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Skype your next music lesson

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Skype is changing the way people are learning music – this article from the New York Times discusses the relatively new technology and it’s impact on private music lessons:
Skype and other videochat programs have transformed the simple phone call, but the technology is venturing into a new frontier: it is upending and democratizing the world of music lessons. Students who used to limit the pool of potential teachers to those within a 20-mile radius from their homes now take lessons from teachers — some with world-class credentials — on other coasts or continents. The list of benefits is long: Players of niche instruments now have more access to teachers. Parents can simply send their child down the hall for lessons rather than driving them. And teachers now have a new way to build their business . . . .
 
There is no data on the number of video music lessons, and many people certainly will prefer face-to-face lessons. But many music teachers said in interviews that they were conducting more lessons over broadband connections.
Will skyped-in choral critiques be far away?
 
I’m fairly certain that this has happened already, but I don’t know details.  Who can share?
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Comments

  1. Skype is truly an effective remedy when physical meetings are impossible. It will never be able to replace physical meetings – and shouldn’t – but in my work it has proved to be tremendously helpful. As a professor in choral conducting and management, I coach conductors both here in Norway on a weekly basis – kind of like a personal trainer. They live very far from me but I can monitor their work. They bring their computer to the rehearsal and we connect. I can see them work and hear everything that is done. Excellent!
     
    I have also coached one conductor in Indonesia as part of the Conductors Without Borders program, the same way I coach in Norway. No difference.
     
    And in my youth choir who is currently working hard towards World Choir Games in Cincinatti, I had a good young bass who had to move to Canada for 4 months with his parents. And we had one weekend summit every month and he was there – on my screen hearing all my instructions, the computer was placed among the other basses so he could all the time hear them. It was an amazing help – of course he had to get up at 4.30 AM in order to attend the rehearsal but he did it. And lost no time. 
     
    Singers in a choir who can’t attend a rehearsal can attend with skype. There is now more limited reasons to not receiving important information given in the rehearsals, if this is properly organized.
     
    all the best
     
    Thomas Caplin

  2. I give voice skill sessions and various voice and learning science presentations via Skype (free) and WebEx ($19.00/month) as part of my business, The Leon Thurman Voice Center.
     
    Right now, I’m working with a high school student in a small town in Minnesota and a man with voice problems in California (have worked in the past with people in other states and Canada, too). Also working with an absolutely delightful and sensitive woman who lives in France. She is a Child Psychiatrist (MD) who specializes in the treatment of Autistic children, and now she is once again using singing very effectively in her treatment of them. She had two horrific surgeries in late 2007 and the superior laryngeal nerve of her right vocal fold no longer functions (her right VF lengthener muscle is paralyzed).
     
    So, good on you, Phillip, for bringing the NYT article about this technology to the attention of choral conductors!

  3. Philip & colleagues:  It’s called “Distance Learning” in the trade, and yes, it’s been going on for quite a while.  I’m in my second year of teaching a course that’s completely on-line, not because I want to, not because I think it’s a good idea, and not because I think it’s effective teaching, but because there’s a huge demand that can’t be met otherwise.  But this is a Music Appreciation class of 200, not a private lesson.  And while most of my students are here in town, they could be in Madagascar and I’d never know or care!!!  But at least a couple are undergoing important medical procedures, and couldn’t attend class on campus in any case.
     
    We do have one local string teacher, though, who is advertising and doing this.  I don’t know whether she’s using Skype, which after all is only one particular program.  (I’ve used another that lets my son-in-law take over my computer and solve problems for me at a distance!)  And I don’t know how effective it is, which is the only criterion that really matters.  Bad teaching at a distance by a famous teacher is still bad teaching!!!
     
    But as far as critiques go, our music department was already doing critiques of conducting students via videotape back in the late ’70s, when videotape was COMPLICATED!  And I’m sure we weren’t alone in that.  Non-simultaneous critiques have been around for a long time now; making them possible in real time is certainly an improvement, but not anything brand new, and the videotapes had the advantage of allowing the students to see and critique THEMSELVES.
     
    In fact, back in the mid-’60s I took a statistics course in which the professor had his material so well organized that we watched the lectures on actual FILM, which was then in the Library where we could watch it again if we wanted to.  But of course that’s actually the opposite, since it was 100% hands-OFF learning.  But audio-visual teaching is old hat; only the actual technology has changed.
     
    And there are still time lags, sometimes important, sometimes not.  But probaby more important in choral rehearsals than in business meetings.
    All the best,
    John

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