Last week I was discussing a movie with my local friend and out of nowhere he started to talk about the music composition of the movie parts. He is a great guy to talk with usually, but unfortunately without any music background he often annoys me when he tries to dissect any music pieces; he would mix up oboe solos with saxophone solos, or simply label any “non-classical” music as jazz. When I tried to correct him, he told me off and said that not everyone was lucky enough to have a music education.
This got me thinking how prevalent music education is in Macau. My conductor told me once that back in the day when he started learning to play the trombone in the 70s, it was an extremely difficult task. Not only were the instruments available objectively bad and certainly without qualified teachers, the concept of playing the instrument in the right way was not easy to grasp. Since no one was playing live in front of you, you were stuck listening to recordings that did not guarantee the quality of the sound, and often you couldn’t even find CDs on less popular instruments such as bassoons or marimbas.
Most of these problems are solved in the 21st century. You go on any media online platform and you can listen to any instrument playing or songs. Even though Macau is small, there are still many music educators around to teach you; better yet, many local secondary schools have bands and even orchestras that teach you music skills for free. Besides, there are more music teaching centres around to help you learn your instruments, and with the government continuing-education subsidy they are virtually “free” for Macau residents. Needless to say, the music atmosphere in Macau has been improving over the years.
Nonetheless, there is another alternative for learning music which I think many people have ignored, even some of my music friends. The pandemic has limited the possibility of a face-to-face lessons, especially if you are playing a wind instrument and you have to take off your facemask. In addition, you might be surprised to know that many teachers are not well-equipped for online classes as they might not have a good microphone or digital teaching materials. Recently, I have been using the online platform Fiverr for lessons and I am going to share my experience with you.
I am sure that there are many other platforms like Fiverr, and these platforms allow people with different skill sets the opportunity to earn extra money online. Fiverr works to allow listing and applying for jobs, or gigs, or even lessons online. Jobs listed on the platform are diverse and range from designing a business card to writing a drama script to teaching music. There are many competent musicians out there that would happily be your teacher at only a quarter of the price in Macau, and I happened to meet one fantastic teacher called Davide, who is from Italy and teaches me trumpet weekly.
I think platforms like Fiverr are great for people to try out anything. It is convenient to register, look for different services and to have lessons. You can choose to have a few lessons first to try it out without paying for the whole course. The best thing about it is the price, and since Macau is one of the most expensive cities in the world, you will find the price on these platforms relatively very cheap!
This screenshot shows my teacher Davide giving me a lesson on Zoom yesterday afternoon.
