Housekeeping and Etiquette in Live Online Music Lessons

Teaching a live online lesson requires us to consider some workflow, setup, and communication protocol that is unique to the medium.  

Room setup and lighting 

Look in the self-view of your video chat application before starting a lesson.  You can instruct your student along these same lines: 

• Lighting: in general, avoid back light or lights behind you.  Make sure you can see your face, hands and instrument clearly.  Light source in front of you, near your webcam, works best.  Adjust intensity to assure that you have enough light to see you clearly yet you’re not “washed out” with too much light.
• If you use multiple cameras, make sure each has a clear view and is serving a specific purpose i.e, an overhead hands-only view or close up view and an longer “natural” view for basic communication.
• Room setup--keep space free from clutter and anything that might distract your student. The online lesson can be very concentrated and intense, and the visual we deliver to the student is the focus of their attention.

Start your lesson by looking at and speaking to your student 

Consider the physical lesson--the student and you first meet face to face, discuss the past week's goals, practice sessions, challenges, discoveries.  If you like to focus a webcam on your hands or instrument and you’re only using one webcam, be sure to start a lesson with this face to face communication and then reposition your webcam as needed.  

Advise your student regarding their set up and webcam position and communicate with them as you would at the beginning of any lesson before switching to an instrument-focused view. 

This is one reason some teachers use multiple webcams and switch between them with a physical switcher or an on-screen tool.  A “communication” camera and a “demonstration” camera can be an effective starting point.   

During the Lesson 

Communication via webcam has fundamental differences from a physical environment.  For example, we can’t simply bend over and point to a place on the page and say “start here” or make pencil marks on the student’s page.  Therefore, some things to consider: 

• If you and your student are using scores, make sure that the score has measure numbers for reference and if not, ask your student to number them prior to the lesson (and do so yourself!)
• Marking can be made on electronic documents that you share with the student or on a physical score that you have with you and then share with the student in follow up.
• Share any documents or materials you want your student to have electronically before the lesson session, so the student isn’t spending lesson time accessing, downloading, converting, etc.
• The timing of your interactions with the student must be measured and efficient.  Establish a “speaking etiquette” with your students.  Webcam interactions are often full of “speaking on top of one another” situations as a result of delay (inevitable with even the most optimal Internet connections), so keep this in mind, take your time.  

Lesson follow up 

Establish a communication flow with your student for the period between lessons.  This will assure that they don’t  abuse your time by over communicating with you electronically about insignificant items, and also that they understand to what extent your channel is open and what kind of response time they should expect.  

The live online music lesson format also makes it convenient to schedule mid-week “check ins” or short sessions to make sure that student practice habits are on track.  I’ve considered how a highly iterative music learning process might work in previous posts, and I think this is one of the many great benefits that the live online lesson medium offers--the possibility of more frequent feedback and interaction between student and teacher.   

Please discuss and comment.  What are some ways you as an online teacher optimize the experience, setup, and communication?