Online talk for the National Taipei University of Education

By Clare

When I was a student, I listened to quite a few presentations by guests brought in by the school. In high school, the talks were sometimes informative and sometimes inspirational. At the time, it was fun to do something outside of the usual class routine, but now looking back, these talks may have given me new ideas and new encouragement.

The beauty of online talks is that you can connect with any place in the world! When we were invited to give a talk in Cathy Kuo’s (Composer and lecturer at National Taipei University of Education) class, we were a little unsure of what the focus should be. She mentioned this class is a music appreciation class, which means the students could be majoring in different fields. Since this is a university of education, the students mainly will become teachers when they graduate. We asked a little more about her ideas for topics, she thought aside from talking about our music, Scott’s arrangements, it would also be interesting to know more about how we manage and develop our online presence. I thought that’s very interesting! It’s the first time someone has asked us about digital management!

Scott and I always chat over meals! Prior to getting married, I came across many articles saying how important it is for couples to keep exchanging ideas and talk. So from the beginning of our marriage, we agreed that no TV or no other entertainment during meals - we just have to chat! Hahaha…. and I guess it worked out well! We still chat at every meal! So during one of these meals, Scott mentioned how he attended a workshop before, and the focus was on how important it is to sell yourself as an artist, how important it is to have your own website…etc. He said he was so inspired that he went home and built a website right away! And the mention of this experience of his instantly helped me to gather my thoughts about what to talk about with the students - aside from music-related topics, how important it is to have an online presence!

Because the talk was mostly in Chinese, I did most of the talking. When I asked how many of them need internet for school, for work, and/or for entertainment, the whole class said they all do, some even said they need the internet beyond imagination! When I asked how many of them have thought about being on the side of being needed on the internet…in other words, instead of being a consumer, being a creator on the internet, they all went silent! In this age, having an online presence is so important. We only started learning the world of digital marketing since the pandemic when our music-related work slowed down, but these young people, being familiar with technology already, are at an advantage and they should think about turning that convenience into something that could be useful to themselves and possibly to the world as well. So I wanted to share our new experiences in the world of online presence.

I told the students that with several hundred views, we get around $1 Canadian. They all laughed with surprise. When I asked the students why do they think that with so little pay, people still try to become YouTubers? They were unsure…. maybe to get famous?! The example I gave is comparing the famous Taiwanese musician YouTuber, Wiwi Kuan, (who, with his wife LemonJanet, we interviewed a few months ago) since everyone knows him in the class. Wiwi has an online presence established as a musician and a music teacher, and we also know some of his personal life stories, so it makes us feel like we know him, we know what kind of person he is! If Wiwi and I both try to sell a music product, and if you have never heard of me before, who will you buy this product from? I don’t know about you, but for me at least, I’d for sure buy it from Wiwi! When you establish an online presence, you also have credibility to strangers, and that is why even though YouTube pays so little (SOOOO SOOO SOOOOOOOOO little…….tiny!!!) people still try to present themselves on YouTube.

Then we went on to talk about Scott’s arrangement. Since Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 is in their curriculum, we showed our video of Happy Birthday, Beethoven which Scott combined Symphony No. 5 with Happy Birthday. This was good we thought, because they would know Happy Birthday tune and Symphony No. 5! I think it was a good choice because when it started, I saw a few smiling faces! Scott was explaining his arranging ideas and techniques, and I thought this is just how important online presence is - without being able to present this online, a lot fewer people would be able to see the brilliance of this arrangement! (Haha…it sounds a bit…arrogant?! Haha…not trying to be arrogant, but I really do think Scott’s composer birthday series and classical music mashup arrangements are just brilliant!)

It was a lot of fun to interact with the students and to share our experiences and what we learned in the recent years. Even though it was online, we felt younger looking at these young and energetic faces! We hope the talk was fun for them, and if it would give them a little something to wonder about, we’d be most happy!

Here is our group photo - see if you can find us!

Here’s our fun interview with Wiwi and LemonJanet:

Check out Scott’s brilliant Happy Birthday, Beethoven: