You know how you get those “memories” from Facebook to show what you posted on this day in previous years?  The other day I received a memory from two years ago and reflected on how life two years ago as a music teacher  feels very different from what we experience today.  It seems like a shift in time occurred and many people I know feel the same…almost like these past two years have felt like a time warp.  I’m in denial that my students have aged two years and at the same time I feel a decade older in life experience.  

My 2020 self spent many hours of the week in private lessons, answering emails/texts as well as heading downtown at night for symphony rehearsals and concerts. Then, all of a sudden, everything pressed pause.  When I think back on that it feels so strange. Musicians tend to keep very odd hours, have little boundaries and run around acquiring countless miles to write off on their taxes.  I was no stranger to that hustle. Musicians were now having to change the game, stay at home, and teach online if we wanted to continue to make a living.

Our options for teaching online were pretty limited as there weren’t really any music specific platforms for online lessons.  After a month of suffering through lessons with poor audio quality I started to dream with my sister, Muze co-founder Erin, about what would be needed to make it worth teaching online.  We were clearly in a spot as music teachers to adapt or quit and I wasn’t about to quit.  Teaching is my passion and lifeline during hard times. There were some pros to the situation, though. Some teachers welcomed the change to all of a sudden have the ability to create their own hours, not put so many miles on the car and have their homes be only for the people who lived there rather than a studio of 30 students and their families to bounce in and out of.  

Most music teachers had been in the dark ages as far as using technology in lessons prior to 2020.  For most of us we had only used apps on our phones for tuners, metronomes and note reading games.  Now many of us have upgraded our computers, microphones, desks and home offices in order to teach well executed lessons online.  We are becoming more savvy when it comes to dealing with computer issues and doing our best to ensure we have the fastest internet connection.  With these changes as well as the creation of an online music lesson platform like Muze,  teaching online is now a viable option for music lessons.  I enjoyed getting to see my students this summer in person, but I have to say that now I’ve been back online during the latest surge in covid cases I feel much more efficient and comfortable teaching through the computer than I used to.  Muze gives me everything I need to have successful lessons (online or in person) and I am more organized than I was before it was available to me. No more sorting through stacks of music and lesson notebooks to find what I need.  It is all in one place on the Muze platform. 

Creating Muze with Erin and our co-founders has been a huge learning process and I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to learn these new skills.  It has been a privilege to meet and get to know different teachers around the country and an honor to have Muze be accessed worldwide for lessons.  I’m very curious to see what the future holds for music teachers as well as how Muze will evolve with our changing wants and needs.  We’ll see what the Megan of 2024 has to say about Megan in 2022.  I think she’ll be excited about where Muze has taken her teaching.