As I alluded in my post last week, I’ve been testing out a relatively new online platform that has been developed specifically for music teachers – Muzie.Live. Even though my students are coming to lessons in person again, I’ve been able to utilize it for lessons that I’ve been conducting with my 4-year old nephew who lives in another state, and I was able to use it for virtual lessons and a group class last month when I ended up traveling out of town unexpectedly. It was a perfect opportunity to try it out with some older students and also still offer them their lesson for the week!
I taught my first virtual piano lessons in 2010 and then took on a full-time on-line piano student halfway around the world in 2011, so over the years I’ve utilized a number of different platforms – Skype, Facetime, Zoom, Rock Out Loud Live…but nothing compares to the wonderful experience I’ve had with Muzie.Live. From my first interactions with the developer, Sam Reti, to the ongoing experience of using it both during and in between lessons, I have been blown away by so many aspects of this platform!
When you first login, you’ll be admitted to the Teacher Portal. There are so many things you can do from here – view all your enrolled students at a glance and see who’s logged in, click on their name and then see any chats between you and them, and any files that are currently being shared with them, organize or add new files to the file section, schedule individual and group lessons. Also, Muzie has a number of pre-loaded files that include games and whiteboard templates (I’ll get into that more in a minute!) that are ready to use in piano lessons or group classes.
[Before I launch into my many platitudes, I do want to point out that I had a number of issues when I was using Muzie with my Firefox or Safari browser, but all of them have been resolved when I use Chrome instead. No idea why, but it just seems more suited to a seamless online experience.]
Now, with that out of the way, here’s a quick rundown of the things that I absolutely love (then I’ll elaborate on a few of them below):
- Developed by musicians for musicians
- Small, family-run company
- Instant support via chat window
- Ongoing development based on input and suggestions from users
- Interactive whiteboard with music-related tools
- Pre-designed templates for whiteboard worksheets and games
- Extensive sheet music collection of public domain music
- Organized file system that enables you to share resources with select students
- Ability to record audio or video, upload it to the Recordings folder, and instantaneously share it with students
- Ability to record the entire lesson and share it with the student
FILES: In addition to the pre-designed files from Muzie, I’ve uploaded the files of flashcards from my Monster Collection of Music Flashcards, so they are all easily accessible in the files section of the site. All I have to do is toggle the share button for each student who is working on that particular set of flashcards in conjunction with our practice incentive theme for the year and then they can work on them throughout the week on their own (since the first card shows the image of the note, interval, chord, key signature, etc. and then the next card gives them the answer so they can self-check). I’ve also begun creating a folder for each student that is automatically shared with them so that I can drop in it resources that are specific to them and easy to access.
WHITEBOARD: An interactive space where you can work with students on theory concepts (lots of pre-designed dropdown options for music), play games (my students enjoyed the escape game!), and just have fun!
In this pic, you can see my student Stephanie using the interactive white board to place the flats in the correct order because she was working that week on memorizing the order of flats.
VIDEO RECORDING: With a built-in video recorder, it is a piece of cake to quickly record yourself playing the duet portion of a piece so that a student can practice along with you at their house. I’ve used that several times and it works so well! I’ve also recorded rote pieces that students are working on. I pre-recorded a brief lesson for my nephew for the week I was going to be out of town so he’d still have something to watch piano-wise. And I also have recorded a short lesson recap that I shared with his mom so she’d have a handy reference of what we worked on and what to have him work on in preparation for his next lesson. Since the recorded is part of the platform, everything is in one place and all you have to do is toggle the share button to make it immediately accessible to the student. Such an awesome feature!
CUSTOMER SUPPORT: As a small father-son company (with support from a few additional friends and family members), Muzie is very responsive to customer needs and suggestions. In fact, all of their development is initiated by user suggestions. In the course of the few months that I’ve been using the platform, I’ve recommended a handful of changes or capabilities and so far ALL of them have been implemented! Wow!
So, to sum it up (in case you can’t tell!), I am a huge fan of Muzie.Live and would highly recommend it to any teacher. They have a basic free account, a standard account for $14/month, and the pro account with all the capabilities for $24/month. If you have used it or end up giving it a try, I’d love to know what you think!
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