Quality vs. Quantity

[dond]

I have been noticing a little unrest lately concerning new lessons not showing up each month on schedule. I feel the need to express my view on this.

Yes, we have been promised a new lesson in each area each month. Yes, a promise is a promise. And yes, I agree ... if you can't deliver it, don't promise it.

However, I do believe there have been special events surrounding Willie's efforts for the past month or two and I might suggest that his track record for excellence allows for him to receive a pass for a little while....at least until things are more settled and back to normal.

My personal feeling on this is that I would vote for continuing with good quality lessons as opposed to pressuring him into "getting one out" each month. I would vote to forget about the "new lesson each month" requirement for a while. To tell you the truth I cannot handle a new lesson each month in all categories of music.

What I do want is a well thought out lesson and that cannot be done "quickly".

I believe most will agree that we have a good thing going here and to pressure Willie into diluting the quality of these lessons would be a bad thing.

Just a thought ...

[place]

Thanks for the post, Don. I basically agree with you and am completely sympathetic to the special needs and concerns regarding the flooding. In general, as a gold member, there are plenty lessons on the site to keep me busy for awhile. That being said, I would still like at least one new lesson every week. If that means 4-6 at the beginning of the month, one every Monday, or however Willie sees fit to post them, that doesn't really matter. Sure, things will come up, people get sick, families need vacations, computers crash, that's not really the issue.

If I was taking private lessons I would get an hour of instruction once per week, a week to practice material, and then come back the following week to review and move on the new material. That would suit me just fine.

I definitely don't want Willie to crank out lessons just to get them out or to meet some arbitrary timeline. He doesn't seem like that type of teacher and I'm not worried about that happening. Certainly, Willie's earlier lessons have much more material and are considerably longer than the newer lessons. That doesn't make them better, just bigger. I'd rather cover less topics and focus on them more in depth--a good hour or more of instruction per week doesn't seem like too much to ask for the price we're paying.

Willie still has my support and I will continue to be his student as long as he's teaching online. This is a great site with great instruction, it's just been a tough summer for all and I felt like voicing it. That's all.

my 2¢

-Mark

[williemyette]

Thanks everyone for your support. Val and I are working on a open letter to all students and I will record a video and send it to students tomorrow or Tuesday explaining everything that has been going on.

The short of it is that we have had several things get in the way of staying on top of the monthly lessons. However, the good news is that we are finally past all of that now and can get back to work.

I will never dilute the quality of the lessons. I'd rather not do a lesson than to just put out mindless lessons that get nobody anywhere.

Like I said, we really appreciate all of the feedback, both good and bad. I realize that some people are angry with me for broken promises with the new lesson every month. I think people have a right to be heard and to be angry. With that said, we stand by our students and this site. We are not going anywhere and the site will only continue to grow over the years.

[spannfan]

I have never been one who expected a new lesson every month in every area...I've only been a gold member for about 4 months, and I have lots of stuff to work on.

I did have concerns about the Rock site taking a long to get up, but that was understandable. The problem was the announcement that the first Rock lesson would go up on the 16th. Like many, I was really looking forward to that, and checked the site very early on the 16th. No lesson. And so forth until about a week later. Now, the problem was that no follow-up was made...not a quick note that something had come up, apologies and no new date. Sot it was a matter of checking the site for the new lesson daily and not finding it, or any kind of update.

I don't know why that happened, but it was a big problem for me.

We all have "stuff" that comes up, some more serious than others. Sometimes you have the luxury to take time off to get your life in order. Other times, not. Because Willie owns his own business and has a very supportive group of students, he had the luxury to take a lot of time to get his house in order. If he had a more traditional job, and worked for someone else, it's very likely that he wouldn't have been given several months of a "grace period," to meet usual production standards.

Willie's a teacher, but this is his job and livelihood, and we are really his clients or employees. That's all. It's not about how many lessons we want a month. It was Willie who set the goal of a lesson a month for each area, not us.

It's about communication, respect and meeting promised deadlines. The lines of communication have been terrible. Why promise a rock lesson, and in fact say it was complete, but only needed to be uploaded, when it apparently wasn't even done, since when it was recorded, Willie had a cold, which apparently happened AFTER the class reunion and vacation. I'm not trying to pry, I'm just saying, keep the lines of communication open. You don't have to share personal details of your life if you choose not to, and if something you have planned is too much for you, then just tell people, "Hey, that's not going to work...I thought it would, but it's not." Or hire an assistant to do the things you don't have time to do.

I don't know what to say about the rock lesson that was put up.

[williemyette]

Well, the rock lesson is now indeed up. There will be more Rock lessons coming out over the month. I have one planned on Elton John next.

Yes, you are right about the communication and I have apologized in writing at least 3 or 4 times on this forum. So, a mistake was made, I have a new solution (see this update (http://www.mylessonclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=392)) and I think that it is time to move on.

Let's put this silly Facebook thing to rest right now. The rock lesson WAS done prior to my reunion. However, the editing, uploading, adding to the database had to be done. When returning from vacation, I had to play a gig (night before reunion) that I had to prepare for. The reunion was Saturday. I was sick starting Sunday. I still had work to don on the rock lesson before uploading it, but it was recorded prior to my reunion.

I don't think the lines of communication have been terrible. Valerie sends out emails monthly to all students. If you are not on that list, then sure you probably have not gotten an email. We posted news before leaving about the Rock lesson.

Now, this is where it got bad. I missed a deadline. I did not update the site news to reflect that. I should have and I have since apologized.

So, we are moving on over here. It is time to get back to what is important, new lessons and improving the site.

