Online Music Learning – Does it Work?

19.04.20 – Darrell Priestley

A month ago the very notion of teaching music online would not have appealed to me much. I love the immediacy of working with students, in real time, and have spent decades perfecting my own teaching techniques for maximum effectiveness; the idea of achieveing good results using the exact same techniques when teaching online is a challenging one. However, perhaps learning to adapt is in my DNA, as I am relishing the challenge of being just as effective teaching online as in the classroom. A slight shift in style, and a tweak to the technique.

For the student, the difference must be at least as great. Gone is the ease with which the teacher can demonstrate a new technique, or a refinement to existing techniques. The challenge for the teacher working online is to find other ways to instruct, that do not involve too much talking, because changing between processing spoken language and melody/harmony/rhythm/ and musical technique is quite demanding for the human brain, especially for younger students.

I began teaching online several weeks ago, bringing those of my students who pay by standing order on board first, since their monthly payments continued uninterrupted when we had to close for lockdown. So, while Eileen and I initially spent much of our time building a whole new business sytem to support online learning, I was also busy discovering how to be effective in entirely new ways, and meeting interesting challenges. Now we are ready to scale up, and the teachers are well under way in bringing the rest of our students into the new system.

In this new and different lesson environment, I have found that at some times it helps the student to focus more acutely on the written notation, and at other times on pure listening skills. At the same time, students are learning to be adaptable themselves, to focus more deeply, and to some extent to be more self reliant, as the teacher cannot support or direct them in quite the same way as they might in person.

One key thing which I had anticipated, and which is working out rather well in practice, is that students are getting better at preparing for each lesson. By getting warmed up at their instrument before the teacher joins them for the lesson, they are more receptive at the start. Then, at the end of the lesson, they are encouraged to continue working on any new skills and ideas while their memory is still fresh. Essentially, this is what happens normally when a student acquires a good practice habit, as memory and fluency develop and playing becomes much easier.

Three weeks into the online teaching exprience, I am pleased to report that students are uniformly making good progress. Though it might take a week or two for a student to adjust, the outlook is positive, and with all this time spent at home, music is proving to be a valuable way to monitor continued learning and development, simply by observing how much more fluently you are playing tunes at your instrument. Indeed, for good measure why not take full advantage of the situation, preparing a mini concert for everyone who lives with you, or even better an internet broadcast via Skype, Zoom or Teams to family members with whom you cannot mix at present. Everyone will love that!

Though for me nothing can quite equal teaching in person, it is remarkable how quickly people have adapted to the new situation. Teaching and learning are proving very effective, and I am certain that it helps us in this to know one another already. Teams software facilitates, rather than getting in the way, but the key to success is the existing working relationship between teacher and student, and I am delighted that technology can be put to use to support this relationship at a time such as this. It is genuinely wonderful to see my students again after a break, and to be welcomed into their homes, as it were. It only remains to say how much I am looking forward to seeing everyone again in person, and of course to playing duets once again in real time!

Learning Music Online & More

18.04.20 – Darrell Priestley

Some days I feel especially versatile, and ready to discuss all sorts with our lovely readers (is there anybody there?). So, possible subjects on the agenda include film reviews, with a nod to both the classics and international cinema, the current lamentable PPE situation, is the US really on the road to ruin, how is our national education system faring during lockdown, songs that defined an era, what we are all doing to cope with staying in, rediscovering nature, gardening for improved mental health, and much more. Challenge me, why not, and I’ll probably have at go at tackling most things. Just don’t expect me to have anything useful to say about sports, or indeed computer software – I know my limitations!

One subject that we are all interested in right now, and in which I am rapidly gaining experience, is online music lessons. If I started out with any preconceptions, they are becoming less relevant by the day as my esteemed students and I power forward together, discovering new ways to make progress, and learning to make the absolute best of the situation in which we currently find ourselves. This is a blog for another day, with a first instalment coming very soon, and the whole area promises to be richly rewarding. There are challenges aplenty, and I feel it is a huge advantage that the students and I know one another quite well already, so that the online relationship is not two dimensional.

It is a welcome aspect that so many parents of both younger students and even teenagers can be present for the lessons, and this may even bring helpful insight into the learning process for many parents who otherwise might have little inkling as to how their children learn music. Watch out for detailed observations of the story so far, it may be quite surprising.

See you soon!

To all our Heroes

17.04.20 – Darrell Priestley

I like to imagine this blog at this most unprecedented time as a personal flotation device, something light enough to bouy you up, knowing that, at sometime or other, everyone is going to need someone or something to lean on. The tone on this occasion, however, is a mite subdued. Running through today’s blog, then, is the Bill Withers song, Lean on Me. You know it well, I’m sure. If you ask Alexa, she’ll gladly play it for you while you read this.

For four Thursdays in a row, we have honoured our heroes, those who go into danger each day, and who we rely upon to carry us through this most difficult time. It’s a shocking responsibility, more really than anyone signed up for. So it’s difficult to grasp how it can be that many retired health professionals have answered the call to support their fellows at the front end, on intensive care wards and elsewhere. Humbling, yet inspiring.

