NEW YORK (Reuters):
BEGINNING PIANO student Andy Kossowsky started pecking out a blues riff with two fingers, but his teacher quickly detected the stilted sound and reminded him about proper fingering and hand positions.
It may seem like a typical piano lesson, but Kossowsky was jamming on an electronic keyboard in his home in Fords, New Jersey, while Andrew Gordon gave instructions over the Internet from his studio across the country in Lawndale, California.
The lesson was part of a new effort by Canadian company OnlineConservatory.com to make tickling the ivories as easy as surfing the World Wide Web. Six months ago, the company began offering live, interactive piano lessons over the Internet.
Since January, more than 800 students in 55 countries from Afghanistan to Vietnam have taken online lessons in genres from classical to blues, jazz, country, spiritual and hip hop. The Newfoundland-based company has been offering free lessons to test customers. Its formal launch is set for September.
OnlineConservatory.com plans to target non-traditional piano students at all skill levels such as hectic adults who need more flexible scheduling, first-time buyers of electronic keyboards or rural residents lacking access to music schools.
"A lot of music instructors have rigid schedules or require you to buy several weeks of lessons. With this you can just roll out of bed and take a piano lesson. You don't have brush your hair or get dressed you can just play," said Kossowsky, 31, who has taken four lessons online.
OnlineConservatory.com does not expect to compete against traditional music education. So far, most of its students have been 14- to 24-year-old men who are "serious recreational musicians and semi-serious Internet users," or 35- to 45-year-olds who want to concentrate on a specific discipline such as blues or jazz, chief executive Derrick Rowe said.
Within four years, the firm expects to attract 140,000 students worldwide and capture 3 percent of North America's US$2 billion annual market for music lessons and related services. It aims to be profitable within two years.
OnlineConservatory.com expects to announce an agreement in July to market its services with a keyboard manufacturer. It also may provide music books, teaching materials and other content on its web site through licensing agreements or acquisitions of music publishers, Rowe said.
"We won't cannibalise the industry. We'll grow the market by putting more products more conveniently out there. We'll add new customers that were never serviced before," he said.
Electronic keyboards
"You'll hear a classical music teacher say, 'I don't know if this is the best way to teach a young child.' It's not the best way to teach a young child, but it is the best way to teach a busy adult who wants to brush up some blues."
Traditional piano teachers were sceptical about the online lessons' reliance on electronic keyboards and computers.
"It strikes me that it wouldn't work past a fairly basic level of instruction ... it's really the reduction of music to a 'yes, no' operation, you are either playing right notes or not. They'd have to be fairly rudimentary lessons," Bruce Brubaker, a piano faculty member at The Juilliard School in New York, said.
Even the most sophisticated electronic keyboards fail to mimic the feel and resonance of acoustic pianos, Brubaker said. "Every piano is a little different. It's built of wood and felt it's alive. Every one has a kind of character. All of that is part of what the experience and music is about putting your fingers on the right keys is just a part of it."
The online lessons require a Musical Instrument Digital Interface-compatible piano or keyboard, a personal computer with a sound card, a microphone and speakers, and Internet access.
MIDI allows musical instruments to communicate with computers. The price of MIDI-compatible keyboards starts at about US$300 and can run into the thousands of dollars. Sound cards typically cost less than US$50.
The company's free 'Melodous' software turns the keyboard data into the language of the Internet and Microsoft Corp.'s NetMeeting software allowed Kossowsky and Gordon to hear each other talk and play piano in real time.
During the lessons, the image of a keyboard appeared on each of their computer screens. As Kossowsky and Gordon struck the keys on their electronic keyboards, the corresponding keys on the computer image lighted up in bright pink and green.
"Really, there's no difference in terms of communicating ideas and the satisfaction I get knowing that student has understood and grasped the concepts that I teach in the same way, whether it's face-to-face or halfway around the world," said Toronto-based Peter Nunn, one of 80 instructors.
Teachers set their own fees, but lessons cost an average of US$20 for a 30-minute session. The company offers only piano now but it plans to expand into guitar, woodwinds and brass instruments. Online recitals and concerts may follow.
Other web sites such as http://www.artdsm.com/music.html and http://www.gopiano.com provide basic piano lessons over the Internet using written instructions or recorded audio clips. But these sites lack the interactive benefit of a live teacher.
"If I read a book or tried to teach myself I wouldn't be as motivated. But this is easier to stick with," said Kossowsky, who learned a few basic blues tunes during his initial lessons.
