Even piano students and traditional teachers can get with the times!
Yesterday was an experience! A writer friend had referred me to POWHOW, an online conduit for webcam-driven classes, and my first thought was HOW ON EARTH did this apply to piano lessons which held a sanctimonious ONE-to-ONE student/teacher space for centuries? (It had started in Italy with Cristofori and his miraculous pianoforte invention)
Would I be treading on hallowed ground, insulting a time-honored tradition embraced by icons, Anton Rubinstein and Sergei Leschetizky?
What would my late teacher, Lillian Freundlich say if she knew that I had dared to tweak my Logitech 1080 HD cam on video, YOU TUBING my set-up for a Skype lesson to London, England?
Two full-blown keyboards co-existed in harmony, separated by thousands of miles with a breathtaking landscape to consider in the MILLENNIUM.
One was up close and personal:
And what about the split-screen approach? (Was I bordering on the RADICAL?)
POWHOW took an even greater leap forward with a host of keyboards in the works, marked off in boxes, clicked for a close-up at any moment. Students might see one another, or remain anonymous if they chose.
The instructor, in a Honey I Blew Up the Professor image, could teach up to 30 students simultaneously. (I couldn’t imagine so many compressed cyber cubicles on my screen!)
“IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL” blared in my ears!
What else was new?
With a simple mouse click, I could open a full screen view of myself, or promptly revert back to the keyboard angle.
A myriad of options!
***
POWHOW TOOLS:
Rachel Simpson, an able POWHOW team member had walked me through a mosaic of boxes, clicks, sub-clicks, etc., in rapid pace.
A newbie, I felt inundated with dizzying directions!
(In a cyber-circuit shock to my nervous system, I called upon “USER FRIENDLY” as my MANTRA for pure survival!)
*** The POWHOW TUTORIAL:
With my Sony mini cam poised at the right angle on its tripod , I snatched a portion of the POWHOW POWER TOOLS-related footage, adding a preview of my TOP-NOTCH TONE CLASS!
