COROVID19: How to teach music and piano remotely or via Zoom or Skype.

If you do not use “Soft Way to Mozart” and the Hiner Method, click here for more info!

The issue of distance learning has become very urgent. Students and teachers have suddenly become physically isolated from each other. Only online communication can help teachers keep up the class. The network is actively discussing the question of how best to conduct and organize such classes.

Particularly acute is the question of teaching beginners, who especially need a teacher nearby. Moreover, as a rule, the majority of students are beginners—the ones that need a piano teacher the most.

Does this mean that the teacher must stop classes during the quarantine and let the children do nothing in order for them to avoid developing wrong habits during this break?

Skype--or the personal presence of a teacher?

The beginner's biggest problem is his/her helplessness in working with a musical text. Tiny notes (with which the child’s unprepared eyes are not ready to deal) become generally unreadable for the teacher who sees all these attempts and struggles on Skype.

On Skype, you will not be able to point silently to a "lost" note or a key that has fallen out of sight.

Well, you can, of course, ask the student’s parent to do it; as they say, "The collective mind will prevail." However, this will be time consuming and very tedious. You will spend more time adjusting the camera here and there. Is it worth the afford?

A child’s communication with a musical text, however, can take place without a teacher. All that is needed is to create a Grand Staff in the form of a system of interactive keys and notes using the Soft Mozart program--and let the student work independently with the musical text 1 on 1.

When the students are able to interact with the musical text, they will choose its visual presentation themselves, play by single or both hands, hide the notes, see their own mistakes and even how to fix them. The teacher’s presence nearby is optional!

What is the function of the teacher in such a learning process and is it needed at all?

Accounting

The teacher should receive a report from the student or his/her parents on the work done at home. And with the Soft Mozart program, this report consists of specific numbers.

So, for example, on March 20, student A was learning Maykapar's “Garden” piece. He played with his right hand twice and made 5 mistakes the first time and 3 the second. Then he played with his left hand. Then he proceeded to play using both hands. During his learning process, his Eye-Hand Span (the number of seconds missed while learning a piece) was, for example, 120, 80, 60.

The Soft Mozart program in precise numbers, objectively notes how the student develops when working with musical text.

A teacher trained to work using the Soft Mozart system is able to read such digital reports as a doctor reads the results of patient analysis.

If the Eye-Hand Span figure is greater than the number of notes played, it is a signal that the child is not ready for the next stage of difficulty, such as rhythmic or artistic components of the musical text.

In this case, the teacher may ask the child to play the piano piece from beginning to end "as is," directing the camera to his hands. His duty is to understand:

1. If the pieces were selected incorrectly or are too complicated, if Eye-Hand Span is extremely high
2. If the piece is too lengthy and needs to be broken down into smaller segments
3. If there is any difficult fragment in the piece that requires special attention: it slows down the EHS. This fragment must be distinguished in order to learn it separately from the other parts.

After analyzing the figures when the student plays the piece, the teacher can proceed further:

1. If there are a lot of mistakes, and the EHS is too large, the teacher may advise playing the work at a more simplified visual presentation.
2. If there are fewer errors and a lower EHS, the teacher can give a more difficult assignment and ask the student to practice using more complex visual presentation.
3. A teacher may advise learning another piano piece if the results of independent work on the song do not improve.

This is precisely the task of the teacher at the initial stage of working with a musical piece on Skype.

Work on the beats and rhythm online

If a student has learned a piece and is able to perform it by heart (H key function--hide) with a minimum number of errors and EHS approaching 0, the teacher’s task is to help “level out” the piece.

As a rule, the student plays the simple parts of the work at an accelerated pace, but slows down in more difficult places. The teacher can record the song with a metronome, upload the recording to YouTube, and ask the student to play the piece synchronously with this recording.

During the Skype lesson, this task must be demonstrated online. If the child is behind the record by playing the piece with his/her right, left or two hands, the teacher must create a recording at a slower pace or vice versa: if the recording was made too slowly, taking into account the development of the student’s motor skills, then after the Skype lesson the instructor can record the piece in a faster tempo. Moreover, he can record the piece at different tempos, right up to the perfect concert tempo.

Fingering

As a rule, when working with the Soft Mozart emulator, beginners come to the most correct fingering in a natural way, organically, especially when the EHS becomes lower than the number of notes played.

However, fragments may exist in a song that require the help of a teacher. In such cases, the teacher can highlight these fragments in his/her version of the Soft Mozart program at the sixth ("traditional") presentation--make a screen of this fragment and sign the fingering, which the student must take into account when playing the piece.

Artistic performance

This type of work is perhaps the most interesting and exciting in working with a student. If teachers know that students are ready to solve artistic problems, they must establish the work of their own camera at the instrument in their studios. It means that the time has come for a demonstration of "how to make it sound even better."

As a rule, such sessions are very inspiring for both the teacher and the student. They can try to play together, synchronously. However, the current state of technology is not yet developed to avoid time lags.



The teacher can record several artistic interpretations of his own performance on video so that before the next lesson the student can synchronously “try on” one or another interpretation recorded by his teacher.

Afterwards in the process of the lesson on Skype, the teacher can simply share his/her thoughts on why it is best to use certain strokes or shades in the performance and how it affects the figurative component of the work.

The result and completion of the piano piece

Many educators are now disappointed that COROVID19 makes them unable to conduct academic or graduation concerts.

However, there is nothing better for them than online academic concerts because such recordings are the best evidence of their work as educators and as creators of their own methods. For the students, it is very important to have a nice closure to the work on the piano piece and video record results for such a “recital,” so that later they can share this successful project with relatives, friends, and social subscribers.

Yes, a video recording of a performance “for a concert” is no less stressful than when performing “live”: the student must focus, get composed, play expressively and give out the best that he/she is capable of. The only remarkable difference is that he can make many attempts and interpretations then choose the one recording that he likes the most and that he can truly be proud of.

Our Academy sends participants of our concerts, certificates, prizes and gifts. This helps a lot to maintain the motivation to learn music and improve all the time, from semester to semester.

Work with parents and surroundings

Distant music lessons really contribute to the involvement of parents in the learning process of the child. This is actually a joyful byproduct of the misfortune associated with the pandemic.

Parents with the help of the Soft Mozart program have full control over the situation, even if they do not have any music education at all! All that is needed is to help the child keep track of numbers while working with a piece of music then celebrate the child’s success.

Parents are especially needed for 2 to 3-year-old children who still do not know how to hold a pencil in their hands and are not able to calculate the number of their own errors. They are always happy to be included in such Skype lessons. Moreover, parents are so involved in the learning process that they begin to learn not only their child’s musical composition, but also more complex ones for themselves.

There is nothing more effective than the simultaneous work of the student, teacher and parents on the same task. Therefore, we all have one successful result: the effective development of a creative, intelligent and academically perceptive person who knows how to accept any problem, like a project that has a beginning—development--and completion.

Happy learning, Everyone!
Sincerely yours,
HH

Houston, TX March 20, 2020