Your Space Music Lessons online saxophone teacher, Alison McAusland @McAuslandMusic celebrated her nomination for a Tamworth Business and Community Award on Friday. Alison is so passionate about making music accessible to all and we are so proud to be working with her with the same vision.
Online Music School, Your Space Music Lessons has launched a new drive to make music tuition easier for families to access. In a new partnership with ‘rent to buy’ instrument service Duet Shop, new orchestral instruments can be obtained from just £7.50 per month. For families who find it hard to budget for instruments and have little time to access quality tuition, it is hoped this partnership will enable more children and adults to learn from a broad range of orchestral instruments in their own home.
Your Space Music Lessons, launched in 2013, is one of the leading online music schools in Europe delivering personal tuition with ‘conservatoire’ level tutors, in a model that reflects the need for a ‘face to face’ learning experience in a digital age.
Your Space Music Lessons has helped many people, including Haseeb (pictured) access tuition wherever they may be located.
This was the best solution for us based in London, where we didn’t need to travel yet we get a professional music teacher during the daytime’ tells Haseeb’s mum, Nazia.
With Duet Shop it is possible to return the instrument after 3 months, or upsize along the way, so it removes the financial risk in buying an instrument and allows music potential to be explored, explains Your Space Teaching Director, Olwen Macleod,
‘The cost of an instrument can be one major reason why music lessons don’t even begin, so Duet Shop will help us reach more sectors of society including busy families and fringe groups, such as disabled or housebound people to access music.’
The partnership will also tackle another rising problem of endangered orchestral sections, as Duet Shop instruments are delivered to homes and Your Space Music Lessons operate entirely online, so that it is easy to access and learn endangered instruments such as the viola, oboe and cello.
Duet Group Operations Director, Karl Stevenson, welcomes the collaboration,
“We are delighted to have the opportunity to work alongside Your Space Music Lessons in support of their excellent Online Tuition Service. Our shared core vision is that everyone should have access to a new, quality musical instrument which in turn would enhance their engagement with musical education and tuition. Budget should never be a barrier to aspiring musicians, access to a new instrument is available from as little as £7.50 allowing Your Space Music students to concentrate on making music without worrying about the cost”.
We are thrilled to announce Alex Chisholm-Loxley has become Partner Teacher at Your Space Music Lessons. His passion and energy for the piano is infectious, and we hope he will make a wonderful contribution to the direction of our online music school. Alex is one of our long standing online piano teachers and has helped many children and adulst achieve their highest potential, delivering Skype piano lessons and group online workshops. https://www.yourspacemusiclessons.com/content/alex-chisholm-loxley
For purist musicians, music technology can leave a bad taste in their mouth. But what would it have been like if their own musical start in life was missed? If Mozart had not been taught, or Bach or Beethoven!
For people cut off from mainstream music education due to lack of local funding, medical conditions, geographical location or lack of time, a new digital dawn has arrived to make personal music lessons accessible to diverse groups of people who share the same passion and determination to learn.
Take these four beginner pupils learning to play a musical instrument with ‘Your Space Music Lessons’. Discover their motivations for choosing an online music teacher to help them pursue their dream.
‘If you choose something because it is geographically close to you I think it really hinders your choices.’
Jemma Barton and her husband moved from the UK to live in a small town south east of Toulouse 10 years ago. They made the move to enjoy ‘a different type of life’ as the houses were much bigger than w
hat was affordable in the UK, and they enjoy ‘better living’ and a wonderful climate. Jemma works as an English teacher for people in and around the French town, but also as a Skype English teacher.
Their daughter Aimée, who was born in France, had been given a clarinet as a gift by her Grandfather, so the hunt was on to find Aimée a music teacher.
‘We have a music school in the town, but they are very structured and very rigid in their way of teaching. The children are obliged to go to a separate hour lesson per week just for reading music and singing. So whatever instrument they learn they must also do the extra hour per week. There is no access to music at school at all, it doesn’t exist. So, it’s really very difficult for parents who work as the sessions are always after school. It’s very restrictive. Also, I personally believe that children should learn to read music whilst learning the instrument. Otherwise it feels like torture to them rather than fun and a part of learning the instrument, so I looked for other alternatives’
Jemma felt there were advantages to Skype lessons having used the medium herself for teaching, and principally the flexibility that it gave, but also the benefit of having an instrument taught in English to a bi-lingual student who has everything else taught in French.
