LEARN MUSIC FROM THE BEST
JP Cormier offering unique online music program.
Multi-instrumentalist J.P. Cormier has found a way to remain a touring musician and teach others how to play at the same time.
Music lessons are usually given each week at a designated time and place. For someone like Cormier, who still spend more than 200 days each year on the road, it has been difficult to maintain a regular teaching schedule, without missing lucrative performance opportunities. And since he choses to live in a relatively small community, Westville, N.S., it also means that many potential students can’t get to him easily. So he developed an Internetbased teaching system that allows students from anywhere in the world to sign up for video workshops, based on a monthly subscription system.
“I wanted to teach but couldn’t,” said Cormier, 48, from Indianapolis on Saturday, where he was performing later in the day. “This now allows me to get all of my knowledge to the people.”
It’s called Master Music Method and it can be accessed any time of the day or night at www.mastermusicmethod.com. Until Aug. 31, subscriptions will be offered for $30 a month and it gives you access to every video. On Feb. 9, a free webinar will be offered at https://mastermusicmethod.leadpages.co/mmm-webinarfeb-9-2017/, launching the system. There are 30 videos, each from 30-90 minutes long, on the website right now and Cormier plans to eventually have about 500 listed. The videos are for anyone of any age or playing level and they teach how to play guitar, mandolin, banjo and fiddle, through Cormier’s unique method. It will also be accessible by mobile devices and downloads of written materials will be available.
Cormier says this system offers students the best of all worlds.
“Lessons cost a lot of money, usually $50 a week and you have to pay a month or two in advance and you get basic theory and what’s in a book,” he says. “My method is fairly unorthodox — we’re dealing with four different instruments and students can take their lessons any time they want.
“I’m teaching people to teach themselves.”
For example, in the first three lessons, Cormier teaches students the history of each instrument, how to buy an instrument and how to maintain and repair their instruments. The lessons are done in a way so that anyone, at any level, can learn something from a musician acknowledged to be a master at his craft.
Cormier began playing guitar at age 5 and since then has mastered fiddle, 12-string guitar, banjo, mandolin and a host of other instruments. He has been a touring musician since he was 16, when he recorded his first album.
“You need to know your instruments if you’re going to learn it,” he says. “I’m teaching you how to be a player — I’m giving you the answers — it’s up to you to apply them.”
Although the system hasn’t been formally launched yet, Cormier says thanks to a dry launch last August, the feedback so far has been encouraging.