Living the Hybrid Studio Life

I’ve been reflecting on just how different our teaching lives have become since the pandemic. For example, most of us have taught some of our lessons online since 2020. Perhaps you are continuing with online lessons in some form or another.

Personally speaking, I teach a few lessons online every week in addition to in person lessons. The reasons for teaching online vary widely. For example, one of my former “in person students” moved away from the Seattle area, where I have my private studio, but now continues with weekly online lessons. Another example, I may deliver an online lesson to a considerate student who is feeling under the weather and chooses to have an online lesson rather than risk getting me sick. (Thank you, considerate student!).  Snow day? You guessed it… online lessons. Yet another example is where I don’t see a student because of a scheduling conflict, and in that case, I may prepare an asynchronous (on demand) lesson for them to complete at their convenience. This all adds up to a hybrid studio – a combination of in person and online teaching.

Perhaps you’ve already worked out a system for organizing your teaching if you also find yourself in the hybrid teaching boat. I thought I would share some strategies that make my job easier when conducting online lessons via Facetime or Zoom. For one, I keep careful records of my students’ practice assignments. I create their weekly assignments on my computer, send home a printed copy for the student, and store the assignment on my hard drive. I also keep duplicate copies of my students’ books and sheet music in my studio library.  That way, if I find myself suddenly in the position of teaching an online lesson, I can easily pivot to the virtual realm.

For synchronous online lessons (in real time), the lessons work similarly to in person lessons. I open the computer file with the student’s assignment, gather the duplicates of their books, sign onto the computer, greet my student on the other end of the line, and away we go.

In addition to working on their normal lesson, we enjoy playing online musical “games” such as improvising, working out popular melodies by ear, call and response playing between the teacher and the student, and/or watching music education videos together via screen sharing. The videos range from the piano comedy of Victor Borge to musical performances, meet the orchestra tutorials, music history, and music theory videos.

Asynchronous (on demand) lessons, on the other hand, require a different approach. If a student knows well in advance that they will be missing a lesson, or if I know that I have a scheduling conflict coming up, I’ll ask them to send me a video recording of what they are working on prior to their lesson time so that I can make comments and suggestions during the video recorded lesson. I also ask the student to send me any questions or concerns about anything they are working on so that I may address those during the video lesson

For creating an asynchronous lesson, I use Zoom where I record a meeting (the meeting only has one person, and that is me, conducting a lesson for my absent student). During the lesson, I explain the assignment, demonstrate (with the aid of an overhead camera that provides a birds-eye view of the keyboard), and give practicing recommendations to the student. The recording is stored on the cloud, and I send the parent the link to the recorded lesson along with an assignment sheet for the week.

One thing that we all learned during the pandemic, is that WE CAN work online with our students. For some of us, that may not be the first choice, but in my opinion, it can be quite a rewarding educational and creative experience for both the student and the teacher. The ideas described above have helped my students stay on track with their musical development and preparation for upcoming events without missing a beat (pun intended). This seems to be the happy medium that works for me and my studio; perhaps some of these ideas will work for you and your studio as well in your hybrid studios.