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No matter how fantastic the teacher is, teaching piano through Skype is and will always remains at a "group class lecturer" level.

And the webcam gives the students a feeling of "unprofessional" or "casual" because you are looking into a screen, just like a TV.

So yes the idea is good but it will take a long while for you to get serious students.

Alan,

I have a son who is learning how to play the baroque flute. This is not the same as the piano of course, but it certainly shares a kinship (more so than soccer or tennis ).

His interest in the traverso was kindled by a chance meeting with a historical performance professor at a top conservatory. As a result, he decided to move from the modern flute to the earlier wooden instrument. We got a good quality baroque flute for him and then looked locally to find someone who could get him started on it. Face-to-face training does indeed have its advantages.

Unfortunately, we concluded that the relationship between him and this teacher was probably not going to go anywhere, at least not quickly. We approached the professor with the idea of Skype. She had not done that before, but was willing to give it a try. The slight delay makes duo playing impossible, and she cannot -- obviously -- physically reposition him for optimal fingering, tone, posture, you name it. That's the down side. The upside is that he gets training from one of the top people in the US.

I think you can guess where I'm going. You have made a series of rather strong (and mostly un-argued) assertions.






Categorical generalizations only require a single example as refutation.

You strongly dislike the approach. That seems quite clear. This is fine -- no one is under any obligation to use distance teaching. And there are indeed drawbacks to this form of instruction. But I think some of your strongest feelings seem quite personal to you. They are not generally true of the medium or generally true for all teachers who try to use it.

Alan, I've been enjoying your posts, and this is the first one that I have to disagree with, and here's why.

Teaching first of all is a thought-through activity. The teacher uses the things at his disposal: books, scores, an instrument, his knowledge, the student - and he decides what he will teach, and how he will teach it, using what he has available. A book, score, location, or equipment do not do the teaching. What you will do with what you have available will determine what kind of lesson it will be. An excellent and resourceful teacher can do a lot even in that medium.

Of course working with someone in person is preferable, especially for the physical side of teaching. But if a student cannot access any teacher, or cannot access that teacher, then the Internet can give possibilities.

When you write "group class lecturer", are you thinking of these generic prerecorded lessons that are found everywhere on the Net? Yes, these are addressed to a group, generic, so they are that.

I have also watched sample Skype lessons where a student plays, and the teacher says "no - this part over here would sound better this way", demonstrates, student copies, teacher says "yes, that's it" - or maybe demonstrates a better way physically to do some passage. I can't see this for beginners. But on the other hand, I think a lot of in-person lessons do go that way.

It is what you do with the tools you have available. There can be one-on-one where you work out something, teach something - the student works through whatever that is later in his or her own practising, and has the advantage of reviewing the lesson if it has also been recorded. (Again, some in-studio teachers now record lessons for students to review). The student can also create sound files, video clips that can be shared via a Youtube private setting - for either to see where the student is, for teacher feedback. Relevant music theory can be taught via written material, homework etc. using e-mail, Dropbox and similar. It can be quite DEEP, and nothing like a general lecture.

However, if I were looking for a teacher with whom to study via Skype, I probably would not go to a site featuring such teachers as a group, but rather find such teachers via how they present themselves otherwise.

I'll be honest that I do a lot of skype teaching, for composition, though and not piano. The reason is simple: My students come from all over the world: Texas, NYC, Australia, England... you name it!

So there's no other way around it.

And I'm very happy for the results and so are my students, as far as I can tell!

Of course composition is hugely different than piano, but I will admit that I would largely prefer to have the students face to face. It's simply a different thing all together!

In any case this is what we have and this is what we get and this is what we give!

And for baroque flute, I am in no intention to "look down" at this particular instrument, the fact is, the physical skill required to perform this instrument is comparatively lower than piano. Also it has a limited amount of repertoire compared to piano.

This statement reveals real ignorance, outside of your experience. It also reinforces your tendency to assert things. The physical skill requirements are different, but no less. No pianist has ever had to contemplate the relationship between which one of a dozen fingering choice for a particular note will produce the best tone for that note within a particular passage. And when last I checked, pianists didn't have to worry about being 20 cents flat or sharp every time they push down a key. This is getting into that hoary and rather silly topic about which instrument is "the hardest to play."

The size of the repertoire is unrelated to the physical skill demands. And the size of that repertoire, within its time period is quite large.

Hey, I'll bet $ to doughnuts my experience on the piano is quite a bit more hefty than yours on flute …

SRSLY.

You share the same tendency to assert things when you call another people on internet you barely know ignorant.

Your another point is that it is difficult to find good teachers for baroque flute locally, which is very true since it is not a popular instrument. But the situation is different from piano. You can for sure find adequate piano teachers in every town.