5 Teaching Ideas Perfect for Online Lessons

1) Rote Music

If you can angle your camera in front of your piano, teaching rote music would be perfect for your students to learn! You would teach a piece by demonstrating how to play it and have the student repeat after you. If you are looking for a resource for rote music, the Piano Language Repertoire Book 1 has a bunch of motivating rote music for your students. Below is a video performance of Remarkable which is a rote piece from the book. We recorded this to post on our online recital video!

2) Note Rush with Zoom

Did you know that you can use the Note Rush app with Zoom? It is a fun way for students to practice their note reading skills through games. Check the video below to get a tutorial on how to do it.

3) Improvisation Music

You might be wondering how you can do improvisation music with your students as duets...I have thought the same thing since I use improvisation music a lot with my students.

That's why I created audio clips of my teacher improvisation pieces to send to students. I can either text it to them or email them the file and they open it during the lesson to improvise with. The files specify which keys they should be using (black keys, major vs minor key signatures, etc.).

I thought this would be a great resource for other teachers to use for their students as well, so I'm offering this on my store in single and studio licenses for my Inspiration (Improvisation) book. Click here to hear them!

4) Ear Training

Ear training still works great with online lessons! You and your student can work on intervals, melodies, and rhythmic patterns together. You can have your student identify the interval through popular tunes or having them repeat it back to you.

5) 20 Questions

Have you ever played 20 questions with your student? You would pick a symbol or rhythm on a current piece that your student is working on. Then you have your student ask you yes/no questions about the symbol you are looking at.

They win if they can guess your symbol/rhythm in 20 questions or less. You win if they can't guess it under 20 questions.

This requires the student to use musical terms and practice their music theory in a fun way. Here's a clip of Sara Campbell playing this game with one of her students!