YouTube and iTunes

I have just recently realized how YouTube and iTunes have been such important tools to me as a musician. I have used these over the past few years by myself, in groups, and even in my lessons.

When I am working on a piece, it is very helpful to hear many different interpretations of it in order to help me determine how I want to play it. On iTunes, I can look up the piece and hear a snippet of it to decide if I want to buy it for 99 cents, and on YouTube I can look up videos of people playing it. I really like the amount of results you get on YouTube because there is a variety of ability, and a lot of diversity. (Just the other day I watched an 8-year-old prodigy playing a piece I am working on...!) YouTube is also really helpful because I can SEE the performer. This can help me to compare/contrast performance etiquette, posture, movement, etc. My flute teacher whips out his iPod touch every week in our lesson to show me something on YouTube, and it is really so helpful. They have all the famous flutists, new and old, playing everything you can imagine. This helps with so much...breathing, position of shoulders, mouth/embouchure, air in the cheeks...and so much more. My teacher can just touch his iPod and bring up anything he needs to make a point while he is teaching me. I not only learn WHAT to do, but I learn HOW and WHY and WHO did it and how it worked for them. It's really a wonderful learning tool and it has helped so much. You can also view a number of masterclasses on YouTube, which I look through from time to time. I can't stress how helpful this has been!

Just this week iTunes has helped me a ton on a new piece I am learning. It is a newer piece that hasn't been played too much. It is very difficult, not only because it contains a lot of modern techniques, but because the fingerings are mostly incorrect and not clearly marked. It is very frustrating because not only can I tell that the composer is not a flute player, but I can also tell that he did not take the time or initiative to collaborate with a flutist while writing it. So I downloaded it on iTunes, and I can hear the pitches of the modern techniques for which the composer incorrectly labeled fingerings. From there, I can hear what the composer wanted to hear, and I can fool around with my fingers to find which fingering produces the correct pitch that I hear. Without the recording, I don't know how I would have ever figured that out, because it is a newer piece and I couldn't find any recordings without using iTunes.

It is really incredible that we have such great tools right at our fingertips, and that they are free or inexpensive. These tools are a big help in our growth as musicians, and I hope that everyone is taking advantage of them.