How is it going?

In the main, as a teacher, I am feeling more empowered using the online platform. I am much more confident with the technology needed, have another digital device to hand should I need to quickly email across a resource which the the student might find helpful. I’m becoming an expert in enabling original sound (zoom) on various devices so that notes do not cut out and efficient at note-taking for both myself and the student, which I photograph and email at the end of each session and keep in a folder so that I know absolutely where we left off last session, it’s also useful to set goals and model practice sessions for my students like this.

The lessons seem to flow more easily than they did at first, as my students fall into an easier pattern of exchange between ourselves. An unlikely advantage is that students are becoming much more adept at identifying what needs correcting. They are confident at offering a critique of their own work and this in itself facilitates a quicker development of their skills. They are ready with the equipment needed to make their session more useful to them and find their way around their own set up much more quickly. Also I find that they somehow have a more intense experience as they are ready to go, accepting of and dexterous at the process and exchanges necessarily have to be that much more relevant and interruptions timely.

I have developed (with the expert help of my pianist husband) backing tracks which can come with me singing as a guide, or without. Somehow that ‘here’s how it goes with the accompaniment’ means that students feel supported and when they are ready to try solo, they can do it, hopefully having had the song modelled by someone who can give the idea of style, take the time for full breaths, offer the correct pronunciation and show that it’s possible to come up with a proper PERFORMANCE even with a backing track. Of course it’s not interactive in the way you can work with an accompanist, but it is the best we can do without the frissant between 2 live performers. It has also been a time when I have blessed YouTube! There are some excellent accompanying resources out there too. Proper musicians, playing proper instruments and being able to view them makes the student interaction much more certain. Knowing your rhythm and counting was never so important!!!! (My husband will laugh that I have made that comment!)

I am enthused by these online lessons but they do come at a heavy time cost. The preparation involved in providing digital support for students of a quality nature is VERY TIME-CONSUMING. My school online individual teaching begins next week and I have had to turn my thoughts to a) organising lessons with students from as far-flung areas as Hong Kong, making sure they have even the printed resources which they left in the UK in haste and b) making sure there is audio support for their up-coming lessons. The pressure is different this time; I know that I can give quality online lessons and so that is no longer my worry. Now I am making sure they have everything they need to make their lesson as satisfying and productive as it is face-to-face.

As a singer, my accompanying has always been a necessity, not a work of art! I never thought I would see the day when I would miss accompanying students on the piano, but that day has come…

Online lessons are not worse or better, but have their own strengths.