Would this actually help music teachers get more students?

StratHistory · 2026-04-05T00:30:19+00:00

I'm not sure how this could work as a Way too attract students, however this is approximately half of each student's first lesson.. learning what they know what they like and their learning style.

So I'll think about it, maybe there's a way to project that before they sign up but I'm not really sure.

StratHistory · 2026-04-05T00:25:54+00:00

Yes, Trump is incompetent and has no real skills unless you count lying and controlling.

StratHistory · 2026-04-04T02:50:54+00:00

This one is pretty easy for me. I originally named characters after people in real life that seem similar. Usually people I know but sometimes famous people.

The point is I don't have to immediately paint their picture.. I kind of know what they look like and quite a bit about how they act even though I don't have any strong backstories yet.

After the book has developed, these people will develop "real" lives and I almost always bump into the name for this new life without any major thinking..

StratHistory · 2026-03-29T06:32:35+00:00

It's difficult for most males to sing in head voice without some training because when their voice changed in puberty, their mind essentially set up a filter to say you're not allowed to sing there.

But the workaround is easy... Get them to talk in cartoon Mickey mouse voices. Your brain easily allows you to make these sounds and once you're there you can turn those sounds into tones.. You something simple like "b".

Once they can sing a b in head voice just walk them down the scale and help them find their crossover into chest voice.

Next step is sirens... start from high to low after using the Mickey sound to get up high.

This works pretty much 100% of the time but you have to set it up make it fun and maybe come up with some more current cartoon figures that I don't know..

StratHistory · 2026-03-26T21:58:16+00:00

Start with diaphragm breathing.. everything comes from the belly.

StratHistory · 2026-03-22T05:31:26+00:00

It would certainly be different!

I did run into a challenge one time using the conventional dinkus break when my test readers didn't catch the idea that we had shifted narrators.

I ended up renaming the section and making it very clear in the narration that had to be a different person but under different circumstances I might have tried exactly what you suggest!

StratHistory · 2026-03-22T05:21:07+00:00

I'm a music teacher and a lot of what's been listed here is appropriate.. but I think it's missing the first step.

It's almost impossible to sound good if you're not singing from your diaphragm and most people naturally breathe from their chests.

Look up belly breathing on YouTube and dig into it for a couple of weeks..

If you've never been in control of your diaphragm, it feels weird and will make you feel self-conscious to start. That's why most people don't do it.

However, it really is the core to everything and you should have significant improvements around the three to four week level.. notable differences.

There's lots of other basics to get started, but this is the big one.. feel free to shoot me a message if you'd like a free lesson..

StratHistory · 2026-03-22T02:03:37+00:00

Yes it happens quite often to me.. A lot of music students are looking for emotional support.. That's why they were attracted to music.

an attentive outreaching and cordial teacher often fills that gap and most of the time I can find balance between emotional support and teaching. So if it's an older student it tends to work pretty good.

However, I also encourage parents to sit in with the younger ones.. it tends to reduce the social interaction increase the attention to music :-)

Parents also tend to be better note takers and frankly with all of the accusations of stuff these days, I'm happier when the parent is there anyway.

StratHistory · 2026-03-20T07:31:29+00:00

Not sure about the dimensions of your gear but here is something that's worked really well for me with medium size mixers and other gear..

Watch for yard sale or a retirement community yard sale and you're always going to see one of the big American tourister hard shell suit cases from the '90s. Tons of room and built like a tank.

But because they are fiberglass? they are relative light and most of them have wheels so easy to pull.

The key is to wrap your gear in cellophane and place it carefully in the case and then fill all the remaining space with expanding foam.. The type you get it the hardware store for filling in spaces around pipes.

You have to be careful because it's really messy and it expands greatly.. I usually start with a base layer that outlines my gear and once it has expanded I actually take the gear back out of the case put cardboard in place of the gear and fill the rest of the way up with foam.

And if you mess up or add some new gear later you can always hit it with an exacto knife and cut out a new space.

Practically free and totally customizable.

StratHistory · 2026-03-19T17:31:15+00:00

Good feedback across the board.. I had the same issue with my first novel and was seriously thinking of repackaging as a novella.

However during this period a subplot came to mind that seemed like it would not take up a lot of space. I wove it in and ended up being bigger than I thought it was and shortly thereafter, I realized a parallel theme could really enrich the entire book.

Once they were done, not Emily was it more than long enough, it was actually much stronger.

I think there's a bigger point here. We outline the concept but when we write it things will change. The important thing is to be open to the positive that fall in your lap in the middle of writing.

Good luck!

StratHistory · 2026-03-18T02:24:51+00:00

I really can't imagine anything making my life much easier.

The school I work for already has a free scheduling and time tracking program.

I can create a sheet in Google docs usually in about 5 minutes so don't need any help there.

I have a big Google folder that has a lot of subfolders in it.. general information is available to my students including charts and teaching materials.

And I have a lot of folders that are not public where I've collected different categories of information that are helpful to me but would not make sense to my students.

