These are times that have forced you to work outside of the box. All of a sudden you have been thrown in the world of technology while being forced to teach piano online, which may or may not have been a welcome change for you. It’s times like this, that force us to change and adapt, that you can either jump in with both feet and take it on and flourish, or you get left in the dust as you lament the times of traditional piano lessons.
Teaching piano online requires you to prepare with a lesson plan just as you would a traditional lesson, find an online platform that is suitable for you and your students, and fully utilize the tools of technology available. Teaching piano online can be successful for you and your studio as you implement these steps.
Having transferred my in-person lessons, to online lessons, I have learned some things along the way ! Let’s make this transition to online piano lessons as smooth and satisfactory for you as possible.
Plan, Plan, Plan
The reason this comes first, before even deciding what platform to choose, is that we need a game plan. We need to know what we are looking for before we go looking for it!
You can ask any teacher of any subject, and the #1 key to success is to plan. Public teachers are almost always required to have a written plan that is reviewed and approved before each lesson. While most piano teachers don’t have that kind of supervision, it is still an excellent idea to plan.
What is it that we need to plan? Here are some things you need to consider when planning:
Schedule. What kind of availability do you have? What hours do you want things scheduled? How much time do you need between lessons? Do you keep your current schedule and transfer them over to virtual lessons?
I have found my teaching virtually helps me to save on traveling. Thus, I am able to schedule lessons closer together. That being said, I also found that I need a break a little more often. Staring at a screen next to my piano is not the same as being there. I get tired of looking at the screen.
More importantly, I get frustrated. I wish I could be there and just point their hands where they need to go, or just grab their attention a little easier than telling them they need to look at me so I can show them something. Because of that, I need a little bit of recovery time between lessons.
How much are you going to charge? This is something you will have to consider. I participate in a large facebook group of piano teachers who collaborate together. This was a discussion we had at the beginning of covid-19 as many teachers were being forced to teach online.
About 90-95% of teachers agreed that you charge the same for online lessons as you do for in-person lessons. The teachers that were charging less often were doing so because either they felt like they lacked experience, or because they took out a travel fee. Either way, most teachers charge the same amount for in-person lessons as they do for online lessons because it is still taking your time.
Now, as a caveat, if you have pre-recorded lessons that you are selling or something, the charge could be less. It is the individual time that you are spending with a person or group that you are charging for.
Have a copy of your student’s music in hand. This may be obvious, but I wished I had been a little more prepared for this when I taught my first lesson. I had to jump in cold turkey and hadn’t thought this one through as well as I ought to have and I was scrambling last second to get the music found and ready. Have this in hand.
Make sure you and the student have all the measures labeled so you can refer to points in the music easily and readily. That will come in handy for sure.
Have an outline of a lesson. Sometimes things take longer when teaching virtually while other things take less time. Either way, have a general outline of what you would like to cover in your lesson and what you would cover if you find you have extra time. I have had both instances occur with my online lessons. There are times things just take longer, and times that I wish I had planned for a little extra time.
Finding Your Favorite Platform
Now that you have a plan and know where you want to head with the lessons, you will need to decide on a platform for teaching your lessons online. Here are some things to consider:
Zoom. Zoom is a platform that allows you to set up a scheduled meeting time. The advantage to this platform is that it is set in place, you join the meeting at the allotted time, and your student joins in as well. This works really well for online lessons because you can begin right on the dot whether your students join or not, and it can end right on time as well.
Zoom works very well for group lessons or when you are having a lesson with more than one individual in more than one setting.
FaceTime, Google Duo, Etc. This is the platform I have actually preferred, though I could see the benefits of others as well. I feel like it is a little more personal, which is just my taste and preference. Not sure why I feel that it is more personal. Perhaps because Zoom, to me, has become a more professional platform with business meetings etc. Actually calling someone through FaceTime seems like you are connecting with them one-on-one. Which is why this would not work as well with a group.
Pre-recorded Lessons. This would be for an entirely different type of lessons, but it is something to consider. You could pre-record your lessons (especially if it is to a group, or about a concept that does not need to be interactive). This is a whole different approach to your piano studio, but one worth considering if you are interested.
