That, that, that double vision
- Cameron Weckerley
- Apr 11, 2016
- 2 min read
Online lessons are nothing new. Many so-called, early adopters have been using them for several years now. Above is a picture of of how you might imagine we did it in the early days. Yep, you guessed it, a simple webcam on top of the monitor for talking head shots and then we would have to move the camera to show the keyboard to the student unless they had great ears and could just hear what you wanted to show them.
The sound was also pretty crummy using those built in webcam mics, which were fine for speech, but not so much for music.
Pretty early on, we solved the audio problem, but we still needed two more cameras and video switchers as USB webcams had just recently started to become abundant.
Enter Windows 10 which can accommodate up to 3 USB webcams at once and switch between them using software. In fact, I tried it out for the first time today. The setup was less than elegant, but how much more smoothly the lesson went.
As you can see, I used a standard photographic tripod to hold a second webcam and was able to switch seamlessly between the two.
I know I all this detail does not apply to you as a theory student. Taking piano lessons online, on the other hand, does require the two cameras in order to show the instructor how your hands are placed. I just wanted you to see that teaching online is a regular routine around here.
I would also like to share with you that my Masters degree from Truman State University is in music theory and I graduated with a 4.0. The students I tutored during those two years raised their grade by an average of 1 1/2 letters i.e. C - B+ ...