Distance Lessons

UPDATE March 15, 2020: Due to the need to slow down the spread of COVID-19, all music instruction for all students is being conducted online, with no in-person meetings, starting March 16th, 2020.

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I offer online lessons as a temporary substitute to in-person lessons, or as a supplement to in-person lessons. If you are a current student of mine, and are temporarily out of town, or are temporarily unable to get to your in-person lesson, you may opt to take your lesson online.

Students or families who find it difficult or long to commute to my studio can schedule a blend of in-person and online lessons to ease their travel times. For example, you might make the longer commute to an in-person lesson once or twice a month (instead of every week), while taking weekly lessons online between each of your in-person lessons. Or you may elect to attend group classes in person each week and have all your individual lessons online. 

Older students (high school age and up), who live in areas where there are currently no local teachers available to them, can set up distance lessons with me until they can find a local teacher. Distance lessons in my studio include the following components:

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Online Lessons
and
Video Consultations

​Online lessons are the core teaching element of distance lessons. They take place "live", through video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Skype, Facetime, Google Duo/Hangouts, etc. Like in-person lessons, they occur weekly, on a day and time set aside by both teacher and student for the lesson. 

Video consultations supplement the online lessons and allow for more careful work on tone quality.

Student Videos: Students pre-record video or audio before the online lesson at a higher quality than video conferencing usually allows. The teacher gives feedback about these videos in the online lesson, or in an email or in an audio or video response. 

Teaching Videos are sometimes responses to student videos, and sometimes introductions to material the teacher thinks a student is about ready to tackle. You can see an archive of my public teaching videos at Vimeo.com

Guided Research
and
Practice Time

The teacher guides the student through independent study of music theory and musicianship. Guidance is given in choosing musical recordings to listen to, in finding broadcasts, books, local concerts or music festivals, and local or online classes for the student to attend, listen to, read, and work through on their own. The teacher helps the student apply these experiences to their music lessons.

Just like with in-person lessons, the student is also responsible for practicing on their own between the online lessons. Students should take notes during online lessons as needed and can access custom recordings from the teacher through online file or video sharing services such as Dropbox, Vimeo, Google Drive, YouTube, etc. in order to guide their practice sessions.​ Apps or other practice aids may also be recommended.

​Students should practice

In-Person Work
and
Performances

UPDATE March 15, 2020: Note that the in-person component of lessons is suspended starting March 15th, 2020.

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The student and teacher should periodically arrange to meet in person. The student also needs to play music with other musicians. 

Distance students should actively seek out a local teacher's group class, jam sessions, or a local orchestra or chamber music group to play music with others. Or they may need to form their own band, attend weekend workshops & summer music festivals, etc. 

The student may need to make a special effort to travel to a music festival or to the teacher's annual studio recital to meet in person.

This in-person interaction gives students a chance to play music with others, and is vital to the growth of all musicians at all levels.

If attending studio recitals in person is impossible, remote attendance can be arranged, with the student attending a live stream online, and presenting a pre-recorded video.

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