Music Tip #69 Skype music recital

Saturday we had the 1st ever Shepherd Family Music Recital via skype. It involved 5 of my 7 children who live out of state in 5 different states and in 4 different times zones. I invited my grandchildren a month ago to practice the piano/cello and then said we would have a little recital via skype. (By the way, the other two children not involved live in AZ with me, but they don’t have children old enough to play the piano yet)

I was very apprehensive that our recital wouldn’t work. I found out you have to get a group account from skype, either as a one day use or permanent account. I chose the one day use for $5.00. Each participant has to have the most updated version of skype, which one of my daughters didn’t. But she was able to quickly update and join us.

And it worked!! It was so fun to see my children/grandchildren from Utah, Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia and Florida all on the computer screen at the same time.

I chose who was going to play their piece next on the recital by giving clues to who the person was. They would raise their hand if the clue applied to them. One clue was: this person has had a lot of snow this winter. Everyone raised their hands except the Floridians! A funny thing my daughter, who lives in Florida, said was, “why are all of you wearing long sleeves when it’s so warm outside?”

We are definitely going to have another recital again. It’s great motivation to practice, it’s positive peer pressure (for adults to get a piece ready too), and it’s a wonderful way to keep long distance family close to each other. The refreshments are a little hard to figure out, though……