A jazz player goes "into the shed" to practice on their instrument with a focused intensity that helps them to overcome walls or limitations they may be experiencing. A recently online venue helps artists and students do just that, allowing them to meet virtually "in the shed" and it is named, aptly intotheShed.com.

For students, intotheShed.com bills itself as a "marketplace to connect and study with the best and to find artists you would not have imagined possible to reach." For jazz artists who also teach (and most of you do, don't you?) the site offers tools to make it simple and secure to schedule, organize, promote and sell lesson times, providing live video lessons to students, either 1-on-1 or grougs, wherever they are ... at home, on tour or between the soundcheck and the gig. Oh, and they help you get paid.... (yes, of course, they take a cut...).

Although I'm neither a jazz artist, nor do I play, so I haven't actually used their service, intotheShed.com was different from other similar sites that have contacted me before and seems to be leveraging technology in an exciting way, so I thought I'd share them with my readers who are. Both artists and students in Rochester will be familiar many of the jazz artist/educators who already are teaching through intotheShed on a host of instruments, including trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, saxophonists JD Allen and Wayne Escoffery, pianist Eldar Djangirov, bassist Essiet Okon Essiet, B3 player Larry Goldings, trumpeters Jeremy Pelt and Lew Soloff, vocalist Sachal Vasandani, and vibraphone player Warren Wolf, to name a few.

Here's their introductory video. Take a look and decide for yourselves:

intotheShed Introduction from intotheShed on Vimeo.