Jemma also explained ‘I could probably find a local clarinet teacher but whether they would be a good teacher or whether I would be doing it because they were within driving distance would be another matter. When you do it by Skype it means you can have a fantastic teacher and it doesn’t matter where they live.
If you choose something because it is geographically close to you I think it really hinders your choices.’
Aimée is taking weekly clarinet lessons with online woodwind tutor Jillian, who is based in Aberdeen.
‘For us it’s a real pleasure every week.’
‘I feel like myself when I have music and the animals’
Rebecca started learning the piano when she was 8 years old when her Grandad started to teach her. He was a big influence on Rebecca as he played classical pieces to her, of which Beethoven was a favourite. ‘I miss him playing and he helped me to learn the notes’. Sadly, he passed away and Rebecca found she was struggling on her own.
Rebecca has always had a learning disability which makes it difficult for her to learn new skills and retain information. Rebecca also suffered from terrifying epileptic fits as a child as well as experiencing every childhood illness going; Chickenpox, German Measles and Hooping Cough, all of which severely disrupted her development at a young age.
Rebecca isn’t able to work and spends most of the time at home with her mum and her animals. Some days she walks a few minutes up the road to help her Nan with her shopping and washing.
Happiness for Rebecca is sharing her days with her animals. She has 8 cockatiels (Tom, Snowball, Snowflakes, Bertie, Coco, Honey, Max and Mango). ‘I also have my two dogs Toby and George, and my cat ‘Tiger’ who sits on the bed’ she says smiling. Her animals really matter to her ‘I like their nature’. They don’t talk back and love her whatever - I’m sure most people could relate to that.
She says ‘I feel like myself when I have music and the animals’ and that is a simple wonderful and revealing revelation.
Rebecca looked for a music teacher after her Grandad passed away, but she specifically wanted someone to come to her. She didn’t feel comfortable going out for lessons ‘I don’t know different areas’ and she felt nervous and awkward around other people. ‘I had a teacher who came to my house every Thursday from Lichfield, around half an hour’s drive. I wanted to find another teacher because she was retiring, and I was going to be stuck then.’
She started to look for another teacher and soon found an online school that she felt comfortable about approaching. Her music lessons with her online teacher Alex ‘have been very helpful and it’s not difficult for me to learn through a screen.’
Rebecca’s favourite music style is pop music, enthusiastically tackling Adele songs and her favourite artist Meatloaf, ‘I have the book, but I haven’t started on Bat out of Hell yet!’
She does find parts of reading music quite difficult ‘mainly when you get double notes and the sharps and flats, they’re the main ones I’m struggling with.’ But an online teacher can be as patient as any other personal teacher to give their student the support they need.
Music seems to take Rebecca away from her learning difficulties, when asked she said ‘yes, that’s how I feel, it really helps me’. She wants other people with learning disabilities never to give up even if they are scared ‘they should take online lessons, you get the encouragement you need.’
Rebecca has booked in to take her grade 1 piano exam soon.
‘We didn’t need to travel yet we get a professional music teacher during the daytime’
Eight year old Haseeb lives in London with his Mum and Dad.
‘A little time after Haseeb started reception class at school it was becoming clear that mainstream school was not helping him to learn at his pace.’ Explains his mum Nazia. ‘Already he could write and read and was extremely bright for his age, so we had to look for other activities around school that would stretch his mind and help him develop.
‘It was becoming difficult to manage so we decided after quite a while that we would home school Haseeb and support his progressive learning with a one to one approach.’ Haseeb has a number of academic tutors for English, Maths teacher and German teacher and goes to other local classes.
‘My husband wanted to play the piano so he bought a piano and originally thought I could learn, but Haseeb was also interested at a young age. At first we looked for a local piano teacher close to home in London but all that was available was group keyboard classes, and this was not suitable for us as I felt the teacher could not see if pupils were going wrong, just telling the whole class to follow.’
Having originally come from Pakistan, Nazia had experience of an unstructured music teaching market, ‘you were lucky to find anyone remotely close’, so I felt in the UK there would be a solution and made every effort into making it happen for Haseeb. So she found an online music school with personal teachers. ‘This was the best solution for us where we didn’t need to travel yet we get a professional music teacher during the daytime.’
‘Haseeb loves his lessons with Olwen at Your Space and gets on with her very well. He hasn’t got on with some of his other subject tutors!’
Haseeb has been having online lessons for 3 years and has taken the ABRSM prep test, Grade 1 and is working towards Grade 2 at a local ABRSM examination centre. He participates enthusiastically in online concerts where he gets to see and hear other pupils learning in the same way.
