After teaching guitar face-to-face for nearly twenty years, shifting online during the Pandemic was a big experiment for me. I went into remote learning with an open mind and saw it as an opportunity to refine my teaching style. To be successful in a remote setting, I had to be exceptionally good at listening, structuring objectives, and learning to communicate at a level independent of the instrument. Sometimes, this translates to abandoning my lesson plan to embrace the best direction for the student. After all, it's all in good fun. Many of my students have been taking lessons with me remotely for years with great success. Below, I have shared the most common questions regarding the remote format.
The biggest concern about remote lessons is if they are less effective when both parties are not physically present. Other than jamming together, there isn't anything in person we can't do remotely. Learning is still dynamic and fun.
Yes, absolutely. This has never been a problem with any of my students.
Some teachers prefer to be in the same room for this reason. I can easily communicate playing techniques to my students remotely, and I’ve never had a student who didn’t pick things up just as quickly over Zoom. My remote students often develop a more internalized awareness of technique because I guide them to where they actively discover that clicking point for themselves.
Yup.
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Excellent question! I work hard to establish good communication, identify student goals, and provide frameworks that work for the individual. I use Google Drive for documents and practice routines, and my students and I collaborate to build weekly practice objectives in class together. I will often have students designate a set practice window at a particular time of day (thirty minutes after dinner, for example) and a routine to address two or three main improvement topics. These factors all depend on the student, of course, but a framework is what delivers results.
If your child did reasonably well with online schooling during the Pandemic they should do quite well in a one-on-one music lesson. Being able to interact is what drives engagement!
I use Zoom for my lessons because it provides the best results. I have a premium Zoom membership, but you can use a free one.
You need Zoom installed on your Mac or PC. The browser Zoom extension tends to have issues. Windows 11 also has audio issues, but all other versions for Macs and PCs work well. In the worst case, we can run audio from your cell phone (video off) and video from your laptop (audio off) in the same session to get the job done. Please have a quiet room with decent lighting for our sessions. Do not worry about everything being perfect! As long as I can see and hear you we will be good to go.
That's great! Feel free to reach out so we can discuss them!