Covid has forced lots of people to work online and there are many industries that have found the benefits, productivity has apparently increased over the last few months but that may be offset by a reduction in innovation and creativity that tend to arise from in person discussions. Travel time is reduced, and one of the things that became obvious early on was that the amount of time spent commuting or travelling from one lesson to another is huge and that time can now be put to good use in other ways. Working hours have also increased although in many … Continue reading What is required for home working?

Well, this week we decided to embark an a new project for us, a virtual rehearsal. Back in April we began Lockdown Brass and started with a couple of live online rehearsals. To be honest they were a bit of a disaster due to the lag on the internet which meant that no-one could hear anyone else accurately. Six months on and after some research we decided to have another go but in a different format.   I had heard that some groups had developed a system which seemed to work. This consisted of distributing the parts by email and … Continue reading So how did the virtual rehearsal go?

One of the most noticeable things since music and the arts have been completely closed down is the way in which online perfomance and video concerts and competitions have sprung up. One of the first things I tried was to see if we could organise an online live rehearsal. That proved to be a particulalry bad idea, the lag on video conferencing sites made playing together an impossibility as the different lag rates worked to make sure that no one could actually work out exactly where everybody else was playing so that didn’t last very long. Looking around the internet … Continue reading Videos and online performance

Ok, I admit it ventilation is something that I obsess about (I am not normally known for obsession incidentally}. Ever since this wretched pandemic started, we were advised to wash hands and keep at least 2 metres away from others but face masks only came later. I must admit i was initially a bit of a sceptic about their effectiveness, after all the virus is small enough to pass through the fabric easily and I always wondered about them. However, when I studied it the issue became less clear cut. There are two types of droplets here, the larger droplets … Continue reading Ventilation, Brass and Covid

Its 6 months since the world went into turmoil, those who normally taught brass students one to one but wanted to continue working were all suddenly plunged into a new way of doing things. Locked down into our own homes we immediately had to find new ways of working. Along with the updating of safeguarding policies video conferencing was suddenly one of the most important things in the world. My own journey through this started with Zoom which was one of the easiest video conferencing systems around, send a link and the recipient clicks on it and goes straight to … Continue reading Learning and remote learning!

I am sure that I am not the only one who has come across the issues of scales when teaching. Some students, both adults and children don’t engage with scales and to be honest just don’t get it. However, in many ways they are one of the most important aspects of learning any musical instrument, and as far as exams are concerned are easy marks, after all you don’t need to worry about all the other aspects, melodic phrasing, harmony, changes in tempo and a myriad of other things that need attention when playing a melody (although I must admit … Continue reading The scale of the problem

Over the course of a year I see lots of students, enter some into exams or coach them for performances they need to present, I also see a variety of different approaches to these events. Some are great at lessons but then fall apart in a pubic performance. Others will not perform particularly well in lessons and then storm an exam and also those who say they perform well at home but can’t perform when playing for someone else. As a teacher this can be frustrating but there are some strategies you can use to try and counteract it. Nervous … Continue reading Performance. Tip of the week

Partnerships are a fact of life although we may not realise it. Very few humans actually live and work in a vacuum which means we inevitably have to form partnerships with others to get through life. Teachers have a central role in the broader context of music education and can only exist by bringing together stakeholders such as Schools, education authorities, parents and of course students themselves in effective partnerships. Of course we have a fundamental partnership with our students, and this should be a two way process. The time when the teacher dictates everything that happens in a lesson should really be … Continue reading Partnerships and the teacher