Online Piano Lessons
Hi and welcome to a short discussion regarding online piano lessons.
The first question I’m often asked about the topic of online piano lessons is: are they as good as in person lessons. My answer is always the same. It depends.
It depends on several factors as outlined below:
How motivated is the person?
That is important for both online and traditional lessons but can be more significant for online because with online there is usually no teacher to ‘report’ to for a weekly lesson. You basically proceed at your own pace and unless you are either highly motivated or find your newfound hobby exceedingly delightful and fun you will find that lessons get away from you.
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By that I mean. You can end up rationalizing away your practice time; “oh, I’m tired today I’ll get to it tomorrow.” Then tomorrow comes and there’s another excuse. Enough of this and the motivation that was present early on disappears as do the dreams of playing.
As opposed to online piano lessons, when you are attending and PAYING for in person lessons there is typically a bit more accountability. If for no other reason you don’t want to be embarassed by showing up for a lesson unprepared.
The online counterpoint to that problem is simple. The quality of the online course and how it approaches the learning is critical. People learn best through activity based learning. That means you are taught a task and you immediately put it into action and gauge the result against some criteria for success. The true secret here is that the activity must be engaging enough to keep your attention or it won’t work.
Not all online piano lessons do this last part well. We have scoured the internet and found several that we’re comfortable recommending to our friends. We’ll talk more about those in a bit but first let’s move on to bullet point number 2.
What is the quality of the course?
Are the materials comprehensive? Are the materials easy to read or do they sound like they’ve been written by a lawyer with a hidden desire to escape to the world of music instruction? No offense to our lawyer friends intended….but music instruction doesn’t lend itself very well to that methodology of instruction.
The reason music instruction is somewhat different is actually simple. Music is all about feeling, doing, and fulfilling a need that comes from deep within a person; a need to express oneself in a musical way.
It therefore follows that music instruction, even online piano lessons, needs to be activity based. In activity based learning you typically see a three pronged approach. Something is demonstrated/explained, the student then tries through hands-on participation to replicate the desired outcome, and finally the outcome is evaluated against a set of reference criteria.
For example, fingerings on a scale might go 1,2,3,1,2,3,4,5 with a cross under between 3 and 1. The student would then be expected to play 1, 2, 3 and then cross the thumb under and start over with 1….and ascend up the scale. The purpose is not only to get all the notes but to do so with maximum efficiency. An instructor can explain that concept but until the student actually performs it and the results evaluated the outcome is in doubt. With online piano lessons that is even more problematic since the instructor is not face-to-face with the student.
How effective is instructor at communicating material?
Some of the best teachers I’ve ever had were NOT the most brilliant. Conversely some of the worst instructors I’ve had WERE considered brilliant.
Now that’s not always the case but it certainly does happen far too often. I’ve thought about this a lot as an educator and have philosophized that it has to do with the fact that often those gifted with brilliance are often unable to understand why ‘regular’ folks don’t see what is intuitively obvious to the brilliant instructor.
What this amounts to is the instructor simply can’t explain to others what they know. With online piano lessons this problem can be compounded by the lack of interaction.
This is probably due to a simple misunderstanding and human nature.
They assume (bad word there) their students understand more than the students actually do. They therefore skip those things they think are intuitively obvious and go on to what they feel are the more intriguing parts of the lesson.
The problems then begin because the students are struggling mightily to keep up and invariably end up missing big ‘chunks’ of information and can’t understand how the instructor got from point “A” to point “G”….because the instructor left out the ‘intuitive’ steps of “B” thru “F”.
The outcome of this is predictable; students give up and think they’re dumb or lack talent when it really is a problem with teacher communication.
The key to online piano lessons and learning online in general is to eliminate some of the problems discussed above.
First: you have to have a person who WANTS to learn. It’s hard to push a wet noodle up a hill and more times than not if you try to you’ll fail. So, motivation of the student must be the first factor to get squared away.
Second: and this is the part that’s not as easy for the average new person to music education to ascertain, you must determine the quality of the course you’re looking at. We have provided reviews of several courses to help you focus on some of the better ones available online. After all you’re likely not a music educator and having someone who is provide some feedback should prove useful in your quest.
Third: for a learn piano online course about the only way, other than our reviews, you can determine this is to listen to some of the samples provided and read some of the customer comments, although I would take most of those with a grain of salt as you know they’re only going to put the best ones out for your perusal.
I would also look at the satisfaction guarantee. If they are having success they won’t have a problem with a money back policy in case of dissatisfaction.
Finally: do some soul searching and decide what you really want to do with your music. Some of the learn piano online courses we review are more in depth than others and take you to the level of playing classical compositions and some are meant to get your feet wet with some basics.
We tend to recommend those learn piano online courses that are highly activity based and FUN…. Remember, music should be FUN and not a drag.
One of my favorite examples of this can be found in the movie Meet John Doe. Peter Faulk plays an angel who works with a talented young singer who is working up a piece for a Christmas show. She is singing a song that she was assigned and was basically going through the motions. No emotion, not very musical and definitely not fun. Faulk’s character approaches her and asks if she knows the song “Doodle De Do”…(which of course the angel KNEW she liked.) She said she knew the song and they began to sing it together. She started out a little reserved but as it went along a big broad smile came across her face, the emotion just boiled out and the musicality of the number got a standing “O”.
Moral of the story. She was caught up in a piece of music that wasn’t fun and it was turning her off to singing. Once she got direction from the angel she started having fun again and kept working…….Think about it as it regards taking lessons and you will see the importance of not losing sight of the FUN while you work through your lessons! It can be FUN to learn piano online if it’s the right course and that means it should be activity based. Look for those characteristics and you will enjoy your music adventure.
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