I imagine that in these strange times, there are more educators like myself who are being forced by the circumstances to give classes online and I imagine that it must be new to some of you. Having done this so many times over the past decade, I have no doubt that I’ll be able to pull this off.
As I write this in March of 2020, the COVID-19 virus has shut down my Music Performance with Laptops class at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music and I will be teaching it online. In 2016, for example, I was able to move with my family to Bologna, Italy for three months and finance the stay by teaching remotely to the United States. In the past 10 years, all of this has changed rapidly and for the past decade, thanks to the development of the necessary technologies, I’ve found ways to teach online both to individuals or groups. Skype did exist between 20, however, in those days, it was a bit too unreliable for teaching. I remember actually doing phone lessons which were actually possible, but not optimal. Moreover, the job paid well and had flexible hours which allowed me to artistically focus on projects which didn’t pay as well and put my time into diving into Brooklyn’s amazing indie/electronic scene of the 00’s.Īt times, while I held that job, we would get students who wanted history tutoring but were living outside of New York City. I often found their assignments pretty fascinating and a chance to take my mind off music and use another part of my brain. Since history is really the only other thing I consider myself decent at, besides music, I actually enjoyed going to students’, often palatial, townhouses and apartments and teaching them the basic facts of American, European or even World History. I had studied history in college and found a job as a history tutor for some of Manhattan’s wealthiest families. It was clear that we wouldn’t be able to stay in our one bedroom apartment with a new baby and having turned 30, I decided I needed to earn more.
I had been making somewhat of a living playing gigs around New York City as a bass player which included playing in musical theater pit orchestras, gospel churches, studio sessions with singer/songwriters and even some weddings. In 2005, shortly after my son was born, I realized that I needed another source of income.
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