In the three weeks since the nation first assembled outside their collective front doors to cheer, applaud, sound horns or bang a pan with a wooden spoon, so many good people have been lost in standing up to this threat, including stoic individuals at all levels of health care. Many of us know people around us who have been touched by the pandemic, including some we will not see again, and the tragedy of it all can be overwhelming.

Arguments rage about PPE, and about whether the British Government should have excercised the option on the table to joint venture with the EU on procurement of vast quantities, £1.3 billion worth of vital protective equipment. It is very hard for most of us to rationalise why as a nation we would not take every option available to us to protect the lives of those in greatest need as they treat sufferers of this terrible disease.

SInce Margaret Thatcher’s notorious ”There’s no such thing as society” in the 1980’s, people have increasingly grown apart, society fragmented, and communites distanced themselves. When I grew up, everyone knew all of their neighbours; that would be unusual now. It has taken a crisis, a common threat, to throw this into reverse. Thursday night applause is one aspect of this, while 99-year-old Capt Tom Moore and his hundred laps of his garden, meant to raise £1,000 for the NHS and so fair raising over £17 Million, is another. Suddenly, other people are popping into sharp relief. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers are active, people rousing themselves as a help force, and looking out for friends they didn’t even know.

So yes, we are isolated, but the sense becomes ever stronger that we are in this together. People count, and people care. We used to call this brotherly love, and it had been on the wane for quite a while. Now it seems it’s back with a bang. So, we offer our respect for regular people, going about their regular lives, doing regular jobs. Because they are the fabric of society. Let us rejoice and celebrate the people who make things tick, who get us to work, who deliver our food, provide our water and power, and of course those who save our lives while risking their own. It has been tough, but life becomes better for each of us the more we love and respect one another.

Reasons to be Cheerful

16.04.20 – Darrell Priestley

At a time like now, it might just be fun to take an idle half hour and think of all the positives you can cram into 30 minutes of mental meandering. If you can’t think of anything, you’re probably not trying hard enough. So, to start us off, let’s celebrate not having to use the car all the time. It’s just ironic that, now we are not driving, the roads are empty, and to add insult to petrol is now cheaper than for decades. Place, tyre wear is now at a minimum – indeed, at this rate of usage, those side walls will perish long before the tread goes below the legal minimum.

At any time of year, and especially in spring, if a couple of hours pop up that the boss has inadvertantly left free in my schedule, (sorry, what’s that, dear?), I often find myself bumbling round the garden centre, trying to imagine what bunchiflora spectacularia would like in my borders. And yet, I am always surprised when my shoe leather is worn out from all that shuffling around on gravelly surfaces. Well, not this year, oh goodness me no. Quite conceivably, last year’s new shoes could very well hibernate right through the summer and still be looking good in spring 2021.

You may have heard me mention I do both yoga and pilates, because I mention it a lot. I even have a special room, the ‘Yoga Room’. It used to be my daughters bedroom but of course we had plans in place for when whe moved out. Now, this is a room used for little else, with the odd out of the way corner. And the thing about getting into funny positions is, you pretty much always see that same cobwebby bit of fluff you haven’t seen since, well, the last time you hit a particular pose. So, downward facing dog can indeed be very revealing, reminding you that for the last twelve months you had been harbouring every intent to get the feather duster out just as soon as that pose was over, only to forget again until the next time. Well, good news! Not only have I now in theory gained more yoga hours, but lockdown is making it ever more likely that the days of that lazy dust bunny are numbered.

Meanwhile, if you are able to score a supermarket home delivery, you get to feel like an actual, bone-fide lottery winner. There is a downside too, of course, in that the ensuing celebrations might take you through the last of any remaining beer you had in the house, but no matter, it may be three or four weeks before the Tesco van swings back by your place, and it’s important to know when to celebrate. But then you swing back to the upside, realising that having now finished off the beer, it no longer matters who is designated driver, as you won’t be needing those car keys for a while anyhow. Yipee!

Oh, now here’s one: that novel you have always known you had in you? Well now would be a great opportunity to work on the synopsis. I have many ideas in the pipe myself, I don’t mind telling you, not a few of which seem to revolve around some madcap character or other who against all reason manages to get elected as US president and then goes totally rogue. I know, it seems just so unlikely….

One significant plus this spring (and summer?) that should not be overlooked is (fanfare) – the antiperspitant deoderant situation. That half full aerosol can you keep tucked away in the back of the bathroom cabinet is probably the last one you’ll be buying for quite a while. I mean, you only need that stuff when your mixing, right? And most of us won’t be mixing again any time soon. Just think of all the money you’ll be saving compared with a regular summer.

But the thing that never fails to put a smile on our faces, if you haven’t already realised it, is you guys! Our students, blog readers, and their families. The people we couldn’t do without. You’re the ones we maintain this blog for, and I include in this all our existing students, whether or not they are able to take us up on online lessons, or the free fortnightly online check-in visits we are offering as an alternative to our established students through this time. We are so lucky to do what we do, and in such fine company. As Eileen and I have often remarked, you are remarkable, and sooner or later all the nicest people seem to find their way to the Northern Music Academy.