When we first rolled out the WFM Learning Lab here at Watchfire Music, we thought it would be for New Yorkers only.  Oh, maybe some New Jerseyites who knew us through our Inspirational music site, but basically it would be limited to neighbors.

Well, it turns out that our neighborhood is the world.

One of the great things about NYC is the quality of teaching in the arts.  This is where they come to do it and so this is where the great teachers are as well.  “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere” the song goes.  And that’s because, especially in the arts, this city sits atop the flagpole.  The talent here, especially in music, is wondrous and has been so for decades.

But times are changing.  Now Nashville rules the Country Music world, Los Angeles rules the film world and just about any big city in the country has its splendid art houses, concert halls and learning institutions.  The possibilities are expanding as each day goes by.

Even the smaller cities and towns across the country are getting on board as the world grows smaller and smaller.

Now, in this Internet age, that intercommunication is expanding even faster.

Many of you wrote in and expressed your frustration and disappointment at not being close enough to partake in the WFM Learning Lab simply because you lived beyond easy and affordable access to NYC.  However, some of you refused to succumb to limitation and suggested alternate possibilities to get what you so dearly want and need.

One woman is coming for 2 ½ weeks for a 3 hour per day intensive covering 3 different classes.  We’ve established a place to stay at about a fifth the normal NYC hotel price just a block away.  She’ll take classes for 3 hours a day, six days a week and go back to her quiet retreat each day and do homework for six hours.  By the time she leaves those 17 days later, she’ll be a new artist with a whole new set of tools with which to pursue her art.

Another man studies Vocal Performance with me on Skype and on the telephone.  We meet for an hour each week and he’s improving dramatically through these lessons.  At first I wondered how it could be done, but he sends me MP3s of his church solos and we sit and analyze them and discuss the problems.  It hasn’t mattered to each of us one bit that we aren’t in the same room together and hasn’t minimized the work in any way.

We’re now teaching as many classes from a distance as we are locally.

We’re even looking into ways to teach some of the more difficult classes on line now as the world shrinks before us.

So don’t let distance be a limit.  Distance, time and space aren’t real anyway, so let’s look at ways of overcoming the belief in them – especially in our ability to learn new things.

It’s the Information Age.  That means that information has never been more accessible to human kind.  Now it’s available to you, no matter where you might live.

Check it out!

The WFM Learning Lab.