Embracing All Technology Has to Offer
If you are using online lessons to teach, then you have already entered into a field where there are TONS of resources available to you! I would highly suggest tapping into some of those resources to help supplement your lessons and provide the best kind of experience that your students could use!
For example, there are several online piano lessons out there that have already built an impressive library of digital music. If your student has a keyboard, they can easily hook into a computer and practice music, do exercises, and even improve their sight reading skills through programs. The data can be tracked, and you can oversee that as their teacher.
Piano Marvel is perfectly set up for teachers and students alike. I would not necessarily suggest it just to a piano student beginning, but it is a wonderful supplemental resource for a teacher like you. You could use this platform to help your child to practice. They have an absolutely stunning amount of digital songs to choose from (10,000+) with classical, popular, jazz, and other arrangements.
The piano student really does need some individual monitoring, so you as the teacher can offer that to them. As you coach them through the right music, with the right exercises, you can give them the lessons that no computer can. It is you as a teacher that provides the “real” meat to the lessons — the dynamics, the nuances of music, the magic that can occur when a student truly masters the instrument.
Between you and the Piano Marvel program, you can really provide a powerful learning experience!
Utilize online games and apps. As a teacher teaching online, you should also consider referring your students to other online resources. I have a quick review game that helps my beginning students to learn the note names. Another app that has been very helpful for my students is Note Rush. It helps my students to learn to play the right note quickly as they continue to play the game.
YouTube. Hopefully you are no stranger to using YouTube to help you to either teach a concept, or to at least have the students be able to listen to their music they are studying and learning to play. I find this resource extremely helpful as it helps my students to figure out if what they are playing is correct, and it helps them to learn dynamics, building of the music, etc. as they listen to it. This is a regular resource for my studio whether or not it is online or not.
Pros and Cons of Teaching Virtually
Its good to know the pros and cons of teaching online lessons.
Pros of teaching online music lessons:
- It actually takes less time for me because I am not traveling, I have all of my resources and materials right in front of me and I never have to forget about leaving something at home.
- It works for a lot of people, no matter where they live. The flexibility of that is amazing.
Cons of teaching online piano lessons:
- It can seem so impersonal. I don’t get to “be” with them.
- It can get very frustrating because I am a hands-on person and I like to just show them exactly what I mean when I am coaching through a song by just playing it myself. I still can do this, but it isn’t as easy as an in-person lesson. But this can be a pro, because I am no longer stepping in when I should. It gives them more time to figure things out on their own as I walk them through it without just doing it for them.
- Technology doesn’t always work. So you have to be flexible and decide what your policy is if it just didn’t happen for whatever reason that was beyond you or your student’s control.
- It can be harder to keep their attention if there are distractions that are beyond your control. So be prepared to either have a way to get their attention back, or seek to have a policy where their are no distractions.
Just Go For It!
The only way to truly know how this is going to work, is just to jump in there and get going! You will learn soon enough what works and what doesn’t work. I would just suggest you take a deep breath, laugh at what didn’t go like you planned, and adjust it to work better next time.
Just whatever you do, don’t let current circumstances determine what you can and can’t do. The best thing to do is to adapt and make it work. If you just can’t teach in-person, then do what you can do!
I have been teaching traditional lessons, in person, for 17 years. After covid-19, I have been forced into teaching online. Now that I am doing it, I may not go back even if I could. I believe that we have moved into a new era and I am ready to embrace the change and love it. I think we will have to either adapt to it and make the most of it, or be left in the dust.
I would not be surprised if traditional lessons as we know it will just not be the same. It has already become less and less popular, but pure online lessons (pre-recorded) just don’t seem to cut it either. I think we will need to figure out a way that each of us, as teachers, can blend the two together to create what works well for us and our students.
Think it through, plan for it, prepare as much as you can, and jump in! I know you can be successful, especially as you adapt and work through the challenges. See this time as a time of opportunity, and it will be!
Tel loves her life as a piano player, a piano teacher, and a mom. Amid piano blogging, piano teaching, and piano playing, she loves a chance to fit in a good exercise class, volunteer at her kids’ school and at her church, and go on long dates with her husband. Full bio at About Tel.
