Striking a virtual chord

Many university music programs have also shifted online, despite challenges. Blaire Koerner, a bassoon instructor at the Syracuse University Setnor School of Music and the University of Rochester’s Eastman Community Music School, says that sound-canceling technologies built into Zoom, the video-conferencing software that many instructors are using, can diminish instrumental sound quality. “They try to mute background noise and focus on only vocal-based sounds,” she says. “And instruments are considered background noise.” Instrument registers can also make a difference, Koerner said. Instruments with lower registers, like the bassoon, generally sound better on Zoom than instruments with higher registers, like the flute. Users can disable the sound-canceling setting, which makes instrumental sounds easier to hear, but also halts the software’s attempts to reduce true background noise. “If there are siblings running around or anything else, then you get an overload,” Koerner says.

Mike Ward, who has been teaching guitar at Rocky’s for 12 years, uses Google Classroom to organize individual lesson materials, such as sheet music and slowed-down audio tracks for play-along practice. Almost all of his 64 students have kept their regular lesson times, and Ward has continued teaching with minimal interruption. He says he started investigating online music education options long before the coronavirus pandemic, so students who traveled during summer vacation could continue their guitar lessons. “If you’re calm about it and you act like it’s no big deal, then nobody else is going to freak out,” Ward says. “The only thing with music lessons that’s a little hard is you can’t play at the same time, which sometimes you want to do. Even if the internet connection is really good, there’s a half-second lag. But there are plenty of other things we can work on.”

So far, the students and parents at Rocky’s Music Studio have responded well to the online transition. “It’s been very positive because they really want their kids to learn,” Petrocelli says. “Plus, they want to keep them occupied.” Some of Petrocelli’s students have suspended their lessons, because they don’t have the necessary equipment for remote learning. Since most of them prepay, Petrocelli keeps careful records to make sure all payments will get honored. He offered refunds, but so far, everyone has chosen to make up missed lessons once in-person classes resume.

Dominick Celeste, a 16-year-old who started taking guitar lessons with Ward in fifth grade, took some lessons online during his summer vacations before the pandemic began. He says that in addition to his rapport with Ward, using Google Classroom to store and share learning materials has helped the lessons run successfully. Aside from purchasing a webcam for his desktop computer, Celeste hasn’t had to change the pre-existing practice space in his bedroom. However, he’s noticed limitations associated with his webcam. “It’s not very easy to position where you can actually see where my fingers are,” Celeste says. “Like if I’m playing something on the neck [of the guitar] and strumming, Mike can’t see that.” For his entire guitar to be visible, Celeste must move away from his webcam and computer screen, making it harder to see his screen and harder for Ward to watch his technique.

Assessing and improving physical technique is indeed a challenge during online music lessons, agrees Fred Karpoff, a piano professor at the Setnor School of Music and founder of Entrada Piano Technique, a recently relaunched online video resource for piano teachers and students. He says that one of the most important technical details that music teachers should look for, online or in-person, is the student’s posture. Observing posture can be especially difficult in an online setting, but Karpoff says that by maximizing the video chat window size on the instructor’s screen, it can (and should) be done.

While there are no universally established “correct” ways to teach music online, Karpoff expects that the sudden reliance on remote education methods will leave a legacy of quality instruction in the music field, even after in-person lessons can safely resume. “This kind of instruction is going to happen much more often,” he says. “People are going to be more willing and interested to take supplemental lessons this way.”

At Rocky’s, lessons will remain online for the foreseeable future. Though online lessons have allowed teachers to maintain most of their income, the studio’s retail sales have ceased. Petrocelli’s last sale, a pair of drumsticks, took place on the front doorstep. He’s also had to cancel concerts and other events, which the studio organizes several times each year to showcase student progress. Petrocelli and Ward hope to reschedule those events, but the new dates remain ambiguous as the pandemic continues. “The kids were all telling me how disappointed they were, but they know that we’ll do it again eventually,” Ward says. “We’ll figure something out.”

This article is part of the Fermata: Arts and Culture in the Time of Coronavirus series reported by students in the Critical Writing course at the Newhouse School. Fermata features stories on the impact of the pandemic on a wide range of artists and cultural figures, from musicians and comedians to restaurateurs and boutique owners.