If you want a lot of communication from me in the future, follow me on twitter at: http://twitter.com/pianowithwillie

[Valerie Myette]

As Willie posted last night, we were unaware that this conversation was talking place on the forum. Completely our fault. Besides the glitch in the program which failed to notify us of new posts (which was our glitch), we were irresponsible in assuming that "no news is good news." We should have checked it out sooner. But we were distracted.

Yes, this has been a difficult year. To be honest, I got tired referring to and talking about the flood with our students. I'm a big proponent of honest, open communication but Willie and I both became nervous about saturating our students with our sob story. Indeed, the flood drastically impacted our business. When all this started, we heard from a student who was/is a Katrina victim who told us that no one fully knows the devastation you are experiencing other than people who have been through it. At first I was grateful to have the blessings and sympathy but then I began to understand that water is a very weird thing. It doesn't conjure the same feelings of destruction that something like, say, fire does. So there have been some surprisingly unsympathetic people.

Sufficed to say, in the past five months, Willie's office/studio has been moved and reassembled four times! Once to get moved out of the water-damaged floor and three other times to avoid being in the middle of the construction. Not to mention that no matter where he moved to, he was competing with banging, clanging, drilling and hammering construction work all day long! Kind of tough to record lessons when all that is going on.

I used to joke with him that he should do some sort of lesson on the music of the construction. Like some kind of irregular rhythm, atonal improvisation kind of lesson. Something "artsy." Some days it was a funny thought.

In addition, I have often thought of the irony of having just sent an email newsletter out only weeks before the flood touting with pride at our ability to keep our commitment to the monthly lessons despite our hectic family life. LOL. I have definitely been humbled by all this.

You are all absolutely right about communication and expectations. We need to be better in that area. Willie and I have spent most of the weekend talking about all this and while we know that improvements won't happen overnight, we are working on improvements CONSTANTLY!!! Especially Willie who aims to please.

Regarding quality vs. quantity, the integrity of the material is more important to us than the amount of material and I think that our most loyal students would agree.

We recognize that we have fallen short of some expectation and that better communication would have assuaged that. We recognize that there is a lot that we need to do to get back on track. Believe me when I tell you that NO ONE wants us to get back to normal more than we do. NO ONE is more upset at our having disappointed people than we are. Willie and I are hard working people from working class families who value and appreciate an honest hard day’s work.

And, yes, everyone has problems. I wish I could be one of those people who looks at other people’s suffering and is comforted by the thought that, “It could be worse.” It doesn’t do much to comfort me when I begin thinking about how badly others are suffering compared to me. I’m human. The suffering of those around me does nothing but exacerbate and add to the suffering within me. I wish I was a stronger woman who could end the day cheerfully because, next to some people, my frustrations are superficial by comparison. Admittedly, I am weaker in that area than I would like to be.

However, I am not going to apologize for taking our children on vacation and I am certainly not going to apologize for attending a high school reunion or having a date with my husband. In fact, I am uncomfortable that our attendance at the reunion even came up. Our personal outings are PERSONAL and has nothing to do with our business or our lessons. The reunion took place on a Saturday night, we purchased the tickets in January. There is no way that even if we had stayed home to answer forums or emails instead of going out that we could have fixed or caught up with the past five months of backlog or fixed all the problems we still have yet to fix. The subject seems irrelevant. The flood and all that it entails in the recovery process DID interfere with business as usual. Our attendance at Willie’s 20 year reunion DID NOT!

And yes, we don’t have “regular” jobs. We work where we live and we live where we work. But this gosh darn flood did not come in and only destroy the rooms that are for personal use -- it destroyed equipment and office space! We lost product and files. Many businesses in RI are still completely shut down because of their losses and lots and lots of people are still out of work. So I am grateful that, despite the fact that we are not performing up to what we would consider our usual standard of business, we are STILL DOING BUSINESS (thank God) and we are recovering a little more every day. There has been no luxury to our circumstances and, until recently no time off.

As a reminder, we communicate directly with people though the support ticket system. You can reach the support ticket system by emailing us at pianohelp@jazzedge.com. And while we do visit the forum (and will likely be visiting it more often from now on in light of recent events), the forum is meant to be used as a tool for students to be able to connect with one another regarding the piano lessons. Should you need direct or immediate attention, please feel free to contact us though the ticket system.

I hope that this communication has fully addressed the concerns that were outlined here. I am truly, truly grateful to those of you who have brought your concerns to us in a constructive, professional and courteous manner.

Best wishes,

Valerie

[spannfan]

I made my last post before I read Willie's explanation.

[iaindavies]

I became a Gold member over a year ago. At the time there were a lot less lessons available than now, there was no chapter download feature, and no practice points lesson downloads, there was no blues or latin site, and there was not a commitment to regularly grow the site. But there was still a lot of good lessons available. I am very happy to be getting so much more now than when I started at the site.

Having experience the devastation of home being flooded, getting back to normal does take a great many months. If some of the more recent changes, like regular new lessons drops by the way side at this time - well, there is still more on the site than when I signed up.

So I remain a happy customer!

[sbohringer]

Wow - I did not realize all of this was going on in this forum.
I too waited and wondered about the Rock Site.
But in the meantime I watched a ton of other videos.
No matter what you do, there is always somebody ready to complain.
I have enjoyed this site and think Piano Willie and Valerie are doing a great job.

Thanks Steve

[cdaame]

Hi I'am Camiel from Holland and I've just discovered this site and I must say WOW!! This is like having a teacher teaching me blues in my own house!

I love your work and your way of teaching! Thanks for doing this, it will help me play the piano better!

Thanks!

[williemyette]

Thanks Camiel and welcome!