23 Reasons Why You’ll Never Stop Teaching Piano Online
Teaching lessons online during this pandemic has proven to be an incredible opportunity and blessing to teachers and students around the world. Teachers are now recognizing the game changing benefits of being an online music teacher. The future of education is online and learning the skills to provide online music lessons will only give you the advantage moving forward.
In this episode I share 23 reasons why teaching online music lessons gives you a huge advantage over in-person studios. Enjoy!
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Enjoy This Week’s Transcript!
Hi teachers. I'm Carly Walton, and this is the Teach Music Online Podcast, your number one resource for innovative online music teaching. If you've been around the Teach Music Online world for a while, then you likely know that I've been teaching online for the last several years. I was actually living in Arizona when I decided to switch to teaching online exclusively so that I could have more flexibility while teaching. I travel often with my husband and daughters, and teaching online allowed me the flexibility I needed.
What many teachers have not realized is that teaching online is not just a bandaid for the pandemic, but an incredible solution to so many challenges that we face as studio teachers. In this episode, I'm going to cover a number of reasons why online teaching is a better way to build a thriving music business. Initially, I was just going to give the top ten reasons, but I actually ended up with 23. I could probably even get up to 50, but I'll be respectful of your time and share the ones that I know you'll be most interested in.
Okay, let's jump right in. This is my favorite to talk about, so this is going to be fun.
One, continue working with students who've moved. You don't have to fill lesson spots back up. Every time one of your students moves away, you get to keep them. This was how I initially started teaching online. Two of my favorite students moved to another state and I decided that I didn’t want to lose them, and make them find a new teacher. I asked them if they’d be willing to try Skype, and the rest is history.
Two, market yourself globally. After you've spent some time clarifying your message, figuring out your branding, your colors and you've built a website, you now have the ability to build an online presence and market yourself online to students around the globe! When you do this, you can actually be ultra-specific about what you teach and who you teach. Your community is now the world. It is not the town you live in, or the school you live next to or your turn, community or whoever you normally teach. You can market yourself globally. To get there, it is going to take some work. That's why I've created the TMO course, to guide you through utilizing social media to create a brand for yourself.
Three, only teach students that you really want to work with. This is a huge benefit. You can now be pickier about who you want to teach. You can raise your rates to match the demand for your niche in the music world. So if you are teaching ukulele, or if you're teaching accordion or bagpipes or flute, whatever it is, be specific about what you teach and what you're good at. What is your specialty? Do you work with special needs students? Are you amazing with beginners? Do you know how to teach composition or work with adults? When you get specific, it opens up even more of an opportunity for you to find people to teach, because most people are looking for something specific that they want to learn. You can be more specific and be pickier about who you work with.
Four, keep yourself and students safe from germs. Now, this is the obvious one that has taken a pandemic to realize, right? We're spreading a lot of germs when we're bringing students in and out of our homes, in and out of our living rooms and bathrooms, even if you are the one traveling to all of their homes and teaching them. So then you're the carrier of those germs and you may be getting sick three or four times a year, because you're with students all the time. With online lessons, you can teach at a very safe distance.
Five, get your home back. You no longer need a waiting room, bathroom, and studio room dedicated to your business. Your spouse and children will thank you for this one. They’ve probably already noticed that it is way less noisy and there's a lot less traffic coming and going from the front of your home. Obviously, that can be a nuisance to your spouse who needs to come and go. Or maybe you've even had complaints from neighbors, because you've had parents outside waiting for students all the time. With online teaching, you're going to get your home back. And you're also going to save that hassle of cars and traffic coming and going.
Six, save money on gas. No more driving. I have heard this from so many teachers who hated commuting so often and so far. I had one teacher who lived in Canada, and she said that she would drive upwards of 200 km per day to reach all of her students that live in different locations. So it can be so convenient to stop driving to your students’ homes. You can teach online and save money on gas.
Seven, save time driving to students. So much time is spent driving to and from students, and although you may be used to it, you will love the transition to teaching online. As one of our TMO members said, he now feels like he has much more time. He can dedicate himself to practicing and taking lessons versus driving to all of his students.
Eight, keep all of your students. You can finally move closer to your children, or take that job that your husband wants on the other side of the country, or escape the cold and move to Arizona. Once you're online, your students will follow you wherever you go because they don't know the difference. This will give you so much peace of mind. Moving forward, move and keep your students.
