Virtual Lessons During the COVID Pandemic

For professional musicians who rely primarily on gigs to make their livings, the COVID-19 pandemic has required a creative search for new sources of income. One avenue that musicians are pursuing is the world of virtual music lessons. Two local Asheville professionals are currently embarking on that journey and were interviewed for this post.

Millie Palmer, a multi-instrumentalist and educator, was running the weekly Barley’s jazz jam as a vocalist before the pandemic started. Among other performance gigs, Millie was also teaching music classes at a local middle school. After the gigs disappeared, Millie has now transitioned to teaching her middle school music students through Zoom. In person, the students performed together in groups, but that has become nearly impossible due to latency issues with Zoom and other platforms. Millie described the limitation of latency as a motivator for coming up with creative alternatives. For instance, at a recent class Millie had the students break up into Zoom break out rooms (click here for how to do that) where they had to write a verse and use the chords C, G, and F to accompany their lyrics. In addition to creative lesson planning (a nice way to spin the chaos that many schools are facing) the virtual lessons have also come with other silver linings. Millie says she’s watched a few of her students, whose participation and enthusiasm have been on the lower end of the spectrum in person, blossom in the virtual classrooms. When asked about this small transformation, Millie said it might have to do with the fact that all of her students are in the comfort of their homes and may feel more comfortable to express themselves artistically in those spaces.

As a professional musician who was already teaching part-time, the transition to teaching online for Millie was different than it is for others — for one thing, she didn’t have to find new students. Another local musician (who has decided to remain anonymous), was relying on gigs for the majority of their income before the pandemic. Although this musician has extensive experience teaching, both in ensemble settings and in one on one lessons, they were not teaching at all when the pandemic began and are now faced with the task of both adapting to online lessons and finding students. Thus far, he said he’s only advertised his teaching by word of mouth and on a few social media platforms. When asked if he plans to transition to doing lesson full time, he said only plans for lessons to be a supplement to his income (which, like for many, is a patch work of different sources, including unemployment which has been opened up to gig workers).

One thing that stood out when interviewing both of these musicians is the importance that they’ve placed on being OK with uncertainty. Specifically, they described the importance of not having any expectations on when their gigging lives could return to normal or even the expectation that the new normal will resemble their professional lives before the pandemic. For now, they’re just taking things one day at a time.