1st) Performance

Performance 

YouTube:

The site describes itself in such way: 

Founded in February 2005, YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch, and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. (YouTube, 2011a)

According to the timeline provided by YouTube, this site was found in February 2005 and the number of users increased exponentially, with a highest record of 2 billion views a day. 

Users will be able to share their videos on this site. As Julia Davies and Guy Merchant pointed out,

users of the site can choose to:

1)      Watch videos

2)      Respond to videos by leaving a written comment or rating

3)      Respond to videos by uploading another video

4)      Watch videos and report them as offensive

5)      Select any number of videos and embed them into other sites such as blogs and wikis

6)      Upload videos to the site – making them public, private or available to selected YouTube members

7)      Subscribe to particular users’ videos and be alerted each time that user uploads a new video

8)      Participate in “Test Tube” and upload new, experimental (alpha) video software and YouTube applications

9)      Produce profiles of themselves, look at others’ profiles

10)   “Friend” people and send email via YouTube

By using YouTube, there is numerous ways that can help enhanced performers’ technique, knowledge and, in general, sense of music.

• ·         Video clips that were recorded by different musicians around the world can be searched from YouTube. By watching these videos, we can learn various techniques used by different performers and the different approaches to music, i.e. different expressions, dynamics and tempo.

• ·         We can also share our performances on YouTube and gain comments from peers or people all around the world. Constructive comments from around the world with different cultures are able to aid our personal development.

• ·         There are various types of musical genres that can be discovered from YouTube. Sharing such music with peers can definitely trigger discussions and gain insight about the cultures behind the composition of such pieces.

• ·         It is very easy for us to copy the internet links from YouTube and paste them onto our blogs or wiki to share. We can also save them as our ‘’favourites’’ and this will make it very convenient us for to access when required. Issues such as forgetting the titles of the music or the exact internet links will not be a concern.

• ·         Due to the publicity of YouTube, it will be easier to gain popularity by uploading our performance video clips on YouTube. If we are virtuoso instrumentalists and uploaded our videos constantly, interested users will be able to subscribe to our list. This will benefit the performers in terms of confidence and acceptance by the public. Such fanatic followers, even from the virtual world, will definitely help in the publicity and acknowledgement if there are future plans of performing in front of real-life audience.

References:

1)      YouTube (2011a) About YouTube. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/t/about_youtube

2)      YouTube (2011a) Timeline. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/t/press_timeline

3)      Davies J. & Merchant G. (2009), Web 2.0 for Schools: Learning and Social Participation, Peter Lang Publishing, New York. Pg.53 – 68