Nine, teach with kids and noisy people in your house. Now, I know you don't prefer that there would be noise in the background while you're teaching. And while it's nice to have a perfectly quiet home for your lessons, that's not always realistic. Even when you have a busy house, you don't need to stress about it when people come and go because you can simply mute yourself when there's noise now. When I had my first baby, Whitney, I switched all of my lessons online for six weeks, so that I could be home with her and still teach. This was amazing. I could put her down to sleep in the other room, and there was no piano noise in the house, so it wasn't waking her up. But also if she cried, I could just mute myself and it was no issue.
Ten, relax more while teaching. Have you experimented yet with turning your video and microphone off? You can toggle them on and off in the bottom left corner of your Zoom call. If you haven't messed around with this yet, then you definitely should. I always recommend that. You can stand up and stretch, you go to the bathroom, you can grab some water, whatever you need to do. All you need to do is turn your camera off and go do it. Remember that you are not superhuman. You are a normal human being who needs to be healthy, and have a healthy body and mind. It would be very silly for you to sit stone-still for 10 hours of teaching. It would not be good for your health. So turn that video off! Turn the microphone off, get a drink, get some water, go to the bathroom while your student plays their piece. You can run out of the room. You likely will still be able to hear them, if you need to run out of the room or stand up and stretch.
Eleven, online teaching gives you a reason to be ultra-organized and efficient. Switching online means that you have to get organized! Once you get organized, you'll save hours of trying to think of new ideas, come up with lesson plans, method books, online activities, and so on. For all of your future students. Getting organized in Google Drive is what I usually recommend. In my course, I show you exactly how to do that. It's honestly the best way to go, because you'll be able to access everything from multiple devices. Could you be organized without online lessons? Yes, but online lessons force you to do it. You might be in the middle of it right now, going through all of your materials, going through everything you have, and it can be a little bit overwhelming because it feels like a mess. It feels like a messy house when you don't have materials where you need them. Take some time to get organized. It ends up being a huge benefit in the long run.
Twelve, teach while you're away from home. You can finally go and visit your sister, your mother, or your best friend who lives hours away. You could even stay with them for an entire month and teach your students while you're visiting. Before I taught exclusively online, I had done a few online makeup lessons. A couple of years ago, I was in Colorado over Christmas break visiting my husband's sister. They lived there, and we were visiting for all of Christmas and New Year's. The day before we were going to drive home, there was a huge blizzard that came into Colorado and was raging all the way down to Northern Arizona, where we would be driving. It was clearly not a good idea for us to make that long drive home. So I sent an email out to my 33 or so students and said that I was going to be online for that whole week because we couldn't get back. We couldn't just do one day of online lessons, because I was teaching every day that week, so there would have been no time to drive home. So I decided we’d just do the entire week online, stay an extra week in Colorado, and it worked out perfectly. So, it's really nice to have online lessons as that backup. And once you're prepared to do that, it's really easy to make that switch.
Thirteen, reduce or eliminate makeup lessons. First of all, I strongly believe that you should never offer makeup lessons. Your time is too valuable for that. But more than that, you'll get fewer requests for makeup lessons when you’re online, because your students can still take a lesson even if they don't have a ride or if they're under the weather. Also, if there is bad weather, you don't have to reschedule all of your lessons. So you have a snowstorm just like in my Christmas break story, and you could put all of your lessons online instead of driving to your students or having them come to you. One solution for missed lessons is to use their lesson time to create a video for them. You could even give them something extra to work on that week, or have them send you a video on an app called Marco Polo. As long as they send you a video before their lesson, during their lesson, you could still give them some feedback.
Fourteen, fill those odd teaching hours. You can now teach in the mornings or evenings. If you'd like to do this, you'll need to find students who live in different time zones or market yourself as a teacher for adult students, so that you can teach all day instead of just those after-school teaching hours. This is so helpful, especially if you are a parent who wants to spend time with your children when they're home from school, or when they're not doing their school work. So why not get your students to take online lessons in the morning hours instead, when you don’t have your kids home anyway?
Fifteen, easily teach group classes and workshops. You may have had the thought that group classes are a lot harder or not possible when you're teaching online. Well, it is actually quite the contrary. I have had so many teachers reach out about how amazing their group classes have been working for them online using Zoom. These types of classes and workshops are a fantastic way for you to diversify your income and raise your hourly rate, because you now have multiple students that you're teaching in an hour. Often the logistics are the trickiest part of these group classes. It can be difficult to find a time and location that works for everyone. But when you're online, it's really easy to schedule a Zoom call and everyone can show up for your group class without the hassle of needing to get a ride to you and get picked up and dropped off. Online is actually an easier way to do these group classes.
