Music Lessons Anywhere by Tracy Rose, Principal
Mumsinthewood recently had the pleasure of meeting (albeit virtually) and getting to know Tracy Rose, the very lovely, extremely proficient and talented, fantastic teacher and principal of Music Lessons Anywhere. Tracy has been teaching online for about 7 + years now and has pupils all over the world. A professional pianist herself, she is incredibly versatile and is able to adapt her teaching style to suit the individual child. The school also provides teachers for almost every instrument imaginable. She is also able to introduce the fundamentals of music theory to children in an interesting and inspiring way and as many parents have stated, helps children to excel in a relatively short time. Tracy also offers a variety of online composing clubs, performance clubs and aural and sight reading workshops and has recently launched an app called Music First which covers the following:
Auralia
https://www.musicfirst.co.uk/applications/auralia-5-cloud-editon/
Practice your drills, work through lessons and complete tests, in areas such as Intervals, Chords, Scales, Terms, Rhythm, Cadences and Melody.
Focus on Sound
https://www.musicfirst.co.uk/applications/focus-on-sound/
This is a huge digital multimedia encyclopaedia. You can also take lessons and tests in a wide selection of music related subjects.
Musition
https://www.musicfirst.co.uk/applications/musition-5-cloud-edition/
In the same format as Auralia, Musitron covers all aspects of theory, reading sheet music, recognising time signatures, notating rhythms, understanding intervals, matching key signatures, and more.
Noteflight Learn
https://www.musicfirst.co.uk/applications/noteflight-learn/
Learn how to both compose music and record live audio into scores, which is great if you’ve wanted to get your musical ideas down. It’s also a help with theory.
O Generator
https://www.musicfirst.co.uk/applications/o-generator/
Great for making your own drum loops and also helps to develop your understanding of rhythm.
Practise First
https://www.musicfirst.co.uk/applications/practicefirst/
This is very clever! Great for practising sight reading. You can play along with a piece of music on screen and at the end, you will get a score on how well you played. There’s a huge amount of instrumental music and if you want to use more, you can upload music from Musescore: https://musescore.org/en
Sight Reading Factory
https://www.musicfirst.co.uk/applications/sight-reading-factory/
This app generates unlimited sight reading examples, instantly. If you want to improve your playing in certain keys and time signatures, you can select what you want and a score is created for you. You can also play the score to hear what the music sounds like.
Soundtrap
https://www.musicfirst.co.uk/applications/soundtrap/
This is an online music recording studio to make your own music. Within the app, you can also get together with other students live online and create music together remotely.
Below is an article written by Tracy introducing Music Lessons Anywhere to our readers. Mumsinthewood is incredibly pleased to be able to offer our readers the opportunity to learn more about Music Lessons Anywhere and it’s truly wonderful founder. We hope you enjoy reading the below. Tracy can be contacted via her website https://musiclessonsanywhere.net/
I can’t imagine any job better than running Music Lessons Anywhere, the online music school I named and founded in 2013. It gave me the wonderful opportunity to bring together my broad experience, directly to my own music school. Since graduating from the London College of Music in 1990, I had worked for many years classroom teaching in schools and specialist music schools, peripatetic teaching in secondary schools, teaching music in secure units, and creating and developing music departments from scratch in two international schools in Spain.
I run Music Lessons Anywhere from my 70 foot (23m) traditional narrowboat houseboat, which is moored on the outskirts of London, England. This came as a surprise to one of our students who thought we operated from a glass fronted office block! I work with my husband Paul who helps run the school. He is a qualified graphic designer, taking care of the tech and most of the admin, while I teach and run the academic side.
Teaching online these days is quite the norm, but back in 2013 many people approached me, asking with a puzzled expression, “How do you do that, how do you teach music online?”
Now I don’t have to explain how it works, because of the rapid acceleration to an online world that the global Covid-19 pandemic initiated. Online teaching has become mainstream.
