Did you ever wonder what “blackbird” was in German? Now you can never forget! Amsel app, now available for free until Jan. 2022 at https://amselapp.com What began as a way to improve digital teaching online via Zoom resulted in a viable voice training app that everyone in the English- and German-speaking world can use. The free version for iPhone/iPad and Android devices is now available! Check the amselapp.com website for the right link for your smartphone. Thanks to the grant from the German project Neustart Kultur, coordinated by the Deutscher Musikrat, my new app remains free to all users around…
As a classically-trained musician, I grew up listening to Tchaikovsky, Handel and the piano music of Debussy, because their beauty drew me in as a teenager. Sure, my childhood was heavily influenced by the hallmark Disney movies and popular musicals of the time, and somehow I didn’t live “under a rock” COMPLETELY unaware of pop culture (although many of my high school and college friends would argue otherwise!)… but those kinds of influences were somehow subconsciously put in a separate drawer as “unserious music,” to be rather ignored by my developing professional self. A couple of decades later I teach…