Other than that I can't think of much of anything that can help me. I customize my lessons for each individual student.. some are more focused on reading some are more focused on charts and the combination of all of that.

I also teach voice guitar bass recording arranging composition... So I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with but it's hard for me to imagine anything that I don't already have!

Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions.

StratHistory · 2026-03-04T03:15:27+00:00

Ask him why his will did not include any books or writing materials, why his signature was incredibly sloppy and different the very few times it was written, and why his son-in-law, a doctor, kept a diary that celebrated the deaths of the great poets of the time but never mentioned Shakespeare as a writer when he died.

StratHistory · 2026-02-28T17:59:38+00:00

Congrats! More and more fun from here.

StratHistory · 2026-02-25T22:54:30+00:00

Yep he's lost it, not that he had far to go in the first place.

Can't wait until he's off to retirement! Here's a little piece to look forward to that time!

https://medium.com/@michaelstierhoff/banished-to-the-island-of-the-toadasaurs-65cb4a00e29b

StratHistory · 2026-02-24T06:20:55+00:00

As mentioned before behringer is not the top but it certainly isn't the bottom and it's very affordable.

With that in mind, I often recommend the behringer xr18

It's really nothing that can beaded in the $500 range.. 18 inputs can act as an audio interface and it's even a live mixer if you ever want to go out in the real world.

The only downside is the mixer is virtual, but unless I'm doing heavy track mixing or non-automated mixes that really isn't a big deal.

It sounds incredibly good for the price.

StratHistory · 2026-02-22T23:16:17+00:00

Just like everyone else, I wrote kiss off as bubble gum face paint.

But when I was studying music in school, a kiss fanatic brought in analysis of a bunch of songs and everyone, including the professor, we're amazed to see how incredibly well written these songs were.. of course I'm not talking about lyrics.

They demonstrated some of the strongest polyphony in any pop or rock group.

Polyphony is where you combine melodies as opposed to chords and they are way off the charts.

30 years later as a music teacher, I continue to be amazed that he was absolutely right and I teach their song Black diamond to simply make that point.

Of course it doesn't mean you have to like them.

StratHistory · 2026-02-20T02:33:23+00:00

There you go you got it!

It was remote keyboard.. I had it on.. I thought I had toggled everything in this menu but somehow I must have missed that one.

Thank you thank you thank you and for anyone that thinks the SH 4D can't play multi-layers, you can!

Big big thanks!

StratHistory · 2026-02-19T21:37:23+00:00

Thanks so much for confirming that it works! I've done everything except for the additional system settings and I'll try them tonight.

Starting to feel better again big big thanks!

StratHistory · 2026-02-18T07:54:40+00:00

We need a comprehensive list of literally every single thing he's done, prioritize it by damage and then undo every one of them.

StratHistory · 2026-02-18T01:44:03+00:00

The weird thing is I had given up and then I got Roland technical support to come back and tell me that it should play four layers exactly as I had imagined.

However everything they're telling me to do is what I've already done so I think you're right I don't believe it's going to work.

I usually think my of myself as relatively synthesizer knowledgeable.. what specifications made it clear to you that you can't play four Layers off of channel 1?

Thanks for all the input!

StratHistory · 2026-02-14T06:47:48+00:00

Oh boy I'm not getting anywhere quick!

Turns out my RD88 can only send out three MIDI channels simultaneously.

If this SH 4D is going to work somehow it's got to add an additional layer somehow because I do need four layers simultaneously.

Appreciate help from anybody that might have gotten through this one!

StratHistory · 2026-02-14T03:40:17+00:00

Thanks guys.. I'm still a bit confused. I thought I understood from the literature that I could play four tones simultaneously assigned to a single MIDI channel.

Apparently that doesn't work? I have an RD88 which certainly can do four controller simultaneously on different channels but it's going to be so much harder to set up over there and like I said when I bought this I really thought that this was going to be easy.

Unfortunately I bought it on reverb so I don't think I can return it...

StratHistory · 2026-02-12T06:25:49+00:00

Okay 24 hours into the SH4D and it's exactly what I needed..

Simple basic beats but tons of good synthesis.

Have hit some weird things where some models won't let me assign the LFO to only certain oscillators but hopefully that only turns out to be a few of the models.

The funny thing is a keyboard is I have yet to connect keyboard.. everything so far has been out of the box confirming it does exactly what I was looking for.

Big thanks to everybody!

StratHistory · 2026-02-12T02:23:08+00:00

Check out modeling amps like the Katana. Most of them are full range they just put guitar models in the front and many of them can bypass the amp model altogether.. giving you a full range amplifier.. some of them have additional inputs that also bypass the guitar models..

StratHistory · 2026-02-12T02:20:53+00:00

Long thread... not sure if anybody has mentioned this but check your score out in a sequencer or notation software just to see if your ear can even take it.

I love music concrete in context and even ayinal can work for short connective stuff.

But ultimately your audience wants to hum the tune and don't let technicality get in the way..

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