President of the International Association for
Electronic Keyboard Manufacturers (IAEKM)
as interviewed by Stefani Langol
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| Michael Kovins President of the International Association for Electronic Keyboard Manufacturers (IAEKM) |
SL: What is your background?
MK: I went to the University of Miami for my undergraduate work. I started in Music Education, and then transferred to the Business and Music program. It was the first business and music program in the country.
After I graduated I worked at Sam Ash, first in their educational department, then in their store in Hempstead. I then went to a company called Tolchin Instruments where I was in the sheet music/educational division. At Tolchin, we set up the first nationally distributed catalog for music educators. I also worked in their band instrument division and sold private label band instruments.
When I left Tolchin, I went to Hohner to run their Orff-Schulwerk division. When Hohner eventually moved to Richmond, Virginia, I came to Korg.
SL: When did you realize that the use of technology would be beneficial to the music educator?
MK: When I was with Hohner back in the early 80's, I used to see Don Muro at the music educator shows. Later when I came to Korg I asked Don to start showing things at the music educator meetings. At that time, the music teachers would come by the exhibit and say "Cute stuff, but I don't need to know it." And I would say, "How come all the kids in your band are in the Korg exhibit playing the keyboards, and the clarinet guy is across the way from us, and the kids are not over there?"
Then, in the late 80's and early 90's, the music educators started coming by saying things like, "You know what... I need to know this, but where do I get the information?"
At that point we started SoundTree. We saw what was happening with Don. We supported him in his summer programs by sending instruments.
SL: How do you think music technology enhances teaching and learning?
MK: I played acoustic instruments and I still love acoustic instruments, but there are so many advantages to using music technology. When I had to do ear training in school, I usually couldn't find anybody to practice ear training with. I would sit at the piano playing major and minor chords with my eyes closed. Now, you can have a computer play the sounds, you say what it is, the computer tells you yes or no, and you can re-do at your own pace with headphones so as not to bother anybody. That would have saved me so much time.
SL: Not only would it have saved you time, but you probably would have learned the material better.
MK: Absolutely. The same thing with orchestration and composing. I took theory in high school, so when I went to college I already knew the material. But I had never composed, so I didn't know how to put it all together. When I started learning compositional techniques, I did things the right way, but I couldn't hear it. Then, when I finally got to class and heard my piece played, I would think, "Is that what this sounds like? Why did I put the strings in at that time?" Being able to hear my work prior to class would have helped tremendously. Now, sequencers and notation programs allow you to hear everything at once. It's such an advantage.
SL: It's great that are so many tools available now.
MK: Yes it is. They just need to be exposed more.
SL: How can that happen?
MK: We need to support the consumer by providing education; places for them to learn about the products they are buying. The dealers don't help much when it comes to putting your stuff together or teaching you about the possibilities of your setup.
One thing we are doing with Keyboard Magazine is putting together a consumer trade show. It's going to take place in Burbank, California on a weekend in October 1998. All the manufacturers are going to have exhibits. That's the easy part. Organizing informative clinics will be the challenging part. They are not going to be about why the products are so great, but instead about things like, how to put music on your web site; how to do multimedia with music; how to use music technology in the schools and in the churches; how to set up a keyboard lab; how to use sequencing and notation software with your computer. We know the musicians are going to come. We want to target new consumers and go after the people who need the help, who want to know why they need music technology. If it works we'd like to do these shows around the country and get the local media on it. I think anybody who is interested in computers and/or music can use music technology.
Another example of why this exposure is so important would be in the use of multimedia for presentations. Hopefully you learned English in school, so you should be able to use a word processor, and if you need art, you can do a number of things like scanning or use a paint program. But what do you do for music? If you don't know anything about music, you can't cheat.
SL: Yes, that's very true. It's not as accessible at this point as the visual thing. There are tons of collections of inexpensive clip art, and most people know how to copy and paste right into their word processing documents, but what do you do when you want to add a sound clip? It becomes much more mysterious.
MK: People think, "Oh, I better go get a musician for this." That's the real challenge of this whole thing. And when it comes to music education, I really believe that kids want to get involved with music using computers. They are growing up with computers and feel very comfortable with them.
We had an MENC summit meeting 2 years ago. We mixed up retailers and manufacturers with music educators and everybody went into separate rooms. By the end of the 2nd day, there were 6 separate groups, and all 6 groups got up and said their final findings are that music technology is the way to go to increase music in the schools, that music technology is the way to stop the funding from being taken away from music, and that with music technology, music will not have to be an extra-curricular activity anymore. It shouldn't be a threat that a kid would hear a violin on the computer or the synthesizer and say, "I like that sound, I want to go try to play that thing." The base of kids would be larger for that band director when they get to high school.
This is also why I think TI:ME is needed. We've got the Berklees and the Villanovas in the summers, but there aren't a lot of music schools embracing this yet. The teachers are coming out of school and they are not equipped with the knowledge that they will need to deal with the technology effectively.
SL: How will TI:ME help music educators get the training they need?
MK: We want it to be a cohesive, coordinated national program where music educators can learn the appropriate information as fast as possible and become certified. I was on a task force with MENC, and some of their teachers had taken classes at some of these colleges that are supposedly teaching music technology. They came back knowing about zeros and ones, but they didn't learn anything about MIDI. Somebody has got to put a program together to coordinate this whole thing so music educators learn the right things. There is a lot of misinformation out there, too.
With TI:ME, they'll get an overview of music technology, and then they can specify where they want to go from there. It's got to be an on-going program, with a web site, so that after they graduate they can come back and ask questions at the web site or by emailing their teacher. The lines of communication have to remain open.
TI:ME Level 1 certification will begin in the summer of 1998. There are about 12 to 15 schools offering the certification. The curriculum will begin with a basic overview of everything and get more specific and more advanced as you go up the line. There are going to be very few people that will move to Level 3. Not every one needs to know all the things that will be done in Level 3. For most people, Level 1 and part of Level 2 will probably be sufficient for their needs. And keeping them updated will be important. Next year we want to possibly have a convention to get these teachers together to talk about their experiences and to find out what they need for the future. Everyday technology changes in music, so TI:ME is going to have to stay on top of things.
Spring 1998 Newsletter Contents