Learn Guitar Online From An Experienced Teacher
In the fall of 2019, a student of mine who had taken lessons from me at my house in Dedham stopped by for a lesson. He had moved to North Carolina the previous year but was in town for work and wanted to say hi and work on a song he was having trouble with. At the end of the lesson, he asked about doing live online guitar lessons with me. I told him that I had done it once before and was happy to give it a try. At first it was a little difficult to navigate the various technological and logistical hurdles, but we quickly sorted out all of the issues and were able to make it work. Everything was great for him, and we were able to restart lessons virtually.
Little did I know what was coming . . .
Obviously, we all know what happened in March of 2020, and suddenly I was using my newfound skills at live online guitar lessons for ALL of my students. Since then, I have taught mostly online through Zoom or Facetime and have become very comfortable with the process.
Why take online guitar lessons from me?
One of the things that sets me apart from other teachers is that I figured a way for the student and I to play together in real time. For the student, it feels just like it would if they were in the same room as me. Because of the slight delay in audio and video transmission, initially I didn’t think playing together was possible. Whenever I tried playing with the student, they would start playing a half second later because of the delay. Then what we were playing sounded like two different YouTube videos playing at the same time.
It occurred to me one day while teaching a lesson, that if I concentrated hard enough to block out the cacophony and kept my rhythm steady, the student would get the benefit of playing along with me and hearing if they were off time. Then after doing that, if I asked the student to play what they just did by themselves while listened, I could tell if they were doing it right.
Since figuring this out, my online students have found the lessons much more enjoyable. I actually had a student who started off taking online lessons and switched to in-person. He went back to online because he said it wasn’t that much different from the in-person experience and saved him the travel time.
Technical stuff to know about live online guitar lessons
The experience will be much better if you use headphones or earbuds. Something that everyone should be aware of is that if you are using Zoom or Facetime, you can plug in regular headphones (i.e. that don’t have a built-in mic) to the device you are using. It will not disable the microphone on the iPad, laptop or smartphone. You’ll hear me much more clearly using those than the built-in speaker on even a laptop, let alone a smartphone.
Interested in taking lessons with me? Contact me at derrickguitar@gmail.com.