Brenda Barbera's Blog: Crash Course: How to Teach Piano Online

What you have been wondering and perhaps worrying about for many years is suddenly upon you. The question was if online piano lesson are worth it and if so, how to get started? Now there is no more time to ponder, this week you will be teaching your piano students online. Here we go!

This article is under work but since this is an urgent time for most of us to skill up, we are publishing the draft.

While you could spend the remainder of this school year investigating and planning for the optimal way to teach piano remotely using various online tools and adjusting your educational approach and content accordingly, it will still not be close to a physical lesson. But online teaching will have both advantages and disadvantages, and as a piano teacher your creative and pedagogical skills will surely help you make the most of the advantages.

This article covers many obvious things, but the aim is to introduce you to the current consensus around the basic concepts of online piano teaching but not least, to help you get your online teaching started today! Ready for the crash course?

Level 1: Just do it!

The best online piano lesson?
The lesson that actually takes place.

The best technical devices and equipment?
The stuff you and your students already own.

The best platform?
The one you and your student already use or can easily start using.

The best outcome?
You assist and inspire as many of your students as possible to continue practicing during a time of social isolation.

We suggest that your main goal for the firs week is to get started immediately with what you have. Try to follow up each student’s work and just get them to contue practicing.

What to not expect at this level:
– Good sound quality
– Giving detailed feedback about intepretation
– Introducing new complex concepts and techniques
– Sharing sheet music and annotations on screen
– Multi camera setup

Problems to accept:
– You cannot play together due to the time delay (often up to 1 second).
– Quality of the video call may vary and you might have to disconnect and use an alternative platform during the lesson.

A minimal setup
Since your highest priority is to connect and communicate without too much preparation and practical problem solving, we suggest to get started with this simple setup.

Devices and platforms

Both you as a teacher and you students use the following:
– A smartphone, tablet and/or laptop that you already use
– Facetime, Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, Snapchat etc.
Since all your students are likely not using the same platforms you should at least install and setup accounts on 2-3 platforms.
Facetime – often decent quality, but can only be used if both you and your student have Apple devices. It is simply a video call.
Skype – quality can be very varying due to wifi connections etc. You can keep up the conversation between lessons in the chat where you can send text, sheet music, assignements, images and video etc.
Zoom – similar to Skype but many users find the quality better than Skype. Most students are not using it.
WhatsApp – many users have it and as with Skype you can share different kinds of content.
Snapchat – since most kids use it, it is good to have as a backup solution.

Instruct the student to place the smartphone in vertical position at the end of the keyboard.

As a teacher it is practical to use two devices. For example a smartphone for the video call and a laptop for keeping notes in an e-mail or shared text document.

Planning and follow up

As an alternative or compliment to the students physical note book, use either one e-mail (that you both keep replying to between lessons) or a shared Google Doc file. Before the lesson list the following:
– Lesson time
– Your accounts on the various platforms and the prefered one for this lesson
– Lesson content in bullet form

During the lesson you can make notes for the students and finish up by setting up the time and lesson content bullets for next lesson.

Quick tips:
– Follow the same routines as your physical lessons.
– Have simple goals with each lesson.
– Look at the camera to create a sense of eye contact with your student.
– One thing at a time. Do not talk while you or the student play.
– Real-time instructions while the student plays are delayed, which can be distracting.
– Give more responsibility to the student. For example let them make notes in their score or judge themself if the balance between hands is good.
– Keep in mind that a significant part of the gains with having a piano lesson is that the student keep practicing to prepare for the lesson and get a new assignment to contine practicing.

Getting to work
1. Try out two different video call platforms and how to place/mount your device(s).
2. Set-up a document or e-mail for each student withe the content mentioned above and send it over to your students.
3. Wait for your first call!

Level 2: Adjust your content and method

When you have been able to remotely connect and communicate with your students in real time you will probably see the obvious room for improvement in many areas. Your priorities will depend on your situation, so there is no point in giving detailed advice here. While a very reasonable reaction is to start thinking about improving the (sometimes terrible) sound and video quality with better technical equipment, consider that it is not only you as a teacher that need a better camera, microphone, tablet etc. but all your students also need to level up their gear in order for you to benefit from it.

Instead, it’s now time to pragmatically consider which type of lesson content is most effective and useful in this new situation. Here are some thoughts to get you started:

– The student is asked to record a video of their piece or other assessment and send it to you. You can get back with written comments in an email, a short video clip with comments and instructions. Videos recorded and posted will almost always be of considerably better quality than a real-time video call. It is not unrealistic to assume that the student might be even more motivated and dedicated to playing well in the video recording than when just practicing for the ordinary lesson.

Top Music: 5 Quick Tips for Producing Video Piano Lessons Online

The Clarion Clavier: How and why I teach piano lessons online through Skype

Curious Piano Teachers: Your Essential Guide to Giving Online Piano Lessons

Level 3: Improved Technology

Now you are ready to explore the many ways of improving the technological side of your online teaching.
While you can quite easily gear-up to deliver impressive multi-camera lesson with great sound on a budget below $3.000, before you jump in, take a moment to consider a few things:

– You can not expect all students invest in quality gear. They may still use their smartphone with small screen and poor audio (both microphone and speakers).

– If your online lessons are too impressive, it may not just be the temporary solution that you had in mind. Students and parents will get used to the new situation and it is easy to imagine that they will in many cases prefer and require online lessons even when the period of social distancing is over. Are you really ready to give up physical lessons?

– Just to physically set up the technical gear for high-tech multicamera lessons does take time. If you use a proven setup that you have been working with before, you should still expect an hour to get camera stands, mic placement, hdmi adapters, audio mixer, camera angles, device charging and a lot more to be in place. Unless you have a dedicated online piano lessons studio where you can keep the setup intact over time, you may have to spend a lot of time rigging up and down.

If the above points cannot hold you back, get started by listning to some piano teachers with long experience in this area that we have found sharing their tips on YouTube:

Josh Wright: 15 Tips For ONLINE Piano Lessons (filmed during COVID-19 quarantining)