‘Learning music takes me away from the illnesses’
Shirley is an inspiring, glass half full kind of person. Whilst she is constantly dependent on an oxygen supply and housebound, due to many health conditions, she is determined to do what she can to make the most of her life. She had always dreamed of learning the piano and as an absolute beginner she set about making it happen.
‘We bought a second-hand piano from a charity shop. When the piano tuner came out and tuned it and he said it was a very good piano which was a good start. Then it was a case of looking for a music teacher.’
She looked around locally for a teacher who could visit her house, but this was not an easy task. Finding a teacher who will travel a distance can be difficult and more costly for a pupil. Having had several failed attempts to source a teacher, doing an online search Shirley discovered she could take online lessons with a personal tutor in a live online class, and this idea appealed to her; ‘I didn’t realise you could take music lessons online…it’s amazing!’
Shirley began lessons with online piano teacher Alex Chisholm-Loxley ‘At first I was very nervous, he was just like a stranger like it would be with any tutor, but now I’ve got used to him we have a good rapport. I’ve said to Alex if you were in the room with me you would probably be clapping me round the head!’
‘It’s important to me to have a live tutor because he picks you up straight away if you do something right or if you do it wrong, but with a video you’ve only got yourself. With this it feels like its face to face lessons.
Since I have been learning the piano I have been listening to more music and have been learning pieces by Bach and the Schindlers List piece. I get a bit of lift if Alex says I’ve done it really well.
Learning music takes me away from the illnesses. Learning the music takes me away and I don’t think of anything but the music.’
With a good Internet connection and a tablet or laptop these pupils, and many more besides, have discovered they can connect with professional teachers and learn within a controlled environment, where they feel most comfortable. With continuously improving internet speeds and online classroom software readily available, online lessons are a working solution for access now and in the future for diverse sectors of people. In an age of cuts to music education in schools, at least access to online music lessons is expanding and evolving and this is where we will find our music stars of the future.
All the team at Normans Musical Instruments are challenging themselves to learn an instrument. We have offered online music lesson, so they can learn at work, to help with their big challenge. Their web marketing extraordinaire, Shona, enjoyed her very first flute taster lesson with Your Space teacher Ellie Haines and has written about her experience in the Normans blog https://www.normans.co.uk/blog
Watch how she got on here:
When we speak to new adult pupils we always hear stories of ‘I used to play when I was younger and I’ve always wanted to get back into it’ Perhaps you feel the same but ‘getting back into it’ feels too daunting a task. Sure, it takes a bit of confidence to make the initial enquiry but most music schools will wrap you up in a big warm welcome to put you at ease.
Courage and determination are the key ingredients to turn that dream into a reality, and once you have become competent there may well be opportunities to join groups, bands, orchestras, theatre clubs, choirs. Music is to be enjoyed and opens doors to life’s pleasures but here are 10 great reasons why you should learn an instrument:
At Your Space Music Lessons we know the joy of music and want others to feel it too. When we began our online school in the Outer Hebrides we wanted to help others who were looking to learn an instrument but could not find a good teacher within a reasonable distance. The quality of Internet had become good enough to make high quality online lessons work, so we set out in our goal to bring teachers to those in need.
Since then we have not only helped those in a remote location but also those with busy family and work lives, those with physical and learning disabilities and many retired people wishing to learn on their own instrument at home. The free taster lesson is helpful for those who may not be sure what to expect to give it a try. (www.yourspacemusiclessons.com)
Due to available spaces during the daytime we're offering 25% off the initial package of 3 x 30 minute lesson during November 2017. Usually at £30, Your Space Music Music Lessons are offering the package at £22.50 for those who register in November and book lessons within the specified times (weekdays between 10am - 3pm)
Upon registering you will be given a free taster lesson, then if you wish to continue, you will be sent a discount code to take up the offer and book your first three lessons.
Professor Stephen Roberts from ABRSM visited the Hebrides to test local Your Space Music Lessons students, who have learned the piano by Skype, for their music exams. He flew into Benbecula airport on a beautiful, bright and sunny day to see the islands at their best.
We give a warm welcome Peter New who joins the Your Space Music Lessons teaching network. Peter teaches all things brass including trumpet, trombone, bass trombone, euphonium, tuba and tenor horn. Peter's experience leading the Leeds Youth Jazz Orchestra and his talents in arranging music (see www.peternewmusic.com) means he is a real asset to the team.