Teaching music lessons via Zoom

I've been teaching individual saxophone and clarinet lessons since the 1970s. Before the pandemic, I was not particularly interested in teaching online. Seeing students in person is better in so many ways: a more real personal rapport, real-world acoustics, the ability to watch embouchure and fingers more closely. Online lessons can't address those things as well, and online playing does not allow for playing duets, or accompanying in real time. And who wants to stare at a screen for an entire teaching day?

The only actual advantage I could see was that with online lessons, both teacher and student could work together from just about any two locations in the world that have internet access - and I didn't need that; I've almost always had a full schedule with local students (I still do - I'm not currently taking new students).

The pandemic changed my views. Like many music teachers, I've switched to Zoom lessons, and I'm thankful that in spite of its imperfections, we have a way to continue to teach. I'd much rather be teaching in person, but realistically, I know that it will be many more months before it's safe to do so.

I've been teaching online for about six months now. Following are a few thoughts about what works and what doesn't in Zoom lessons.

First, a few technical items. This is all pretty much common knowledge among teachers these days:

•  Duets and live accompaniment won't work, due to lag time (latency). As a substitute, students can use recorded accompaniments, played on their side of the meeting. For working on jazz improv, there are plenty of "backing tracks" on Youtube.

•  Zoom sound quality is often very poor. Sometimes this is due to inadequate internet speed. Home "high speed" internet service usually has good download speed and poorer upload speed. This works if you are streaming movies, but internet meetings require good upload speed as well. Sometimes a neighborhood has spotty quality. I've found this often to be true even for students living in upscale neighborhoods.

•  Zoom sound is optimized for speech. Music quality suffers because the software senses music as background noise, and suppresses it, causing the music to cut out. This problem can be alleviated by changing some Zoom settings. The important ones seem to be these: Turn on "Enable original sound," disable "Suppress persistent background noise" and disable "Suppress intermittent background noise." These settings adjustments will eliminate much of the troublesome Zoom sound processing. You should be able to Google for instructions on how to do these things. Not all of these adjustments are available on mobile devices. Note: I am no technical expert.

•  Wi-fi works better if you are close to the modem. A wired connection to the modem is even better.

•  For bad connections, sometimes logging out and then rejoining the meeting can help.

•  It doesn't matter if you have a good camera. Crisp video doesn't really matter for music lessons. A good mic is nice, but the built-in mics in iPads and computers are usually adequate. I just use an iPad Pro with the built-in camera and mic, with some external (wired) speakers, and it's fine for me. Bluetooth speakers are no good; they just add to the lag.

• Personally, I don't like using headphones or earbuds. When I'm playing, I'd rather hear myself acoustically. Headphones are just too physically restrictive over a 6- or 7-hour teaching day. And it puts me just a little further into a virtual world, not a good thing IMO. 

Again, I'm no technical expert. But as a constant user, I can attest that Zoom still has some work to do to make their platform music-friendly. In addition, Zoom's instructional videos and website explanations need some simplification and editing for clarity, to be useful to everyday users like me. Zoom, if you're listening...

Technical and equipment issues aside, here are some things I've learned about online teaching:

•  One teaching technique that works quite well is demonstration and imitation. It develops the student's musical hearing and memory, and requires extra listening focus. 

•  Sometimes I give students an assignment to record themselves playing one of their pieces as well as they can, and send it to me. This encourages the student to be self-critical and to set their standard of perfection a little higher.

•  If it seems helpful, sometimes I'll record a demo and email it to them, so that they can refer to it during the week before the next lesson.

•  With in-person lessons, I was able to teach timing by playing along with the student. Since this is not possible with online lessons, I often demonstrate the passage on my side with a metronome while they read the music and follow along, then have them copy me, playing with a metronome. A longer piece can be broken into 2-bar or 4-bar segments, and each segment worked on separately. There are plenty of free iPhone metronome apps available. 

•  If we are working on improv using a "backing track," I'll typically take one to three choruses on my side of the meeting, demonstrating some point (e.g., leave space, or rework the melody, or use certain chord tones), then the student will take a turn, playing to an accompaniment track on their side of the meeting. Trading fours is not possible in an online format.

•  After each lesson I send a follow-up email with any points to remember from the day's lesson, and next week's assignment. I find I need 15 minutes between each lesson to send the email, do a little stretching, and to get ready for the next lesson. No more back-to-back students, like I often had with in-person lessons. This means a loss of income, of course, but it's necessary for me. 

•  Before my teaching day starts, I make a list of the day's students, then look at their follow-up emails from last week, note what their assignments were, and consider what we should focus on in each student's upcoming lesson.

•  At lessons, I have always mixed playing with theory and ear training. With online lessons, if the connection is just too awful for playing (as sometimes happens), we'll concentrate on theory or ear training.

 

With school back in session, most of my students are already spending half the day in front of a computer screen. It's unfortunate that their sax or clarinet lesson adds another 30-60 minutes to that, but I think they all welcome it. At least they are engaged in the real-world physical activity of playing an instrument, and the creative activity of making music. With virtual lessons, I make an extra effort to keep the lessons fun and low-pressure.

I am looking forward to the day that we can return to in-person lessons. I think just about everyone agrees that real-world human contact provides a superior educational experience. There seem to be some studies underway into whether or not instrumental music is risky in terms of spreading the virus, but no conclusive results so far. From what I can see on the internet, clarinet and sax may not involve much risk of aerosol dispersal. But I'm in a higher-risk age group, and I won't be going back to in-person instruction until it's safe.

School music programs are making the best of a difficult situation. School band, orchestra, and choir are just not possible at this point. If the risk with wind instruments turns out to be low, outdoor marching band will be the first to return. Assignments in school right now often seem to be for students to learn their individual parts and send in a recording. Recordings can be mixed to produce an ensemble performance. Theory and music history can still be taught effectively. I'm sure it will take a while for school music to return to normal, not least because of the potential risk to teachers.

The positive side of all this is that virtual lessons are available as a way to keep music education going, and I'm thankful for that. One other bright spot: Before the pandemic, I would typically catch a cold about every 6-8 weeks. With social isolation and no physical lessons, I haven't had a cold since March. But I'd happily trade that for a return to normal.