Music has always connected humanity and bridged the gap between languages, culture, and geography. It is no wonder that learning music has never been so popular as it is nowadays. According to this report, schools with music programs in their curriculum have a graduation rate of 90.2%. Compare that with schools without music programs that have a graduation rate of 72.9%.
With the growing prevalence of music classes, you have an excellent opportunity to grab onto if you are skilled in playing music. We will now provide a brief guide on teaching music online.
Method of Teaching
Perhaps the first and most important step is to decide how you are going to teach music. You need to pick your preferred genre and the musical instrument. Once this is done, you will have to decide your target market. Do you want to teach kids or adults? There are so many factors to take into consideration when deciding the target market. It will also affect the teaching methodology that you will adopt.
After finalizing the target market, you will have to focus on the format of your classes. You can have live or recorded sessions or just make simple video tutorials. Whether you are giving a group or one-to-one session, this is also important.
Gathering Equipment
Equipment doesn’t just mean the musical instrument. Online teaching requires a lot of other gadgets like mikes, tripods, video cameras, headphones, and others.
Additionally, your laptop or computer also needs to be compatible with different video conference programs like Skype, Zoom, and Google Hangouts. If you are registering yourself on learning platforms, you will also need to have an account on them.
Finally, internet connection is of prime importance naturally. It is important to make sure your internet connection has proper bandwidth and speed. Since music is heavily dependent on timing, you should ensure there is minimum lag when recording your sessions.
Preparing Your Teaching Space
Now that you are ready to start teaching music online, you should remove all sorts of distractions. It is recommended to have a specific room or studio dedicated to your music lessons only. For best results, see to it that there are absolutely zero distractions and complete quietness. Soft, natural lighting will further help set the mood of the whole place.
Recording Your Sessions
Recording your sessions shouldn’t be a problem as there are many platforms, the most common one being YouTube.
Having your videos on YouTube also has the added benefit of sharing your videos with specific people. Your students will be able to save your videos and watch them easily.
Creating a Curriculum
Obviously, you won’t be just haphazardly teaching music. Hence, create a music curriculum that includes reading and playing music both. You can add some introductory theory classes about music and technique-building exercises. Have a music sheet always at hand as they are vital for reading music.
Promoting Yourself
At this stage, you have everything set up, and you are good to go. Now you just need to market yourself. There are several ways to do so, like creating your own website or social media pages. As mentioned before, YouTube is a great tool to use. You can also record some additional videos as promotional content for your classes and upload them to YouTube. This can be a great way to show off your talent and get people interested in learning music from you.
Conclusion
Teaching music online is quite easy. As long as you have the necessary skills and equipment, you can easily develop a career in this field. Online music teaching is not only fun, but it can also be rewarding on the monetary front.
Eric Dalius is The Executive Chairman of MuzicSwipe, a music and content discovery platform designed to maximize artist discovery and optimize fan relationships. Along with his work at MuzicSwipe, he also interviews groundbreaking entrepreneurs on his weekly podcast, “FULLSPEED.” Eric also founded the “Eric Dalius Foundation” to support US students with four scholarships. Follow his journey on Twitter, Facebook,YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Entrepreneur.com.
