Katie's new music room

Here's me in my new music room.

Before covid I taught in our family lounge but over the lockdowns I moved to a walk-in wardrobe off one of the bedrooms, because I was only teaching online and didn't need the space for in-person lessons. The space was rather small, even just for me! When playing violin, I had to be careful not to hit my bow hand against the piano keyboard in front of me and also not to hit the tip of my bow against the wall behind me. However, it enabled the family to have the lounge back and it was far enough away that the household didn't need to be quiet when I was teaching.

When the lockdowns ended and I could teach in-person again I didn't really have a space any more... the wardrobe wasn't big enough and no-one really wanted me to teach from the lounge again, so I continued online. Until now, that is!

Recently we split a larger room in half to create a music room. The new wall separates the music room from my husband’s office and he chose to make the wall out of hempcrete in the hope that it might reduce the sound of the two pianos going through the wall (and also because he wanted to experiment with hempcrete). He says the pianos are still quite loud on his side so it wasn’t totally successful on that front, but it was a fun project for the family.

The new music room isn't huge, but it’s big enough for two pianos and a few people, so in-person lessons are back on! This is in addition to continuing webcam lessons. If you're a webcam student and you'd like to come travelling in NZ, you now have the option to come visit me. I'd love to see you in person in addition to on-screen 😊