Lo-An Lin on teaching piano online, and why some beginners should wait
The San Antonio competition winner on trial lessons, three camera angles, shared practice notebooks and why rubato is borrowed time.
Lo-An Lin is a pianist from Taipei who won First Prize and the Baroque Prize at the 2012 San Antonio International Piano Competition. She holds graduate degrees from the Yale School of Music and the Eastman School of Music, and has taught at the Eastman Community Music School.
Here are fourteen of her best tips, from her Piano Star Masterclass on teaching online lessons on Piano League.
1. Run a short trial lesson first
I would recommend a trial lesson to be a minimum of 20 minutes, and I think the most important thing during your trial lesson is to make sure the student responds well to online instruction. For some younger students, when they receive online instruction, it’s like watching TV for them. They’re not able to really connect and interact with the teacher and the instruction. So if that happens during your trial lesson, I would typically recommend the students to wait a bit.
Lo-An Lin
2. Young beginners need to see the keys
Unlike in-person instruction, teaching online relies solely on verbal instruction and videos to demonstrate a movement. For younger kids who are brand new beginners, they have to be able to see exactly the keys that you are playing right in front of them, like in-person lessons, not on the computer screen, in order to make sense in their minds.
Lo-An Lin
3. Use three camera views
Rather than worrying about having fancy cameras and setup, we can actually create great setups without breaking the bank. So in terms of the view angles, I found that having a minimum of three views to be very helpful. Some people add the fourth view, which shows the pedal. I didn’t have that. So basically, my three views: I use my laptop and I connect two Logitech webcams to my laptop, and I use my camera on the laptop when I talk to students. I used one webcam for the overhead view that covers all 88 keys, so they can see what notes I’m playing, and another one is the side angle that sits a little bit higher and further than the laptop, so you can show them your arm and wrist movements.
Lo-An Lin
4. Ask students to raise their camera
I ask them to place whatever device that they’re using a little bit higher, so I can see the side view but also clearly see their finger number. So I can see exactly what finger number they’re using. I can also see if their wrist is dropping, their shoulders are going up, or anything like that.
Lo-An Lin
5. Wear headphones
Headphone is a must, because otherwise the students will hear the feedback from your own speaker.
Lo-An Lin
6. Keep a shared practice notebook
I decided to have a virtual notebook, especially for my younger students or beginners, because sometimes they will forget what to practice. So basically I used Google Doc and I shared a Google Doc with them.
Lo-An Lin
7. Keep group classes small
Basically it was a five-day session, and each class had no more than six people, because if you have too many students in one class, personally I don’t believe you will be effective. And we met every single day for 45 minutes, five days in a row. We cover all the basics in five days.
Lo-An Lin
8. Group beginners, then switch to one-on-one
I think it’s a good idea, if you have a full studio but you still want to teach these beginners, you can just group them up together and teach all the basics. And obviously they have to switch to a one-on-one lesson after they reach the basic note reading level, because everyone will start to progress differently.
Lo-An Lin
9. Send homework and a video home
I also assign homework for the students each day that includes a short written portion and to practice the pieces that we work on that day, because otherwise, by the time the fifth day comes, they might forget about what they learned. And then after the session, I also emailed them a short video clip with overhead views of me playing the pieces that we worked on, to remind them of the hand positions and the notes.
Lo-An Lin
10. Treat your website as a business card
I think it’s very important to have a website. Some teachers like to use a Facebook fan page or groups instead of building a website, and that’s free. So I think they are all excellent options, as long as there is a convenient way to introduce yourself and display contact information. It would be much more convenient for potential students to reach out to you. So think about it sort of like a virtual business card.
Lo-An Lin
11. Rubato is borrowed time
When we have rubato, we don’t actually stop the time. So when we have rubato, it’s more like, for Chopin’s rubato, it’s kind of like we’re borrowing the time. So we borrow the time from later and then we slow down, and then we have to speed up a little bit or return back to the tempo to return the borrowed time.
Lo-An Lin
12. Let the harmony decide where to breathe
So you want to have the sense of breathing in, stretching out and breathing out, and it all has to be very subtle. But you must listen to the harmony, rather than just letting the right hand melody dictate where to take time.
Lo-An Lin
13. An accent is a color, not just an attack
There are so many different ways to play an accent. It doesn’t always have to be with such a strong attack. Accent means that you have to bring out that note, that color.
Lo-An Lin
14. Use only part of the soft pedal
You can add a little bit of the soft pedal to help you change the color, but make sure that you’re not pressing all the way down to the bottom, because we don’t want it to be too muted. We just want a slight color change.
Lo-An Lin
Quotes are lightly edited for length and clarity. They come from Lo-An Lin’s 2020 Piano Star Masterclass on teaching online lessons. You can watch the full masterclass on the Piano League YouTube channel.
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