Lessons Learned from Moving a Studio Online

Talk about something I never thought I'd be doing! The first week of March, I was happily getting ready for our spring recital. I had all the various solo books laid out and was starting a list of who might play what.

And then Covid19 became a "real thing", even here in South Dakota. Almost overnight I (and thousands of other piano teachers across the nation) made the decision to put my studio online and to do my part to keep my students, their families, and my own family as safe as we could. None of us knew what the coming months might bring, but we followed recommendations and did our part to flatten the curve.

My students and parents have been amazing. We struggled through figuring out how to do this thing together, we figured out what technology would work for each student, we figured out how to do sightreading online, we figured out how to talk to and relate to each other through the cameras and phones.

So, though none of us would have probably chosen this, we did it anyway. And you know what? These amazing students made tremendous progress with this new way of doing things. Here are some real positives that came out of these two months of online lessons:

1. When many other activities stopped completely, music education continued through our lessons. We still learned new pieces, we still worked on technique, we still worked on note reading. We learned about composers, musical periods, phrasing, and rhythm. We did ear-training, composition and improvisation. We improved as musicians.

2. We enjoyed meeting together. Just before we went online, I bought some baby ducks, thinking that my students would enjoy seeing them grow up as they came out for lessons. Well, we had to hold the ducks up to the camera, but my students still got to see them. They also enjoyed seeing my baby chicks, and the occasional visit from a cat during an online lesson happened too. They showed me their pets and told me about their projects as well. I hope that keeping our weekly meeting time helped families provide one more little anchor of normalcy for their kids during this very weird time. I know that my students provided ME with that anchor each and every week.

3. We all learned more about technology, whether we wanted to or not. :)

4. We discovered we need not ever stress about snow days or icy roads or a case of the sniffles or a lack of a ride again. We'll just take it online and all will be well.

5. And, very importantly, several students discovered how much comfort music can bring during times of stress. Some weeks were really hard for students, as they missed school activities that they had been anticipating, but I encouraged them to play for their own enjoyment. They could start thinking of music not just as something else they "had to learn", but as something they could enjoy even if practice hadn't happened quite as much as it probably should have that week.

I will be the first to admit that teaching online was really stressful at the beginning. I was super worried about Internet connections and distorted sound ... but as we got used to it and I relaxed, I started to enjoy teaching online. I'm ready to expand the studio with a few students who are online only, while continuing to teach my local students mostly in-person. I'm so excited about being able to teach students from just about anywhere, and sharing my love of music with students without being restricted by geographic boundaries. And now, it's time to stop writing and start working on our Pandemic Recital, which will, of course, be online!