Teaching Singing Online

The situation we are living in since the beginning of March has forced us to work online. I've never tried working only online except for a consultation or a quick warm up before an audition.

If someone has told me that we would work ONLY online I would have had a good healthy laugh, but here we are...

Luckily I hold an audio engineering diploma and I have some equipment at my disposal. I first decided to keep it simple starting with Skype, headphones and a good internet connection. In the following weeks I added an audio interface, studio mics and lighting setup.

The first week was full of anxiety for me. I had a bunch of questions in my head: How am I going to warm the voices up? How to accompany them? Is it going to be the same, what would be different in comparison to having a personal contact with a student? Who is going to play the karaoke on Youtube? Me, the student, me sharing a screen? What about the latency, what about the poor internet connection? Shall I use Zoom which everyone is so obsessed with?

Week 1:

I decided to use Skype and nothing but the internal mic and speakers of my Mac. I bought two professional studio lights last year for another purpose, but it turned out that they found their place.

Before and after using the professional studio lightening setup.

I didn't use any digital keyboard, only my acoustic piano.

Problem 1:

During the warm up in the first lesson I noticed immediately that I can not play the exercises while the student is singing. It creates a compression: the student does not hear the piano. During the second lesson I tried the same and it was even worse, not only the student couldn't hear the piano, but I also couldn't hear the student... double compression maybe or poor internet connection on one of the sides or maybe both.

Solution:

I was left with no choice, but to only give the chord and wait till the student finishes the exercise and then correct if something was wrong.

This saves me a lot of playing and honestly, I think that it's good to leave them from time to time without the support of the instrument. This is going to make them think a little bit more, use more their brains and ears and be more aware of the pitch and the relationship between the notes.

Problem 2:

It's become impossible to accompany someone because of the compression problem mentioned above. During the warm up this is not a big problem. However, when the student sings repertoire while I am accompanying, only I can hear my own accompaniment, not the student for whom this is helpful.

Solution:

A cappella singing with cue notes here and there or singing with instrumentals available on Youtube or any other website where you can buy 1-2 mp3 files for only 2-3 € or the teacher can record the piece and send it to the student.

However, playing the instrumental track or the karaoke on the same device used for the video call is itself a

Problem 3 (the compression comes back)

Solution

Those instrumentals have to be played by the student on another device if possible, not on the one which he/she is using Skype for our video call. The student can play the instrumental track on their phone for instance and the Skype call can be done on his/her laptop or computer.

The other device (in this case the phone) should not be placed very close to the mic of the laptop on which we are having the video call.

Otherwise we will end up again with compression.

Week 2:

I decided to step up my game and try the audio interface and some of the professional microphones I have here.

I set up my Focusrite Scartlett 2i4 (2 inputs, 4 outputs) with a pair of Rode NT5 microphones and the lightening setup.

In settings on Skype I assigned as an input device my Focusrite Scarlett audio interface and as an output - the internal speakers of my Mac.

During all the lessons I noticed very low latency. It was so much better than using the internal sound card.

Problem 4:

With some of the students I observed a poor internet connection.

The only Solution would be purchasing a better internet plan or using 5G if possible.

Week 3:

The only thing I changed in week 3 was sending the output to a bluetooth speaker because of disturbing buzzing sounds during some of the lessons and because using headphones might be dangerous for your ears.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND using headphones. This might cause you tinnitus or if you already have this condition - can make it worse.

Week 4:

Even though the setup worked perfectly for me I decided to go one step further and use my DSLR camera as a video source and see what the difference is going to be.

There are pro's and con's of course. Connecting the camera to your laptop requires time and some software that has to be installed. With a little bit of patience and tweaking here and there the installation was done correctly and I noticed that the camera gives me more variety in terms of angles. I can point the camera more on me or on the piano, I am more flexible in choosing the position of the camera which you can not do with the laptop. The disadvantage is that the camera can stay active for only an hour and half, so if you have more than one lesson after each other you need a spare battery or a cable that can charge the device.

In terms of image quality I can not say that it made so big of a difference. It was better than the integrated camera on my Mac but if you don't want to go that far, you can skip this step.

Like everything in life there are some pro's and con's in teaching singing online:

After having my singing lesson with my vocal coach yesterday and experiencing the process also as a student, I must say that if you are motivated enough, the obstacles in the online mode wouldn't stop you. The rest are excuses.

I notice an improvement in the vocal technique of some of my students despite the lack of personal contact and the limitations the online teaching has. I even gained new students who are motivated, they are learning fast which once again shows that if you have the will, you will find a way, if not, you'll find an excuse.

Don't forget that singing is like losing weight. If you go to the gym only once a month or skip a month, you will definitely not see results, so be smart, don't lose your time, the good healthy habits and the technique you have been working on so hard for months.

Stay safe and healthy!