In this episode Laurel Thomsen is interviewed by award-winning vocalist and FAR-West Board Vice-President, Susie Glaze about her experience with teaching violin and viola online. Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, back in 2009 in fact, Laurel transitioned ...

I'll be sharing tips for setting up a successful online studio in this upcoming free virtual event presented by FAR-West and hosted by award-winning recording artist Susie Glaze. This June marks my violin-viola teaching studio's 26th year, the last ...

June 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of my first experiences teaching violin, viola, fiddle, and cello lessons via Skype (and more recently also FaceTime and Zoom). A lot has changed since then! The milestone has had me reflecting on the hundreds ...

I had the pleasure of meeting with the Skype team over the past few months and helping Alpha test their new Skype Professional Accounts - basically, everything we love about Skype along with the integration of PayPal and Calendar apps, note taking, ...

The relationship between music teacher and student is a connection which goes far beyond the notes and often lasts years, if not a lifetime. It can not be replicated by watching a video or reading a book, although video courses, YouTube videos, and ...

Today, any budding violinist can type “learn violin” into Google or YouTube and come back with countless hours of videos, blogs, and courses, many free or for a nominal cost. At the same time, in most every interview, a professional player will talk ...

This time next month it will be six years since I started offering violin, viola, fiddle, and cello lessons via Skype, FaceTime, and Zoom, and shortly thereafter realizing the world, quite literally, was opening up to me. I’ve since toured all over ...

Every month or two since early 2012 when I was included in a New York Times front page article about teaching music via Skype, I’ve received an ...

Do you:

• have technical issues you want to master?
• pieces needing polish, or a performance or audition to prepare for?
• want a second opinion about where to focus your energy and valuable practice time for the most pay ...

In December I was interviewed by a reporter from the New York Times, Catherine Saint Louis, about teaching violin/viola over Skype. Today, the article, “With Enough Bandwidth, Many Join the Band” made the front page, A1. Very exciting to be included!

As the holidays approach it may be time to take advantage of seasonal sales and surprise the budding string player in your life (maybe even yourself) with a new instrument. First things first though. What size? A string teacher can size students best, ...

As we all know, music lesson regularity and continuity are essential to progress. In an effort to decrease cancellations with current students, and to provide instruction to students in rural areas and foreign countries without access to good teachers ...