ePlatforms

My work

I work as a singing teacher. I help the students to improve their voice production and vocal skills. I also teach them different kinds of musical skills related to musical styles and genres. I teach both classical music and contemporary styles like pop, rock, jazz, blues, soul and folk.

I’ve been teaching for over 15 years. During those years I have been teaching beginners and more advanced students; professionals and amateurs. In my work it is important to approach teaching from the student’s point of view and try to help them individually. Strong variety of pedagogical skills, teaching methods and tools is crucial. It is also important to follow the time and the latest music phenomenons.

Although the most important qualities as a singing teacher are to have professional competence about music and voice production in addition to advanced social skills, digital tools are a very important part of the work nowadays. COVID-19 and this strange time period where the world stands now have changed singing teaching towards more increased digitalization.

Besides teaching I occasionally also perform as a singer. My performances vary from gigs to studio work. I am a freelancer. Marketing and using social media is an essential part of a singer’s life. That part doesn’t come naturally for me. Marketing would take time and effort. I admit that I could improve my digital skills in these areas. Many digital gadgets and tools are an important part of my musicianship. For example, in my songwriting process I use different kinds of digital applications.

Digital tools and my work

1.     Zoom Cloud Meetings

For two years ago I never believed that distance teaching would be possible and effective. COVID-19 pandemic forced voice teachers to try new methods in singing teaching. Distance teaching has its limitations but also some advantages. Today some of my private students prefer distance lessons. It saves time when you can attend a singing lesson at your own home or at your summer cottage. I teach singing over Zoom. Although the Zoom Cloud Meetings application is not primarily designed for the music purposes, the application offers some usable adjustments for audio quality. It is also easy to share computer screens while teaching.

2.     MuseScore

MuseScore is a music notation software. Creating sheet music in a digital way is many times more reasonable than writing the music by hand. Making changes to digitally created music is handy. Adding notes and bars or transposing need only a couple of clicks. I have written my own music and arrangements using MuseScore. MuseScore uses MIDI sounds. It means that MuseScore also plays the written music. Of course, the sound is raw but in the creating process it is very helpful. With the sounds like drums, piano, guitar, violin, bass etc. it is easier to build a hearing image of the music arrangement. I have also created music sheets for teaching purposes.

3.     Spotify/YouTube

I love the global music library! Part of my work is to study music constantly. It is important to understand musical elements in different music styles and genres and be aware of the musical tradition. There are always artists, bands and composers to explore. New music is also released all the time and it is good to know the latest hits and music influences. For these purposes, I mostly use Spotify and YouTube. A lot of my students use hearing as a guide to learn new songs. Digital music applications are good tools for that. You can also find some karaoke tracks and backing tracks on Spotify and on YouTube. My students use them while practicing singing.

4.     DrumGenius

DrumGenius is an application created by musicians. It is an encyclopedia of real drum patterns and grooves played by real musicians. It is a usable tool for anyone who wants to develop time-feel in music and to expand the knowledge of different beats and rhythm from basics to the more complex ones. Rhythm is a crucial part of the music. This tool helps the student to improve the sense of rhythm. It is possible to adjust the tempo of a rhythm pattern in the app. This is great for learning. The learning process can be started at a slow tempo, and the tempo can be accelerated during the process.

5.     WhatsApp

I use WhatsApp for communication. Sharing videos and files is quite effortless over WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a one way to connect students and colleagues. WhatsApp is today quite a popular tool for communication. Although the utilization of WhatsApp has advantages, sometimes it is hard to manage all the groups in which you are added in. The communication flood is sometimes overwhelming. That can be quite exhausting at times.

5 Tools of social media that I could utilize in my daily work

1.     Instagram

I have my personal account for Instagram but I’m not active in social media. I don’t use Instagram in my work although maybe I should. It would be a good channel to post my own recordings and videos and to promote my profession as a singing teacher and a singer. The challenge on Instagram is how to post interesting feeds. I’m kind of a person who doesn’t want to share everything publicly. It would be important to set rules for my behavior and carefully to consider where the line is between my private life and my professional life. I also have more time for other things when I don’t use Instagram that often. I am not willing to spend a lot of time creating posts. But I think Instagram is a good platform and maybe in the future I’ll start using the application more.

2.     Doodle

I haven’t signed up for Doodle, yet. But in some cases, utilizing the tool would be worth considering. Situations like scheduling student concerts or gathering musicians into rehearsals would work well with this tool. Maybe some precious time would be saved. And maybe there would be less scheduling fuss in finding the suitable time for everyone for the appointment.

3.     LinkedIn

LinkedIn would be a good tool to connect with colleagues and to find some new professional acquaintances. I don’t know many people who have a profile in LinkedIn, especially in the music field. I have never heard that the musician would have found a job due to LinkedIn. Maybe this platform is not the most efficient tool for that. But I was quite surprised that I found some of my colleagues in LinkedIn as I used the “Find the person you know” function on LinkedIn sites. Maybe it would be a good idea to add my Curriculum Vitae and profile to the pages. It never hurts to connect with people and to find new contacts. Maybe it would have a good impact on my professional life.

4.     Todoist

I already have a habit of creating a lot of to-do lists, but I write them to my calendar. Whenever I remember some important tasks that I should do, I’ll write them down. That eases my mind tremendously. I see that Todoist applications encourage people to do the same thing, only in digital form. For now, I still prefer using my old pal paper calendar. But I guess the usage of the Todoist application would be kind of an upgraded way to maintain my old habit.

5.     Wix

As a matter of fact, I have started to create my artist web pages using Wix many years ago. But I never completed the process then and now if I would like to continue, I should start over again. Wix offers quite nice visual options for creating web pages. Because I don’t have the skills to create web pages from scratch, Wix would be a good option for me. I am quite a visual person and I have my own vision of how I would like the pages to be. Using Wix would offer options for customizing the model templates. It is said on Wix-pages: “Discover the platform that gives you the freedom to create, design, manage and develop your web presence exactly the way you want” This sounds almost too good to be true for the person who is not a digital prodigy! In my daily work it would be practical if I would have good web pages for introducing myself as a singing teacher and as a singer.

Self-evaluation

Learning to utilize new digital tools takes time. It is good to consider carefully if the tool is worth using or does it in some cases make work more difficult. Tools are only tools, but the most important thing is the clear thought behind utilization. I love the advantages that digital tools offer. But in some cases, I try to avoid digital gadgets and the whole digital world. For example, I prefer paper books and not e-books. My eyes get tired if I look at the computer screen for too long. I think it is good for everyone to think about how much digital presence is good for life. That includes social media. How much time are you willing to spend on social media? I think keeping contact via social media is a good thing, but it is also important to meet people face to face.

The best thing in this assignment was to familiarize myself with new applications and social media platforms. It was interesting to explore new sites and to find out new apps that I could start using. I learned that I could exploit possibilities that the digital world offers more efficiently.