Music Lesson Studio Series- Part 5

Teaching Private Lessons Online or In-Person

For this blog, I’m going to be talking about the advantages and drawbacks of teaching private music lessons either online or in-person. Perhaps there are even benefits of teaching a combination of both, depending on what will work best for you and your music studio business.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online lessons and online classes skyrocketed drastically and in-person sessions were at a major halt. Teaching music lessons online was certainly no exception. It’s pretty common for many music teachers to teach via Zoom or Skype these days, (even before the pandemic hit) but teaching in-person has its benefits too.

Here are some things to consider when teaching lessons, either in-person or online:

Advantages of Teaching Online

• There’s the convenience and comfort of teaching online at home or on the go, if you’re out of town, but maybe you need to teach make up lessons that week.
• You can connect with far more students teaching online across the country the world.
• Build even more opportunities to establish your personal brand of your music studio.
• Students can make up missed lessons online, if they were absent.

Drawbacks of Teaching Online

• Internet connection issues either between you or the student, due to limited bandwidth.
• Audio or camera issues, with the student or teacher. Not being able to hear instruments adequately with computer microphones alone.
• Computer issues such as battery drainage, especially using Zoom or Skype, or power consumption.
• Not being able to show the student how to physically work on an exercise or method of instrument. Teaching online has very limited hands-on capabilities.

Advantages of Teaching In-Person

• Building a personal connection between the teacher and the student with meeting physically each week.
• Being able to work on technique or demonstration with a student on the instrument, or the body of the instrument, if singing.
• Hands-on work is much easier to work with on technique.
• The teacher can have a better assessment of the students, body language, or facial expressions when learning music.

Drawbacks of Teaching In-Person

• Students having to drive further away to their teacher’s home or studio. Or parents giving students a ride to their lessons, if they’re a minor.

• Possible students having issues of transportation, such as reliability on a working vehicle or other transportation issues.
• Gas is expensive, especially with higher cost of living demands.

According to Riverside Music Studios, another drawback might be the time commitment of learning music in-person and driving to lessons each week.

You can find helpful additional information here on Ensemble Music Schools with online versus in-person lessons.

This is not to say that one method is necessarily better than the other, but both methods have pros and cons. It’s really a matter of finding what works best for you and y when it comes to teaching your private music lessons in your studio.

Maybe it’s a better opportunity where you could teach both methods. Some in-person lessons and some online lessons, but again, it depends on your circumstances and how you want to build up your music studio. Whatever makes the most sense to you. You have to find ways to connect to your students and create goals and expectations of the student’s musical journey of learning.

Have any questions on online teaching or in person teaching? Let me know in the comments below! Feel free to share your experiences with teaching in-person and/or online. Thank you for reading this blog!

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash