PIANO
PEDAGOGY
FORUM
v. 1, no. 2/May 1, 1998


FORUM ON KEYBOARD TECHNOLOGY

Steve Clark is the creator of numerous Internet resources for pianists and piano teachers including the web page: "The Piano in CyberSpace" and Internet mail lists: "Pno-Ped-L" and "Chopin-L".  He recently made presentations at the World Piano Pedagogy Conference, the Music Teachers National Association, the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, the American Matthay Association and the Georgia Music Teachers Association. He currently serves as Vice-President for MTNA Fall Competitions and chairman of the Technology Committee for the Georgia Music Teachers Association. He teaches piano at Columbus State University where he directs the Music Conservatory. He is a member of the American Matthay Association, the American Liszt Society, the International Liszt Center for Nineteenth Century Music and he appears frequently as a solo recitalist. Students from his studio have received many honors and have been declared winners and finalists in state, national and international piano competitions.

Steve Clark
School of Music
Columbus State University
Columbus, GA 31907
CLARK_STEVE@colstate.edu
706.568.2049

Go Thou "On-Line": A Guide for Creation of Your Own Web Site

by Steve Clark

Everyone's doin' it - millions of 'em! Maybe now's a good time for you jump in too? If you spend some time on the Internet, I think you'll most likely get caught up in the spirit of sharing and communication which exits there. The Internet has a way of promoting an open exchange of ideas much the same as one finds at a professional conference. Let me encourage you to become involved in the spirit of sharing which exists on the Internet. Every one of us has some experiences or expertise in some area(s), which would benefit others and there's no better way to share your gifts and facilitate communication on topics which interest you professionally than by creating a web page for your studio.

A few of the more commonly expressed reasons for creating a web page for one's your studio are:

  1. to add visibility and a professional image to your studio
  2. to facilitate communication within your studio - between you, your students and their parents
  3. to provide an appropriate place for biographical information about yourself
  4. to announce the special events of your studio - recitals, auditions, vacations, etc.
  5. to give complete studio policies, tuition and fee information
  6. to house information specific to your studio - topics about which you feel strongly such as practice, memorization, etc.

One more thought along those lines...

As classical musicians, we should be sensitive to issue of the relevance of classical music in the lives of our students. Just as past generations have been strongly influenced by television, the current generation is growing up under the exponentially growing influence Internet. Today's young people are forming a conception of their world which is in part determined by the information, opinions and ideas they find there. Classical musicians have long been criticized for sitting back and expecting the world to come to us. I think we all know by now that that this has not been a successful strategy for advancing the cause of classical music. I'm not saying the Internet has the answers to all our problems, but I do feel that it is a powerful tool of communication and we make a serious mistake if we do not take advantage the opportunities it affords us to establish a presence for quality music and serious music learning on the Internet.

After making the decision to create web page for your studio, your next step would be to give some thought to the specifics of what you might include on your web site and how to organize that information. Toward this end, you would do well to take time to visit a number of other sites and see how other web pages are done. The possibilities are of course absolutely limitless, but here are a few suggestions for things which might make a short list of items you would want to include on a studio web site.

I'm sure other ideas would occur to you which would be specific to your particular situation. I recently began a project with some of my precollege students by asking them to think of some aspect of learning the piano which they feel is important and which they would like to share with others who are studying the piano. I promised them that we would create a special web page to showcase their ideas and we're having lots of fun with this project. With the younger students we usually focused on their attitude toward music and with the older ones I've tried to guide them into a statement of something which they feel is important for other students to know about learning to play the piano. Some of the essays which we're working on so far include; A seven year old girl, who is composing a beautiful essay on why she wanted to begin taking piano lessons and how excited she was when the piano was delivered to her home and she could begin, an eight year old girl is writing on how she got started learning music on her own, without the help of her older sister, an eleven year old boy (a transfer student) has drafted an essay on how helpful it is to follow the fingerings which are printed in the music (that was a tough one to negotiate!), a thirteen year old boy is writing on how to memorize music and a high school junior is working on an essay about Tobias Matthay's concept of forward progression in music with examples take from his current repertoire.

You will probably want to start with a relatively straight forward design for your web page in the beginning.  You can always add things to it over time. Some things which you should consider adding as you go along would be to include some graphics, photos of you and/or your students, sound files and other items which would add some visual and aural interest to your page. After coming up with an initial list of items which you would like to include on your web site, the next step would be to get those ideas into the proper format for posting on the world wide web.

Four Roads Diverged... Ways to Approach Creation of Your Web Site

Blasting Off into CyberSpace! 10, 9, 8....

Summing Up

Staking your claim to a piece of web real-estate is much easier than you might think. You certainly do not need to learn computer languages, spend large amounts of time developing computer skills, or be a computer whiz in order to do this.  Just follow the four simple steps below to carve a niche for yourself on the world wide web.>

  1. Draft a list of items which you would like to initially include on your web site.
  2. Determine the best road for you to follow to get your ideas into HTML format.
  3. Transfer your web page to a server connected to the Internet.
  4. Register your URL (address) with various Internet search engines.

Once your web page is up and running you'll be a full-fledged, contributing, member of the Internet community with all rights, privileges and responsibilities thereunto appertaining. CyberSpace is an exciting place. See you on-line!

Bibliography of Internet Based Web Page Creation Resources

TABLE OF CONTENTS

© 1998 University of South Carolina School of Music