Hi y’all,
Recent layoff from my company after 22 years is going to give me lots of time to play music, and start teaching private lessons again.
If anyone is interested in taking lessons either in-person, or via Skype, please PM me.
Cheers and thanks,
Michael
so sorry to hear about your layoff. wow, 22 years is a long time…i have sent you a pm.
bummer. Our company is going through a redundancy-frenzy too.
Just did a trial run this morning with a prospective student to test the whole audio/video system, seems to be working great for both high whistle and flute.
If anyone is seriously considering this, I’m happy to offer a free lesson so you can see if how I teach is compatible with your learning style.
I don’t work from a curriculum, I listen to what you are doing and any requests you might have for skills you want to develop, and we work on that. If I hear something that needs attention, I’ll focus on that.
Please PM with any questions or requests.
Being prospective student from previous post, I’d like to give some feedback over the lesson received.
A bit of my background:
With no previous musical experience whatsoever, I have been playing a tin whistle for about 9 month now. I can read sheet music and can keep up with occasional Carolan tune when in session, but reels and jigs require speed beyond my current abilities.
Couple months ago I have picked up a second hand Celtic flute by Martin Doyle. I took a few lessons with a teacher to get the basics of tone production and such. However, there are no ITM teachers in my area. Only classic school ones. And their repertoire, however beautiful, is not really inspiring to me.
So I have been looking into Skype lessons for a while, wondering if these actually work as good as personal lessons, and there was Michael, offering one.
So back to the lesson review:
We had a full hour session. Michael had me play a tune on a whistle or flute and then imediately played the same tune himself, providing comments on breathing, articulation, fingering, timing, tone production and tune’s structure. Then I played part of a tune over, trying to incorporate what I have heard into my own playing. Poorly. And then I got more feedback which led to another attempt in playing the tune and so on. We also did some technical exercises on tone production and articulation with no respect for particular tune. All-in-all I have played three tunes: an Air, a Reel and a Jig.
Michaels’ playing is really good. I tend to believe, that if I was not taking a lesson, then I might have payed him just to listen to his music over Skype =) So there is plenty to learn from listening to his performance, as well as from any other good player recording. The difference with Michael is that you also get to talk to a capable teacher, receiving comments on all the little bits that otherwise take lot more time to notice and figure out. It is like a taking a speed lift to the top floor instead of climbing the stairs. In an hour he has provided more insight into a particular tune then I have accumulated myself for a couple months.
After we finished Michael emailed me his notes with further exercises and comments on improving the tunes.
So to anyone considering a remote lesson I would recommend to go for it. Skype provides enough presence so I was never sorry it was not an RL session.
Also, thanks for a free lesson, Michael. See you next time on Skype.
Hi y’all,
Recent layoff from my company after 22 years is going to give me lots of time to play music, and start teaching private lessons again.
If anyone is interested in taking lessons either in-person, or via Skype, please PM me.
Cheers and thanks,
Michael