Youtube is a veritable goldmine of educational content for music teachers. Instrument lessons, music theory, interesting experiments, or just fun videos to relax with colleagues...

Since the pandemic, the platform has become the preferred place for many of us to host example videos for our students, as part of our distance learning courses.

However, YouTube has also become a favorite playground for many advertisers. If you don't have the premium version, you're sure to have to watch one or two ads before you can watch the video you want on YouTube.

Of course, you have no right to choose which ads you watch. And this can quickly become a problem for young audiences: it's not uncommon to come across a video unsuitable for children.

This can hinder the educational use of a tool that's brilliant in this respect. And using an ad blocker doesn't change a thing: you cut out the ads for yourself, but if you share content with your students, they'll see the ads before the content.

However, there's a simple way to get around the problem and access any YouTube video without ads, and without having to install any software.

To do this, simply add a "-" between the "t" and the "u" of the word Youtube in the URL of the desired video before sharing it. The word "youtube" thus becomes "yout-ube".

Here's an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtlz9zdmVgg 👉 the "Discover Newzik Web" video appears on YouTube, potentially with after a commercial or two.

https://www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=Mtlz9zdmVgg 👉 Now here's the same link, modified as explained, which this time opens ad-free, and full-screen!

How convenient is that? Now you can share YouTube videos with your students, without worrying about potentially problematic ads.

One last thing: make sure you only use this trick when necessary. YouTube content producers - the people who produce the videos you use in your courses - depend on advertising revenue to monetize their videos and get paid for their work.

So while I encourage you to use this trick to share videos with young children, take this reality into account and - perhaps - watch the ads entirely the next time you personally watch a video.

Or find other ways to support the producers whose work you appreciate: you can, for example, use the affiliate links they sometimes provide, or fund their work in a participatory way on platforms like Patreon.