Lessons in Quarantine by Ariane Cap

When public life wound down abruptly, in March 2020, many professions had the rug pulled out from underneath them. Arguably, one of the groups hit hardest by the shut downs and stay-at-home orders were live performers, such as musicians. The weekly hotel gig was cancelled. The three-week tour in summer was removed from the schedule. Jazz on Thursday was called off until further notice. Shows closed. Studio dates were zapped. NAMM Show was not this year! CD release parties were obliterated.

Full-time musicians saw their busy calendars empty and income they were relied on did not materialize. I was hit with panic and disappointment as several performances and in-person teaching opportunities were not going to happen. However, I knew I would be fine since I have been in the online teaching space since 2015. I sprang into action to help my friends who were not established as online educators. Here are a few of the tips I gave them to get them started.

Getting Started Whether out of passion or necessity, many musicians teach. Some teach all levels at school or church. Others are known for their particular sound, style of playing, or technique and they bare sought by fans wanting to learn from their heroes. In-person lessons are gone for the time being. So, using tools like Skype or Zoom is a sensible next step. The first question I typically get when consulting musicians on how to take their teaching online is what platform to use.

The Technology My advice to teachers looking to migrate to online education is to not let the tech get in the way. Don’t wait until you have found the perfect microphone, multi-camera angle set up, and ability to stream audio from your DAW. Just start. not sounding like a human voice such as a low bass or a ticking metronome, Zoom wants to be “helpful “and suppress it and instead of hearing your student, you hear silence. Toggling the in-meeting option to enable original sound (reading “off” in the meeting screen means it is toggled on) will eliminate this issue. Disabling persistent or intermittent background noise will improve the audio quality, also. Ask your students to use a computer, not an iPad or tablet, and wear headphones.

If you want to give your students that amazing wow factor and have great instrument-oriented audio right out of the box, I recommend the amazing teaching platform Doozzoo. Besides having optimized audio, you have control over a metronome and tuner, and you can upload teaching materials straight into the platform to be in control of the student’s experience.

Flyinaudiotracks,slowthemdownonthefly,transpose them, and show the chart. All of that happens within the Doozzoo window which makes for a cohesive and direct teaching experience without the need to leave the window, grab and download an audio file, open it somewhere, and lose the Zoom window. Doozzoo delivers in terms of sound and user experience!

As for cameras, a simple Logitech camera will do. You can get inexpensive lights on Amazon. If you are a pianist or your instrument requires a full body view, it can be helpful to mount a camera above you or at an angle to give the student a view of your hand. Multiple cameras can be switched with one click.

Mindset of an Online Teacher With the tech out of the way, let me address the one thing that can make or break your online success - The mindset of the teacher.

Online teaching is different in many ways compared to the in-person experience. First, I teach eight or nine full-hour in-person lessons in a row and feel fresh and energized until the last one. However, I am exhausted after teaching four lessons online. It can be having to project more through the interfaces, having to interrupt to ask for a microphone or camera adjustments, or dealing with internet glitches.

The easiest platform to use is Zoom. It is preferred because it is user-friendly, free for your students, and offers a few sound options that are quite helpful for our purposes. In particular, Zoom offers the option to enable original sound in the advanced audio settings. You tick the box that says, “Show in-meeting option to ‘Enable Original Sound’ from microphone”.