Online Piano Lessons Tulsa | Your Lessons From Home
Hi, this is Andrea with Curtis Music Academy here with another podcast on the amazing, awesome, wonderful aspects of music. So today, I would love to talk with you about doing online lessons, whether they are guitar lessons, piano lessons or vocal lessons, and some of the challenges that go along with that. Now, online lessons, in my opinion, are never as great as in-person lessons. I just think one hundred percent of the time, in-person lessons are more fun and more effective. But in some cases, there’s just no other option than to do an online lesson.
So we are in 2020. So our studio was not able to be meeting in person from March for a few months. And during that time, all of our students met online. And so I thought it was going to be really, really challenging. It actually was better than I thought it would be, although there still are some challenges now that I have given online lessons for several months now. I know what they are now. Thankfully, our studio is open. And so I would say I probably have three fourths of my lessons in person, but I still have a few students who still meet online. So no one, it’s just not the same.
Look, when there’s two people in the same room, there’s a camaraderie, there’s almost a like mindedness. And it’s so much easier to understand new concepts when you’re in person, especially with younger children who are learning something difficult. It’s really hard for them to wrap their heads around it. It’s so much easier in person. Now, in order to help with the online lessons, you might need to structure your lesson in a different way. So you might need to have print offs that you email to the parent that they can print off.
By the way, it’s really important for the parents to get involved with this because if they’re really not involved, it’s just kind of like you’re on your own with the young child and it’s a lot more difficult that way. So if you send the parent things to print out and they don’t, it’s just kind of more of a challenge. So in one way or the other, you have to get the parent on board because if they’re really paying for lessons, they’re going to want you to succeed in that. So you might need to print stuff out in the realm of games and activities and things that explain things much better.
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The one thing you don’t want is for your student to just be looking at a screen and doing mind numbing activities. Like, for example, if a student is stuck on reading notes on the staff and they’re just not getting past it, you don’t want to spend the 30 minute lesson just totally looking at the screen and having them say, OK, what’s this note? And they decide what it is. And then, OK, what’s this note? They decide what it is. And so you want it to be fun. So in online lessons, you have to find ways so that you can change focus from activity to activity, maybe doing five minutes of one thing, standing up and doing another activity.
I have really found that sometimes it’s just really goofy and fun to have the kids stand up and do five bunny hops, because actually that’s really one of the best things you can do for brain focus. And so they think it’s silly. They’re usually willing to do it right away and it just helps them kind of get their wiggles out in the come back into focus. I also like to do other things as well, writing activities, drawing activities, game activities. And there are games that you can do online between the teacher and the student. And so that is possible as well. And so some of these things make it much, much better.
Another challenge is just the frustration when the kids don’t really get the concept. I have actually seen students get extremely frustrated during their online piano or guitar lesson. It’s not something I enjoy doing. And to be honest, I’m on the other end of the computer, frustrated as well. It’s really hard to try to be teaching something new. And because of the added challenges of looking at a screen, not being able to just actually one of the biggest hurdles for teaching young children is to find the hand positions on the piano. And so in person, it’s no big deal.
You just put your hands on the piano where they should be. But in online piano or guitar lessons, it’s really hard to find middle C. OK, put your thumb two notes above middle C, OK, your other hand, find your third finger. Put your thumb. A finger on a low F or all of these things, it can be very challenging. So, number one, we have to find ways to make the piano or guitar lesson find. We want the kids to still enjoy their online piano or guitarlessons even though they’re not meeting in person. So with that being said, there are the games, there are the activities, and there is the music theory. Piano or guitar lessons that you can express through trying.
You can express through clapping, you can express through jumping four times for a cordano jumping two times for a half, no jumping one time for a home note. We just need to as piano teachers, as guitar teachers, just tap into our own creativity because you know, when life hancey lemons make lemonade. Right. And so I’m excited to be looking into developing some more ideas for online piano or guitar lessons. And I know that the kids are going to love them. Now, teaching adults online is actually no issue at all. There is very little confusion.
We’re on the same page and we really just kind of go through assignments and talk about the next one. And even when I explain things, it’s easy for them to grasp and easy for them to practice throughout the week. My main goal is to make the children’s online piano or guitar lessons very fun and very doable. So No. One, you have to get the parents involved. It’s a must. The second is you have to still do many games and activities just like you would for an in-person piano or guitar lesson. So staring at the screen and just sitting there and playing songs for 30 minutes likely will work for a while. But long term, they’re just going to get really bored with that. So thank you for tuning in for another amazing podcast from Curtis’ Music Academy. We will see you next time.