Katarina's Music Studio
How to get the most out of your online piano lessons
Friday, April 24, 2020 by Katarina Marcinger | Online lessons
Dear parents and students,
it seems like our piano lessons may be staying online for a while. Even when they are eventually back in person we may have to revert online now and then regularly. So I have put together a handy guide how to get as close to the in person teaching and learning as possible. And the good news is, you CAN get VERY CLOSE to the in person learning experience if you follow these steps. It centres around two things: 1. Improving your internet connection and 2. Improving the piano sound
1. Improving the internet connection
You should consider investing in an ethernet cable. They are not expensive and will make a huge difference to the connection as you won't be using the wifi at all but hardwired internet. One end goes into your normal wifi router and the other end into the computer. You then change the network settings from wifi to ethernet according to the operating system. On my mac I just click on the wifi icon on the top left and click on "open network preferences" and make sure the Ethernet shows "connected".
The cables come in different lengths including very long ones so you shouldn't have any issues with the distance between the wifi router and your piano. This is the one I bought. There are loads of others on the market. Category 7 seems advisable as it's compatible with the lesser categories. Always check compatibility in description.
For mac users
You will need an adapter as macs don't have ethernet ports. Best would be ethernet to Thunderbolt adapter as they are a bit faster than ethernet to USB adapters. This is mine. Newer macs have a newer version of Thunderbolt port so check out which one you have here. I would pay the extra few £ to get the Thunderbolt as opposed to the USB adapter.
For PC users
Most PCs will have an ethernet port automatically, if not you can buy an Ethernet to USB adapter.
Following this advice will improve the speed and strength of your internet connection for your online lessons.
2. Improving the piano sound
I have started using a USB microphone for my recent lessons and consider it an excellent investment. The USB microphone will not make a difference in how you hear your own playing but it will make a big difference how I hear your playing as the dynamics etc will be much more nuanced and therefore my advice to you will be more accurate. So you get better quality teaching for your money. This is the microphone I am using. It cost a bit of money but it seems to be a wildly popular mic with a lot of the youtube piano channels. Now we are going to get a bit techy.
Why not to buy any cheap USB microphone
Every microphone has one or several different pick up patterns. Pick up patterns are different ways how a particular mic is picking up sound around it. Most cheap / standard microphones have patterns that focus on the sound directly in front of them and block out sound everywhere else, as they are intended for vocals, interviews, podcasts etc. This is NOT what you want as we would lose most of the piano sound this way. The pattern I set my mic to is called omnidirectional because it picks up everything equally, the whole range of the piano plus the reverb etc. That is what you want to achieve. You want a microphone that has at least the omnidirectional pattern or several different patterns so that you can experiment which one works the best. A stereo pick up pattern may also work. This info is normally spelled out in product description so you will know.
Setting up these patterns requires literally zero work. You just adjust the switch to the correct icon like when you are changing speeds on a hairdryer.
If you are interested in real quality online piano environment I would suggest you invest into a USB microphone and get familiar with how to use it. There is not that much to get familiar with other than selecting it from the drop down menu in your Zoom audio settings, and setting the right levels so that it doesn't distort. All this is just a matter of a little practice and you will be set. And don't forget I can help you with that.
Your investment may also pay for itself as if you create a really good online conditions you may want to use them more regularly which means less money and stress spent on travelling, less childcare costs, more time on your hands etc. I do understand however if you do not have the funds to buy a microphone. In that case I strongly advise the ethernet cable at least.
Thank you for reading this blog post and I hope it has encouraged you to create a comfortable online learning environment for your piano lessons.
What is really happening inside a piano student's mind
Sunday, December 8, 2019 by Katarina Marcinger | Psychology
I came across this article on Facebook and thought. was worth sharing. Dear parents, take a minute to find out what is really going on in your child's mind when they are playing piano ... and then give them an extra hug for their efforts!
A brief overview of British music exam boards
Saturday, January 20, 2018 by Katarina Marcinger | Grade exams and exam boards
There are several fully accredited music exam boards in the UK. The two largest ones are Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and Trinity College. There are also others, most notably Rockschool, exclusively focusing on music skills for the contemporary musician and London College of Music (LCM). They all carry the same amount of UCAS points for Grades 6,7 and 8 that can be used to boost the candidate's university or college application in the UK.
ABRSM and Trinity College both offer "traditional" music grades focused mainly on classical music with some jazzy and more contemporary pieces thrown in. They also offer jazz and rock & pop grades. Jazz and contemporary grades tend to be often overlooked by many music teachers and schools who do not really consider them as highly as the "classical" grades. However, for many students they can be precisely the right path to take to become the musicians they always wanted to be. They require their exam pieces to be played to a backing track which tends to be quite popular with students. Also they have improvisation as part of their syllabus which attracts many kids to these types of exams. They can normally choose between sight reading or improvisation as a supporting test for their exams and from my experience most kids do chose improvisation. It is worth noting that Trinity College "classical" grades also offer improvisation, although a bit more "generic" than Rock and Pop type exams that focus on current music and teach students to improvise in pentatonic scales and read chord charts which is very relevant for anyone who is interested in playing current music or jazz.
As for the two biggest traditional grades providers, ABRSM is much more rigid in their requirements than Trinity College who are proud to tailor their exams to each candidate's strength. There are upsides and downsides to both approaches that we will discuss in further articles on this subject.
As a summary, we can say that there is enough choice for a British music student to study according to their needs and talents and follow an exam board that is most inspirational for them. As mentioned before, all these 4 exam boards are recognised equally by OFSTED and awarded the same amount of UCAS points for Grades 6,7, and 8. Each of them has their strengths and weaknesses and none of them is perfect. We will be examining each exam board in detail in subsequent posts.
