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Monday 23 March 2020

Remote learning

Today was my first singing lesson on Skype. My webcam still hasn’t arrived so I could see V but she couldn’t see me. Which is it as it should be. I am older, raddled and given to insincere smiles. V, in contrast, has a powerful message: singing is uplift.

I felt strangely formal, glad I’d doffed my pyjamas and shaved even if I was invisible. Skype forces V to talk more and I realised how much of her tuition is usually non-verbal: a brief noise as I repeat a defect, the piano hammered harder for emphasis, a finger pointing ceilingwards in preparation for a high note, a frown, a smile. In real three-dimensional life silences can be tolerated but not on Skype.

V’s chin appeared to be resting on the bottom edge of my monitor frame. She got up and added another pillow to her stool. Added another. A slight improvement. But why was she constantly looking to her left? Because her Skype-equipped laptop rested on the piano immediately in front and the score had had to be moved.

The lesson was hyper-technical, half an hour devoted to the song’s first four or five notes. I fretted, unable to re-create my own timbre. Demonstrating, V leant forward, forming her lips into a tight circle, then restricting their width with her index fingers; patient as always. I continued to stumble, knowing now how I’d be spending the forthcoming six days in my study.

After more than four years of lessons we’ve become friends, talking briefly about our families and the politics we both hate. For the moment Skype inhibits this. Even so it’s a far greater improvisation than I imagined. And the sound quality is not half bad. Infection is held at bay, progress is tangible.

I sing Schubert's Der Lindenbaum

Here something a little less Serious

And here the Mozart aria I was asked to sing at Lesson No. 1

Finally Lucy's earworm
 

9 comments:

  1. Sounds like an interesting way to keep your lessons going. Maybe you could record some of it, so we can hear your singing voice.

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  2. I reckon your daily trip for the Guardian qualifies on two counts: your single daily exercise and an essential journey. If you had a dog it would be three.

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  3. robin andrea: I am toying with the idea but many people aren't used to a capella (unaccompanied) singing. I'm also considering recommending bits of classical music with solid tunes that could be easy for non-classicists to absorb.

    Sir Hugh: I may be on the verge of giving up the paper Guardian. It's against the spirit of what Johnson is insisting on now.

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    1. As far as I understand Johnson needed to get the legislation through the House first, ok he could have done it sooner, but whatever, it all takes time. I thought his latest broadcast was by far the best I have seen him - no waffiling and a kind of naive strength.

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  4. Lovely! I'm so glad there are links, and I shall listen after I do my To Do list (I'm about to do kettlebells, oh, joy!)

    I just posted this online, and V might find it interesting: Teachers of all sorts, my long-ago student Gary Dietz is offering a free course on how to teach online tomorrow at 4:00: "tools and techniques to be engaging and successful." The 3/25 eventbrite site is: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-class-actionable-tips-and-tricks-to-teach-online-in-real-time-325-4pm-et-tickets-100974575674

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  5. Marly: Whereas the Skyped music lesson was new to me, V has been using Skype as a teaching aid for years. Singing is not the only string to her bow, she teaches violin and the recorder as well; also she prepares young children for national examinations like the 11-plus. Her working week used to be a mix of visiting students in their homes and online communication; now of course it's mainly the latter.

    I tried your link out of curiosity but it didn't work. However the first Skyped lesson taught me several useful lessons. Normally I have a twenty-minute drive to V's house; as I drive I practise scales and simple tunes in order to prepare myself. Instead I was fiddling with all sort of computeresque matters right up to the moment I pressed the Skype button. I'll bear that in mind.

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  6. Most impressed. If skype is frustrating at times, there's zoom (https://zoom.us/) which we have used for a while incl. yoga group lessons and choir singing.

    I read the Guardian online, first because it's hugely overpriced and often late on the continent but also because the print/ink leaves traces . . .

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  7. Sabine: There's fastidiousness for you...

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  8. Singing sounds much improved over last I heard (a year ago? Two?) And to comment on another post ... what Trump is foisting on the Everyman, to insure re-election, is a $1200.00 check.

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