Teaching piano over Skype
Mark M. in Barrington, Illinois, USA.
“I have several students in Australia, one in England, I’ve had one in Hong Kong and New Zealand, one in Colorado and many across the country. I’ve been giving in person lessons for 26 years, and I have been teaching distance over traditional landline and cell phone for three and a half years.
I started using Skype about 3 months ago. Eventually I think my students will all be on Skype. The fidelity will be better.
I use my laptop speaker for the student to hear me, and the headset to hear them. I have a good ear, I’ve been playing jazz piano for 25 years. I can hear what they’re playing, and I send them my arrangements so I know how it’s supposed to sound.
Soon I am going to set a video camera over my shoulder, and I’ll be able to do it live with the video on Skype. Mainly students find me over my website.
Anyone overseas finds me over the internet. I tell everybody about Skype – my mom, brother. A person I taught in Switzerland referred me to a webmaster in Pakistan who is now optimizing my website.
Every time I’ve talked with someone over Skype it’s amazing.”
