The Challenges of Creating an Organ Video Mini Course

As I look back at the idea to create my free video course in mastering Prelude and Fugue in F Major, BWV 556 (from the collection of 8 Short Preludes and Fugues for organ formerly attributed to J.S.Bach), I can see some major differences in the presentation and format from my previous Mini Course in Keyboard Prelude Improvisation.

1. Unlike improvisation mini course, the new BWV 556 training program will be available for a limited time only. This means that people interested in joining this course will have to make a decision during a period of about 5 days.

2. This course will be presented using a video format as opposed to pure pdf materials. Because many people like watching online videos, this medium is becoming increasingly popular in teaching as well. At any rate, a live example and visual demonstration will almost always get the message across more clearly.
 
3. I am also including a practice score with complete fingering and pedaling for easy practice. As you know writing in fingering and pedaling is a very slow and for many people tedious process and yet in many cases it is a crucial element if you want to truly master an organ composition. In this mini course, though, you won't need to worry about fingering and pedaling - it's already taken care for you.

4. I am not limiting the length of each lesson to some particular time frame. Some videos might become longer, some shorter - as long as I need to cover the material in a very detailed manner. For example, the introduction to the course and video for Day 1 alone were 19 and 33 minutes each. However, the video for Day 2 fitted nicely into some 15 minutes.

This is because when I teach, sometimes I feel compelled to add some additional points besides pure fast and efficient practice techniques and steps. That's why you will find me talking about the ideal articulation quite a bit as well as about ornaments, fingering, pedal preparation, and even some exciting Baroque rhythmical devices, such as Hemiola.

These differences of course provide an increased value to the course but at the same time raise some important challenges which I have to overcome if this mini course is to be as helpful to my students as it was with the improvisation mini course.

One of the obvious challenges is the file size and the time it takes to edit and convert the video to the format suitable for online watching. For example, even though these first videos were actually recorded in a period of just 90 minutes, the time and effort it took me to prepare the camera, upload, fully edit for public online use was exhausting.

As you might be aware, I'm not a tech person and these things don't come naturally and easily to me. Even to find the suitable position for the lighting cost me some funny juggling around my organ bench. And I still don't feel this is the ideal lighting but at least now you will be able to see me teaching clearly enough.

As I am not a native English speaker and not an orator by any means, to talk in front of the camera is always a challenge for me. For instance, this opening episode alone had to be taken several times because I kept making some funny mistakes while pronouncing the phrase "BWV 556".

As the Internet speed at my house isn't particularly fit for uploading large video files, I had to find some other place for uploading. Luckily, everything went well and actually, it feels like it's going to be a really exciting time both for me teaching and for the students who will be watching and practicing this fantastic Prelude and fugue in F major.

I'm in the final stages of preparation for the public announcement about the start of registration for this limited time mini course. If you want to be notified when the registration period starts and not to miss the deadline, go here to subscribe to the instructional newsletter (if you haven't done so already) and receive my video "How to Master Any Organ Piece up to 10 Time Faster." You may of course unsubscribe at any time:

http://www.organduo.lt/bwv-556-mini-course.html