I miss teaching in person. Face-to-face dialogue is what tells me when my students “get” the music theory concept I’m teaching. On web conference classes with my music theory classes of 15 and16-year-olds, it’s become a “thing” to keep their cameras and microphones turned off during a video class. This deprives me of seeing the looks of “Aha! I get it!” or the looks of confusion that tell me I need to back up and rephrase something, or when a student is spaced out and needs to be corralled back in to class. While I love being able to share my computer screen and notate clearly the concept I’m teaching, I love that I don’t have to fight 45 minutes of traffic to start a class, and I love that I can wear my comfy slippers while I teach, I miss those faces that express so much whether they’re talking or not. I miss being able to crouch on the floor with a student who is crying in the corner and listen to her struggles, and I miss the high-fives when a student gets a perfect score on a quiz. Teaching and learning are social.
For private lessons, I’m grateful we have video conferencing capabilities to keep guiding students during the COVID-19 crisis. It’s been a bit of a logistical learning curve. I need to have all of my students’ music in my possession, since they’re not bringing books in to my home studio. As a result, my music stand has become more heavily laden (and my floor messier) during the past months, as I stack up the scores that my students are working on. I can’t play duets over a Zoom call because of the time-lapse problem, so teaching sight-reading and intonation via duets is not possible right now. Speaking of the time-lapse problem, students always need to use their OWN metronome to play during a lesson, not mine! I also can’t write on their music; rather, I need to instruct them when to write things and exactly where and what to write.
Video teaching is far better than not teaching at all. Video learning is better than not keeping up. I’m hoping that young musicians everywhere are using this extra time at home to sharpen their technical skills on their instruments for a successful return to in-person learning at an even higher level of ability than pre-pandemic times. In the meantime, a word of advice for students: Keep practicing, keep up with your private lessons, listen to lots of music, and turn your cameras on! I miss you!