Technology

Today’s children have grown up with technology, so it is an integral part of their lives and of their learning. The many available websites and apps can be a tremendous asset to anyone’s music education as can audio and visual recorders.

YouTube is perhaps the most obvious website for watching and hearing musical performances. Some of these performances will be high quality while others will be mediocre at best, but even this is can be a positive if it is used to help children develop musical judgment skills.

Many pedagogy books now include CDs which are extremely helpful because they model for children the pieces they are learning and walk them through a logical learning sequence.

I have both an audio recorder and a VCR in the studio at all times. A performer who listens to or observes their performance in the third person is better able to critique it, then make any necessary changes. Truly “a picture is worth a thousand words.” All student concerts and public performances are recorded and made available to students on DVD.

This year families will be given the option to join me in an experiment using an online practice journal/community to see if this helps kids and parents stay on track during the week with practice goals and scheduling.