pages and searching for groups and individuals.  Avoid ranting and raving or gossipping in your posts.  Keep your comments positive and helpful.  If you are going to post about your students, make sure you have their parents permission.  People love to see photographs, but be very careful what you post and who you tag.  If you want to post photos of your students, you should probably get written permission first.  Lastly, always be aware of privacy concerns.  If you don’t want the entire world to know, play it safe and just don’t post it.  Link your accounts to your free Music Teacher’s Helper Website so people know where to find you.

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.

So here’s a great example of Square in action. I played a concert Sunday. Afterwards, I went to dinner with one of my adult guitar students. During dinner, she realized she hadn’t made a payment towards her tuition this month. She asked to use Square to make a payment. She handed me her credit card, I plugged the card reader into my phone and swiped her card. She signed for the transaction on the touch screen of my Droid, and then I emailed her a receipt. (You can also text a receipt.)

So she made a $94 payment on Sunday towards her tuition. I’m going to use that as a baseline to generate data. Normally, I would I pay $3.03 to Paypal in transaction fees on that. Through Square, only $2.59 was deducted. .44 cents difference. If we take that number as a sample across 65 students per month, that’s $28.60 in my favor. Over a year, that’s $343.20 more.

With Paypal, I have to wait 3 to 4 days for the money to transfer to my bank account or use my Paypal credit/debit card. Now, all of the money processed by Square is deposited automatically overnight into my bank account. Instant. Cheaper. Faster.

I’m going to keep accepting Paypal payments, but I am definitely now a fan of Square. I plan on encouraging my students and their families to switch to paying via Square in 2012.

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.)

3) A checklist of composition devices was given to charge up the creative juices. About 5 minutes of lesson time was taken to prod students’ idea bank. We looked over a list of various moods that sparked the imagination engines. Most were inspired to borrow ideas from their current pieces which boosted their confidence as they were not starting with a blank slate. Additional ideas included varying the melody with neighbor tones, repeated notes, rhythmic changes and using standard LH patterns they encounter on a regular basis. Students were encouraged to keep it simple. However, they know I am a huge fan of intros and outros (codas), so most added them to please the teacher

4) Pianists (arrangers) were asked to return to the next lesson with a completed variation.

Action!

The following week was like Christmas as each student “unwrapped” his/her variation for me. Some were perfected and camera-ready, some even had more than one variation, while others needed last-minute tweaking to work out rhythm or harmony issues.

Recording each student usually took more than one “take” but they did seem relieved to know that only their hands would be filmed. They were all reminded to use their best hand position but  some were quite surprised with what they saw while watching their own video. (Note to self: pull out this camera more often–a picture can say so much more than words!)

Cut!

After accumulating the clips, they all headed to the editing table (iMovie). Every student who participated was included in the final cut, however there were so many that a ‘sequel’ was needed.

The Editor’s cut features the top twelve variations (yes, it was hard to choose!). It was just added to my Music Teachers Helper website, a great way to showcase the latest studio activities.

This is the first of MANY similar projects. It offered an opportunity to cover theory topics like the theme and variation form, primary chords, secondary chords, modality, composition techniques…the list goes on. The students enjoyed the creativity and seeing their names and hands “up in lights”–watch out Hollywood!

In one of my earlier blogs, “NAMM and the Music Educator“, I discussed what the NAMM show is and why music educators might want to consider attending. There are opportunities for networking, free workshops and events, and companies are displaying music related products. There are plenty of opportunities to do hands on demoing of products. And frequently you see products that aren’t sold in stores in your area.

I run into many music educators who don’t know that they are welcome to attend NAMM and that it’s quite easy to get a badge. Usually I send them a few links to check out and the registration information, and they become interested in attending.

NAMM is not open to the public, but you can go online and register for the event in advance. If you register before January 5th, there is a $25 registration fee. After January 5th, it increases to $50.

Check out my earlier article to find out more reasons why music educators may benefit from attending NAMM.

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.

The search took me to a page showing the lyrics,  and information about the song and artist I had requested.  Unlike most lyric sites,  I was not attacked by pop-up pages.  As I scrolled down the page through the lyrics,  I found thumbnails which took me to related pages on YouTube, Wikipedia,  photo sites,  and  Itunes/Amazons.  I was also given information about any tours by the band or artist in which I was searching, including the cities and venue names.

I found the site easy to navigate,  with most information on one page.  I tried several searches and never came up empty handed.  I did, however,  find a very few searches that did not show the lyrics,  stating a copyright infringement.  But on those sites, the rest of the information was shown.  Before I knew it,  I had been researching on this site for an hour.  I enjoyed visiting this interesting site,  as did my music students and musician friends.  I recommend the site to music teachers and students,  as they will be able to explore and research many areas of their favorite pieces of music. I have even posted this site on my Facebook page.

I downloaded the free version and found it to be very useful and not too limited, as many ‘lite’ versions can be. The lite version of the app covers Intervals, Major & Minor Triads, Cadences & Chord Progressions and Scale Recognition. The app contains information explaining each of the concepts that it covers, with links to websites more information if required. There is a section where students can track the statistics of their progress, which would be great for teachers to check in with how their students are doing as well. Exercises can also be slower down (a must for any ear training app I believe) and you can also limit the exercises to certain keys. A small keyboard can be activated for students to work on during the exercises also, although none of my students used this feature.

