How Technology is Changing Piano Lessons

As long as I can remember, my mom has been teaching piano in her home. Sidenote: If you live in Utah Valley, definitely check her studio out. It's called Allegro Studio. She mostly teaches at the grand piano, but the kids can't wait until they get to play on the digital Casio keyboard. It makes crazy sounds you wouldn't expect to be "musical" like a dog's bark or a thunder storm's crash, and it has games. Kids are all about games these days, so it's good my mom also has a laptop they can play on and apps to suggest at home!

Integration of technology and multimedia in music lessons has proved, in my opinion, to be one of the most exciting moves made by mankind in the last century. No doubt, science, multimedia and technology are developing at a rapid rate, but what is the use of such development or advancement if it cannot be put to practical daily use? In the case of music lessons, people have benefitted a lot from the incorporation of digital media into this kind of art or education-related process.

Learning how to play the piano today is an altogether different experience in comparison to taking piano lessons in the past. Today, art, education and technology or digital media go hand in hand. Like I mentioned in my mom's studio, we can even play online computer games that are designed to help students learn how to play the piano. Such games are not only informative and educative but also very entertaining.

In addition to this, we have the option of receiving education on the art of playing the piano online. This is an option that is used when the piano teacher is in another location. Thus, one can take music lessons with the help of webcams. Multimedia music lessons are very popular, perhaps because they make music lessons much easier, more interesting and fun. Thanks to multimedia lessons, one can also have text/email reminders about the lesson sent in from time to time.

So things are changing, but one thing hasn't changed for my entire childhood and that's hearing, "That's an F sharp!" (or the like) from the front room at my parents' house. 

Senioritis

In the 4th grade, we had a big bulletin board on the wall of my computer class that said "Ask Me About ASCII". Our homework involved memorizing the definition of geeky words like giga, mega and CPU. I was nine years old and I was on top of the world. That kind of stuff came naturally for me. Our school had this new phenomenon on the computers called "The Internet" and we got to make our own websites. I filled mine with Bart Simpson quotes and images of Star Wars characters.

I dabbled in web design over the next few years. It was during a high school multimedia class that I first started making career goals. I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up: someone who gets paid to play with Photoshop. We created Flash animations in that class and edited the morning announcements which were filmed during first period, among other fun digital media projects. One day, representatives from (then) UVSC came to recruit bright minds for their Multimedia Communications Technology department. I went on a tour soon after and felt like I was home as I met other geeks who actually had a sense of humor enough confidence to look me in the eye.

It's been a fun journey, being one of the few girls in the male-dominant field of Internet Technology (aka Web Design). I had my share of awkward dinners and dates where I was ten years younger than my escort. I like UVU. The digital media department has been involved in lots of awards and conferences and stuff. I'm proud to be a part of it.

I graduate in the Spring. And while I'll be so glad I don't have to attend any more 8AM classes to learn Javascript or PHP, I think I might just miss it.