Benefits of Live, Online Piano Lessons

Of course many are obvious like the convenience, the time-saving learning from the comfort of home. But in recent months, some interesting discussions have arisen on various teacher forums and social media platforms about online music lessons.

Overall, teachers were pleasantly surprised about how effective online teaching was. I know I have been. New technology has made lessons fun and rewarding for teacher and pupil alike.

1. Lessons are prepared and structured

Whilst I can’t imagine teaching without some form of planning. It’s true of course that in-person lessons can have an element of flexibility. With online lessons, however, spontaneity is more limited. It’s harder to have an ad hoc lesson because there isn’t as easy a solution as pulling out a book and popping it in front of the student. But while that may sound like a downside, the upside of all this planning is that your teacher will have a better idea of your progress and your overall musical development. Plus it is great to plan in to lessons lots of fun games and activities to energise lessons and keep them fresh.

2. Increased, student-teacher-parent communication

Often with face to face lessons you would communicate to the student about the lesson, practice tips, homework or upcoming activities and then repeat this information to the parent by phone or email. Carefully written instructions in lesson note books often remained unread and in the bottom of the students music bag. Now with online lessons that has all changed.

I now use a student portal set up. Student and Parents have their own login in to the virtual studio. There they can find information about future appointments, upcoming events, detail lesson notes and homework assignments, allocated music resources, studio news, student practice logs, and the parents can even make payments and access invoice and statement information all via the portal.

3. Enhanced focus

Teaching or studying online requires a lot of ‘brain power’. Online teaching and learning involve more careful listening, being more attentive to the details and interestingly, all this enhances focus on both sides of the screen – teacher and student are very focused on the lesson 100% of the time.

It is true to say that teaching online is a lot more intense and requires a lot of concentration but the results are definitely worth the extra effort.

4. Building independent learners

Students need to take charge more often in online lessons than in in-person lessons. Take for instance the simple act of writing in the score. When I was a student, my teachers always wrote in my books and scores for me. Marking passages to practise, circling wrong notes, charting fingering or even dynamics.

The online student needs to do this themselves now. While I can share and annotate the music on screen to help show how it should look, but ultimately it’s up to the student to take a pencil and write things in themselves.

Professional pianists will always tell you that analysing and writing in the score, be it fingerings, thoughts, or signs to draw your eyes to important score-related markings, is a key part to learning a piece of music. “An unmarked score is an unloved score”.

5. Enhanced responsibility and selfsufficiency

Online lessons does require a degree of responsibility from the student and parent sometimes not found in in-person lessons.

Instead, online learners need to become more self-sufficient often having to use audio tracks and downloadable sheet music etc. I can not stress enough how valuable parents support in online lessons for a younger learner is. From my experience so far many aspects of online learning make online piano lessons a great, and often preferred choice for adult learners!

In summary:

Online lessons mean learning to learn, learning to plan and leaning to build your own practices and habits. Becoming more self sufficient and more responsible will give students a boost in self confidence. That can only be a good thing. To conclude, online lessons may have obvious benefits, but there are some hidden benefits too. That is why it can make this kind of learning really powerful.