The Interval training is set up so that students choose between two intervals, which I think would be fantastic for beginner students, where you might only introduce one or two intervals at a time. There are options to play melodic intervals both ascending and descending, as well as playing them as harmonic intervals. The same options are given for major and minor triads.

I like the versatility of this app, the ability for it to be used by students of all levels, and of course, the price (free!). I think it will definitely be recommended to my students who haven’t already discovered it and exploring the full-priced version also. If you have a favorite ear training app I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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.

Website Management

As Inc. magazine points out, websites are now substitutes for front offices. They make the first impressions and an essential element to any sound business strategy. For studios taking dance, music, or art instruction online the website is just as much an extension of the studio’s craft. It isn’t enough to provide unchanging content when the goal is to create an online learning environment.

Any web-based learning environment by its very nature must provide changing content and an archive of previous lessons. Changing content is the key to any site created with a content-driven purpose. By archiving previous lessons and updating new ones on a weekly, biweekly, or even monthly basis you’ll develop your customer base by driving traffic to your website and ultimately into your studio.

Distance Learning: Advantages and Limitations for Studio Classes

The advantages and limitations of distance learning are well documented and should be noted by anyone interested in offering online classes. The primary disadvantages to online learning typically stem from the lack of student-instructor interaction. For students of dance, music, and the fine arts this lack of face-time with instructors can lead to the development of bad habits that would be corrected quickly if they occurred in the context of an in-person class.

However, online instruction also has plenty of advantages that make it remarkably popular for arts instruction. A brief discussion of those advantages according to those who know them best — online arts instructors — is provided below and grouped according to subject: art, music, and dance.

For students of dance, the Online Dance Company, a hip-hop dance school specializing in web-based instruction, offers an excellent overview of the advantages of online instruction for dance students. Among the benefits the company envisions for its students are universal access for people living in remote areas, scheduling difficulties, who are embarrassed, or who tend to get bored and want to move on quickly. By offering online classes, dance instructors might give up some of the corrective instruction of conventional lessons, but they’ll provide plenty of opportunities for students to experience all of the benefits of dance.

Online study of visual arts doesn’t pose as many instructional challenges overall. Web-based art classes can in many ways be viewed as an interactive extension of the television art classes that have dominated public television airwaves for years. ArtTango.com provides K-5 online art education, and emphasizes online art education can carry the same instructional power as that found in the traditional classroom. Because art instruction centers on demonstration rather than correction of students’ technique, it’s fairly well suited to an online environment. In many cases students can submit their work digitally for instructor feedback. If not, assessment rubrics can be used for self-evaluation, allowing students to progress at their own pace while receiving specific instruction from online class segments.

The primary disadvantage of web-facilitated music instruction is the inability of instructors to directly correct students’ errors, though even this isn’t a limitation in every case (for instance, when lessons are given through streaming video). However, the benefits, as online music lesson provider MusicLessons4You.com highlights, are numerous. With web-based lessons students can learn at their own pace and repeat any particular lesson until it’s mastered. With the chance to repeat lesson videos and study how the musician in the video produces sound and rhythm, students are able to grasp the finer techniques of playing an instrument and advance as rapidly (or as slowly) as is appropriate.

In the current climate of internet-savvy consumers, it just makes good sense to have a website for any business. For instructors of the arts, however, it makes even more sense to enhance that website with instructional videos and information that add an online learning dimension to the business and invite new students to experience the magic of the arts. By reaching potential and current students alike in an online format, you’ll enhance your school’s reputation, maximize instructional time, and build your reputation in the arts community.

About the author:

Lindsey Wright is fascinated with the potential of emerging educational technologies, particularly the online school, to transform the landscape of learning. She writes about web-based learning, electronic and mobile learning, and the possible future of education.

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.

Firstly, most of the classical recordings available at that time were adequate, but not outstanding- mostly obscure Eastern European recordings. On top of this, it was not even possible to ascertain who was playing without the aid of a microscope, as the only information was on a thumbnail image of the cover.

Then one day I tried to find a piece of music by Bartók, only to discover that Bartók’s music was catalogued in four separate places on the system: Béla Bartók, Bela Bartok, Béla Bartok and Bartok. It was not possible to search using the name of the piece and the composer, so it could take twenty minutes or so just to find a piece. At this point, I decided to write to Rhapsody to express my feelings on the subject, and received a polite and prompt reply saying that the issue was caused by the way that information was collected and compiled from all over the world and there was nothing to be done. I threw up my hands at this point, but stayed with Rhapsody as I could find no better alternative.

Until now. Upon my recent return to London, I discovered spotify. It works beautifully. It is simple and intuitive to use. You can search by the name of the piece and composer as well as artist, for example, Mendelssohn Elijah Terfel, and it pops up in no time. There are thousands of outstanding recordings. I’m paying £9.99 a month, although there is a free service with ads available also. And apparently, spotify has just reached the States.

When researching this article, I also came across Naxos. Although it does not have the breadth of spotify, it is aimed more at the classical market. Naxos includes some great resources for teachers, including an attractive and beautifully compiled Junior Section where children can learn about the instruments of the orchestra, complete with wonderful and clear audio examples of repertoire.

This is a tremendous way to be able to share music with our students. I love being able to reach for my computer and play any of thousands of works to a student at the drop of a hat. And with the cost of the service dropping all the time, we can encourage students to subscribe themselves.

Update: Rhapsody have now improved their search function, so one can search by composer and piece, but several Bartoks still remain…

What other listening resources have you discovered on line? I’d love to hear about them.