BWW Blog: Giving Piano and Voice Lessons During a Pandemic

Once my university announced that all students were to stay home for this semester, I reached out to members of my community to offer piano and voice lessons. I landed a few gigs and I teach about 3 days a week. It's often tedious, though, especially when lessons could be shortened if I could sit directly next to my students, mask-less. But, at the end of the day, all I care about is seeing them improve.

I give the most lessons to my next-door neighbor, Elizabeth. Luckily, she has a piano in her house. Every time I go over, I bring my keyboard and I station myself six feet away from her. We set up two small cameras, one above each of our pianos. On my phone, her camera gives me a birds-eye view of her piano. Likewise, her tablet displays a similar view of my keyboard. This makes it easier for me to teach Elizabeth when/where to move her hands, since she can see (and hopefully, emulate) my playing. She's ten years old, and only a beginner in both playing and singing. But she's improved a lot. When we sing, Elizabeth goes behind a plexiglass wall that her parents have set up so that she can take her mask off. I still stay six feet away, with my mask on, to be extra safe. Although this setup seems difficult to teach in, it's actually much easier than the piano lessons. It's just like a regular lesson, except the teacher is a little bit farther back, and it's harder for him to sing through his mask. Thankfully, I still have a good view of Elizabeth's mouth, jaw, neck, and body. And she can easily see mine, through my clear mask. She has no problem copying the exercises/techniques that I demonstrate. I do struggle with hearing her, though. In the same respect, she has trouble hearing me accompany her on the piano. There seems to be no comfortable medium--whenever I turn the volume up on the piano so that she can hear the music, I can't hear her sing in return.

I often get frustrated with these circumstances. But no matter how difficult they may be, I always cheer up by the end of our lesson. It's when we work on "I Could Have Danced All Night." Not only is that song so fun to hear, but it's just as exciting to play! Last week, at the end of the song, Elizabeth hit the best high G she's ever sung. Maybe I should start calling her "Eliza" now.

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