Last November, I asked one of my students to allow me to control their computer via Zoom. With permission from her parent, I installed Jamulus on her computer, and I initiated a connection to software that I’d started on my computer. We played together a Christmas duet that she was learning, in real-time.  We could follow each other’s timing, and I could hear when she needed help in her rhythm or notes.

It was the first time I’d played a duet with a student since March, when we had started teaching via Zoom. I quietly cried while playing along; I had not realized how much I’d missed performing with my students.

In my last post, I talked of the tools I use to teach remotely, and I highlighted the limitations of audio with Zoom or CleanFeed – the two tools I usually use. I have craved the ability to play collaboratively, in real-time, with my students. Below I highlight some of what I’ve learned during my exploration of tools designed to enable musicians to perform together virtually.  

There’s no doubt about it. While better than nothing, teaching music via Zoom is far from ideal. 

I am grateful to be able to see my students weekly and safely. But I miss the clarity of in-life audio, the ability to pick up subtle body-movement clues, and the lack of being able to play duets with my students.

In what seems like a part-time job, I have been on a continuous quest to find solutions to improve the remote music-lesson experience. I’ve followed and implemented all of the incremental improvements of the Zoom application, optimized my home network settings, spent hours and dollars with parents to optimize their setups, and dived deep into the depths of experimental software and hardware designed to diminish the distance of distanced, collaborative performances.

Here are a bit of what I’ve tried and learned.