Two disciplines, one way of working.

I'm Michael Piraner — a recorder teacher and performer working in early music and historical performance, and a QA and test-automation professional with hands-on experience in tools like Playwright.

I have a Diploma from the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music (Newcastle, Australia), a Bachelor of Music degree (Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Australia), and Master of Arts in Music (University of Birmingham, UK). I have performed with Polyphonica Recorder Trio in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany, and with other ensembles and as soloist in Australia, the UK, France and the United States.

I have a special interest in the relationship between language and music in early music interpretation and performance. I am a permanent tutor on the Higham Hall Early Music Course, and conduct other residential recorder courses.

Many web developers and digital agencies working with musicians and arts organisations understand either the technology or the professional musical environment — but rarely both. My work sits at the intersection of these two disciplines. This combination of first-hand knowledge of the professional music sector, teaching and performance, together with my experience in quality assurance and development, enables me to build digital tools that are both technically robust and genuinely suited to the way musicians and music organisations work.

This approach underpins both recorder-ed and Polyphonica: two distinct platforms built on the same underlying system, each designed to address the specific operational needs of a real music business.

Drawing on decades of practical experience in music teaching and performance, I have developed tools designed to support music teaching as a professional, sustainable and commercially viable business. The platform brings together the different strands of my own musical work, including private teaching, public workshops delivered both online and in person, and the development of self-directed online courses.

My background in Quality Assurance has been equally important to the development process. I apply rigorous functional testing alongside structured user testing, incorporating feedback from pupils and fellow teachers throughout development. This ensures that the tools are not simply a digital representation of how I teach, but are designed to support different learning needs, improve the teaching experience and enable pupils to engage with learning in ways that work for them.

The result is a platform developed from practical experience, tested through real-world use and continually refined through feedback — combining professional musical expertise with a disciplined approach to software quality, usability and development.