Sixteen, no need to pay for or locate a recital venue. Having a place to host your recitals is often a huge challenge for teachers. It can be hard to find a place that isn't too expensive, with good acoustics, and that will fit all of your students is a huge challenge, so you don't have to do that. You can do it online. It is so easy, and I've often heard from parents that they love doing online recitals because they don't have to get all of their kids to the recital. Not only that, but sometimes students’ other siblings might be complaining about it, because it takes up their time. This way, they can still attend, without it being a huge event out of their day. You can even invite siblings or grandparents that live in other countries to be a part of the recital experience.
Seventeen, convenience. Parents love the convenience of having lessons in their own home. They don't have to clean up their home for the teachers to come to their house. They don't have to shuttle kids to and from lessons or wait in the car or make trips back and forth. It is so convenient. You have probably heard, if you've been teaching online this summer or since last March, that they actually prefer online lessons, and I guarantee it's because of the convenience. It's really great and that's okay for us to use that as a selling point because convenience is a main point for parents. For them, the worst part is having to drive their kids all around to all of these different music lessons, so you have an opportunity to make that a selling point for your studio.
Eighteen, shy students enjoy online lessons more. I have heard so many people say that their shy students or low-engagement students are more engaged online. To be honest, I'm not quite sure the reason, but I know that it's happening. I had a student named Alexi, who I taught for two years in person in Arizona, and then when I decided to travel and go online, she switched online and she was so much more animated. I think she even practiced more when we were online versus in person! It may have been that she was in her own environment. I'm not sure, but she enjoyed it, and she kept going with me for a really long time with those online lessons.
Nineteen, students are more comfortable in their home environment. You'll never hear :But I played it really well at home” ever again. You know, the students that say they play better on their own piano or whatever excuses they have. You can hear how their piano sounds and get a really good feel for their home learning environment, their set up, and make sure that they're set up for success.
Twenty, students become more independent musicians. I should have had this as number one. This is the one I hear again and again from online teachers. Why is it that students are more independent? You're not there to do everything for them. They take on a huge responsibility to make sure they're paying attention, asking questions, writing notes, playing their own games, finding hand position, getting their music out, clapping and counting, et cetera. They are doing all of that now without you, which means they're going to be an independent musician. It's often an eye-opener for you too, because you quickly can see which students were using you as a crutch. They were using you to do everything for them. So while it's more challenging for us initially, it forces us to help our students be independent musicians.
Twenty-One, students never have to find a new teacher. Talk about a stress reliever! Parents won't have to search for a new teacher when they have to move. This ensures that they'll continue lessons with you, and that they won't miss out on learning. If they have to move and look for a new teacher, they can take from you as long as you can teach them. This is such a huge benefit.
Twenty-Two, parents can listen in on lessons and be more helpful during the week. Your parents are now so involved in lessons, they can be in the other room, prepping dinner, or with another child in another room and they can hear lessons. They can hear how their child is doing as a student. They can hear the excuses they're making, or if they didn't practice their scales. And this often helps the parents to be more helpful during the week. It's a huge benefit. This is something one of the parents of a student I teach always mentions. She has four children that take lessons from me, back-to-back. She always tells me that she loves being able to be a part of their lessons, without having to sit right next to them.
And finally, Twenty-Three, you can teach students when they are away from their homes. You can teach students when they're visiting a grandma, cousins or friends and they're away from their home. All they need is to have their materials and a device. Even a phone or an iPad will work, and then they could hop on their lesson with you. This eliminates the need for you to reschedule students when they have trips out of town.
Now I want to address some concerns, because while there are so many benefits to teaching online, I know that there are also so many concerns. So how do you overcome the challenge of not having the same interaction and engagement that you get with students in person? I know that this is a concern, and it's something that will take a little bit of time for you to get used to. Please understand that your students will enjoy your lessons the same and enjoy seeing you every single week, whether you are in person or online. And if you're struggling with this, you're missing that engagement and interaction.
I really encourage you to have conversations with the student before their lesson. Ask them how their week went. Ask them what's going on with their family, with their pets, what other online lessons they're doing. Engage them before you dive right into instruction. That'll give you an opportunity to connect with them. Come up with your own ritual for your lessons. Maybe you send your students a handwritten card at the beginning of each semester. Or you send students a packet with some games and rewards in the mail. Take time to tell your students how well they are doing, and congratulate them on being virtual piano students. Reward your students with points, gift cards, stickers, and more, teachers.
I hope that some of these benefits and bonuses of teaching online helps you feel at ease about your decision to move your studio online. I also want you to know that online teaching is a solution to many challenges that teachers are facing. Online teaching doesn't need to be a temporary fix for your students, but it can be an amazing opportunity to make you and your studio more successful, every day.
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