At times I felt that potential students who were sceptical of online teaching needed to try out an online lesson, so they could see for themselves that music lessons taught this way actually work. Now students tend to come to Music Lessons Anywhere knowing what to expect, but pleased to discover that we offer so much more.
At the last count, we are heading towards teaching 300 students, based in over 40 different countries, taking lessons with our 19 strong team of experienced and specialist music teachers. Between us, we’re able to cover almost every aspect of music learning, from tuition in most instruments, singing, music technology, theory, IB Music, Music For Media and more. It’s always exciting receiving new enquires from potential students, knowing they can be from anywhere in the world. The range of students, their needs and locations is vast. We have a student in Finland taking church organ lessons, students taking their lessons from their catamaran in Guam in the Pacific Ocean and students studying for Diplomas!
Our talented team can cater for all requirements, such as teaching specific musical styles styles. They’re able to take students through exams through ABRSM, Con Brio and MTB exam boards. Music Lessons Anywhere is a registered exam centre for MTB, so our students can sit exams online, in their homes. We’re able to fast track students through their Grade 5 Theory Exams, take students trough Diplomas, teach teachers and teaching specialisms such as jazz, rock and improvisation, and also prepare students for performances and auditions.
We pride ourselves as a team for our student centred approach. We like to realise what makes students tick, for example, composing for their instrument or discovering new styles. We encourage and help them develop these areas, while at the same time, working on technique and mastery of their instrument.
Working online means it’s possible to take instrumental and music lessons to parts of the world where it’s difficult to find instrumental and music teachers locally. Working online, with the world at fingertips, there are no geographical restrictions binding us to only working with people local to our students. I found myself talking with potential teachers where distance is no obstacle for them to work alongside me. All of us in our different worldwide locations are under one virtual Music Lessons Anywhere roof and I can choose the best teachers to work with from anywhere in the world.
As an online school, it is important for me to maintain a sense of community, it’s an essential part of what makes it special for me and I’m sure, everyone who is involved. To create a sense of inclusiveness, I like to emulate a traditional bricks and mortar school, an approach which is distinctly different to the many online music lessons agencies. We organise online workshops which cover a wide range of activities, from topics geared towards passing exams to extra activities to shore up students musical skills. We run weekly Aural Workshops and two Performance Workshops a month, where students can play their pieces to other students around the world. We run three weekly Theory Workshops and a monthly Meet The Composer Workshop and a Composition Workshop. There are also special one-off workshops timed for students who have exams approaching. Our Grade 5 Theory Workshops are very popular!
All Workshops are free of charge for regular Music Lessons Anywhere students. This makes them inclusive and helps to make students feel that they are part of a school, through meeting, learning and interacting with other students in the same space, no matter where they are located in the world.
Many students come to us simply to take up a new instrument but soon become much more involved when they discover the depth of music education and what we have to offer at Music Lessons Anywhere. We’re able to fulfil the many diverse needs in so many different ways.
One of the most important aspects is to make sure I choose the right teachers, teachers who share my and our team’s approach to music education. All potential teachers are interviewed, then if selected, are observed my me, teaching one of our students. Currently our teachers are in based in the UK, South Africa, Spain, Greece, Macedonia, Netherlands, Brussels and USA.
Meeting new people from all over the world, students and teachers alike, for me is one of the biggest highlights of teaching online. Bringing students into our global school, whether it’s for just a handful of lessons or regular lessons for years. For them to become part of Music Lessons Anywhere instead of working in isolation, I fell is very special.
With opportunities for us that are boundless and ‘boundaryless’ and with the world having rapidly switched to online technology, it is a very exciting time for Music Lessons Anywhere, especially as we have all the experience of online teaching from when I started Music Lessons Anywhere in 2013. As technology improves and provides more powerful and innovative tools, so we seek new, innovative, creative and engaging ways of teaching and bringing people together to learn and realise their potential.
