It Finally Happened! My students taking lessons by Skype or FaceTime finally met their LIVE piano-connected peers in an hour-long, music-love ONLINE exchange. The emphasis was sharing in a compassionate setting with a spirit of unconditional support for participants of varying levels and abilities.

Introductions preceding the program proved as engaging as each player’s musical offering. As proof, footage in 4 parts memorialized the event through the tap of a SKYPE CALL RECORDER button, bringing distant locations closer by cyber shrinking degrees of separation. The borough of Staten Island, the states of Kentucky, North Carolina, California (with cities, Berkeley, Chico, Fresno, San Francisco, Oakland, Walnut Creek, all well-represented), forged friendly connections to each other and with Merry Old England.

Two Londoners, one a transplant from Berkeley logged in on standard time, while European clocks hadn’t yet made the hour shift.

Sam, in the UK, grabbed a lion’s share of credit for coordinating the GROUP SKYPE gathering, while Peter, here at my place in the East Bay (Berkeley) provided top notch technical support.

While many students chose to play LIVE for this particular occasion, two pre-recorded their pieces and had them Screen Shared on Skype. Two more, who hadn’t recently updated their Skype application, managed to communicate by audio only, with one sharing Tchaikovsky’s “In the Church” without being seen.

It was hardly an impediment to a wondrous afternoon of music-making. The program included the works of Turk, Palmer, J.C. Bach, J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Frederic Chopin.

Finally a 4-part revisit of the event provided a SKYPE recital primer for those interested in embarking upon a cyber-friendly musical journey such as this one–whether from the teacher or pupil perspective.. or ideally, BOTH.

PART 1 (Includes a Primer about how to produce an ONLINE musical exchange)

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

Part 5

The most unexpected, yet delightful visitor of the afternoon proved to be “RASCAL.” He was without doubt, the biggest hit of the day!