Hello,
How many of you have taken - or have considered taking - private lessons via Skype or other video-conference?
For those who have taken long-distance video lessons, how did you find your teacher?
For those who haven’t, if you were considering taking video lessons from someone in another city, how would you go about searching for a teacher?
Curious to hear any experiences you may have had.
Thanks.
I’ve not taken lessons (drums) by Skype nor has my son (guitar). We live in a fairly large city in the northeast so we have a good selection of teachers. I think we’d only consider it if the instructor was famous (Julian Lage, for example, offers skype lessons), or if it was a regular teacher that you wanted to check-in with. However, one of my friends offers vocal lessons b y skype and it seems really successful. She teaches at a local college and is very active in the community music scene. Good luck!
The primary private music school in our city does Skype lessons throughout the state. They have an outreach grant for talented students in rural areas to learn from top teachers. Most lessons are done in public school classrooms via skype in coordination with the school. The students are often identified by their music teachers. Some students have been able to enter good music schools. Since it is funded by public/private money a report is generated yearly to document its success. They also do a “promotional” video on the program which I’ve seen. So…it can enhance learning if the student is talented and has no access (due to distance) to a top teacher on their instrument.
I’m not sure if your question is about access or simply an interest in a particular teacher. Hope this helps in some way.
My daughter has a few private students she teaches by Skype. They began as regular weekly students. When the families moved they continued by Skype. As far as taking Skype lessons herself, when she was about to enter undergrad as a violin major, she wanted to pass out of the piano requirement for her conservatory. She took some Skype lessons with her longtime accompanist, who was in Europe at the time, and was able to pass the test after taking five lessons (previously she had studied piano for a couple months at age 8, after breaking her left arm and having to take a hiatus from violin; so, she did not have much background.) It’s not as ideal as lessons in person, but it can certainly help a motivated student accomplish goals. At her conservatory there is/was a well-known, sought-after cello teacher who lived in a different city and conducted many lessons over Skype. To answer the question about finding a teacher for Skype lessons, I’d assume that in the case of a serious student, there needs to be a prior relationship and motivation to continue that relationship–or the teacher must be very well established. For less advanced students, especially those in rural areas, Skype could be better than no lessons. But my sense is that for beginning and intermediated students it’s more important to address issues of set up while in close physical proximity.
glassharmonica, I think I know the cello professor that you reference in the above post. My S had some lessons with him when he was in HS. He is on faculty at 2 schools and started using skype with his students at the well known conservatory to cut down on travel time. At one time he told me that he was using another video conferencing type system that was set up for him by the conservatory that was superior in quality to skype but I don’t remember now what it is.
I agree with you that I think it would have some limitations with more beginning students. I remember when my kids were beginners their teacher often physically adjusted things to show them exactly how he wanted them to do something.