Some people have said they wished they could take my music criticism course. Conceivably, I could teach a version of it online. How that would work would have to be figured out. Maybe there could be a two-week immersion in what I teach.
But I’m open to any ideas. I could do individual tutorials, too. And I’m available to visit schools, or other places, to speak about criticism.
How can I help? Let me know!
If only you were closer to Iowa. No; wait; I wouldn’t wish that on anyone!
Hi Greg, have you thought of telephone coaching? A friend of mine is a very good sales trainer and he often does such things on an individual basis as well as his international training days. Also I have used a telephone session to help a writer out of creative mental block (although I did not charge on that occassion).
Individual coaching from someone of your experience would be marketable and the 100% attention should command a good fee for yourself and excellent value for the client. My session lasted 90 minutes and the fact that on the telephone you cannot see the client was not a problem. You could also teach people any where in the world.
I would also suggest you do not limit yourself to music criticism; students of journalism, writers, media studies, cultural studies courses may well be interested. Maybe even social history courses, as music writing often reflects social history.
If people say the would like to take your muci criticism course but can’t, maybe you could suggest telephone coaching as an alternative.
Just ideas which you may (or may not) find useful.
Very good ideas, Ian. As I told you via email. I’ll act on it.
That sounds like a very exciting prospect. I’d encourage you to find some way of offering the course that did include a residency aspect, though. The similar thing that I did early on in my career (an intensive, 2-week full-time course called Words about Music, offered at the National Music Camp in Australia) was valuable in many ways, not least because it brought a bunch of us (6 or 7) together with a common goal and so we learned from others and from others’ questions and challenges as well as directly from the tutors (of which there were three). Finding a means to incorporate interaction with other students would be important. Especially when the subject is music criticism, where you’d want to create at least some opportunities where a group could experience the same performance and share and test responses. I could imagine, for example, travelling to the US to spend one or two weeks in intensive study with a small group, complemented by a more spread-out, “leisurely” portion of the course offered online. This, of course, is not dissimilar to how many distance/online university courses operate.
Sorry, can’t type!
“I’d encourage you to find some way of offering the course in a way that included a residency aspect, though.”
Thanks, Yvonne. I’d be happy to come back to Australia and do this! And then you and I could hang out again.
Building on what you said, I’m remembering a workshop I taught back in the ’80s, three days of intensive work with a group of critics, some pop critics and some classical critics. I think i’ll blog about that. Very fascinating, what happened. And, just as you say, the residency part of it — the interaction — was one reason it was such a success.
I certainly wish I could attend. When I was doing graduate work at Queens college I was the classical music critic for the Queens college student newspaper and reviewed concerts at the Colden Center as well as classical recordings. It was a great experience and I wish I could do more in this field.