I’m taking on a few students via one-on-one Skype lessons. I wasn’t too sure of this medium, but am encouraged by how it has worked in trying it out.
Format is: I email the student a tune in MP3 format in advance of the Skype meeting, student learns it, then we meet on Skype for 30-40 mins where I listen to the student play the tune, we discuss the tune and technique in it, rhythm, or whatever questions arise, then I email a new tune shortly after to be the basis of the next lesson… etc etc etc. I’m open to ideas on the format though.
The student today was just using the built-in mic on his computer and I could hear him fine. I use a little Sony mic which seems to do the trick also, but I have my eye on one of these badboys:
I am concerned. but perhaps with skype you can organize classes with two, three or more students !
Io vorrei sapere quanto costa e quale metodo di pagamento si può usare [*][/color]
Mario
[ * I’d like to know how much it costs and what method of payment one can use. - Mod ]
The price might seem high if you cost it in $ per tune, but that’s not the way to look at it. Compare the cost and convenience to attending a summer school, and remember Harry’s offering one-on-one, rather than being in a group of students. And that one lesson will impact on every new tune you play after that. Invaluable! Certainly worth a try, unless you feel you have nothing left to learn!
Harry, do you have any advice along the lines of how advanced a student should be before their first lesson? E.g. do you want to hear from beginners, or is it better that they have made a certain amount of progress before they contact you?
You mentioned microphones, but you haven’t mentioned video. Do you use Skype’s video facility in the lessons?
On that topic, my aging webcam couldn’t make the jump to Windows 7 (ie the manufacturer doesn’t want to lose a marketing opportunity by supplying drivers!), so it was upgrade time. Looking to the future (always the optimist!), I opted to pay a few more dollars to get a low-end “HD” camera. “High Definition” is probably somewhat of an exaggeration, but it certainly is dramatically better than its predecessor and very well worth the slight increase in cost. (Some would argue that High Definition on faces better suited to radio would be overcapitalisation!) The built-in microphones on these cameras are rather too distant for best results, so I’d suggest a lapel microphone that will reduce room noise and pick-up from the speakers. Some web cams come with a lapel mic for that reason.
If the lessons are 30-40 minutes you can be very sure that each one takes at least an hour of Harry’s time. Now although I am well aware that many of us are on tight budgets, and not everyone can put their hand in their pocket and find EUR 30 without thinking about it. But I say that to preface this point: EUR 30/h for professional services is somewhere on the spectrum between “very fair” and “cheap”. Possibly the market wouldn’t take much more – I don’t know – but any less would cross into the “dirt cheap” band.
Harry, do you have any advice along the lines of how advanced a student should be before their first lesson? E.g. do you want to hear from beginners, or is it better that they have made a certain amount of progress before they contact you?
Basically I’d say the same to any student that comes to me: There’s no point paying for lessons until there is some sort of consistency of tone there. It’s a waste of time and money to be sitting there trying to find a tone on the flute, or being distracted from other aspects of playing/learning because the tone is falling apart. So some sort of consistency there is a requirement, and it can be worked on and honed in lessons. I also teach by ear. I think that it’s very important that people learn to discern melody and translate it to the instrument right from the start, but that can be learned as one goes along and there is no real pre requirement there.
Yes, the lessons are done through video calls, so there is video there and I’d recommend this (although there’s nothing much to see). And, yep, these lesson are the same price as my one-on-one lessons in ‘meat space’, but they take longer to do. I’d be doing very well to do one in an hour all in (recording/editing/formatting MP3 files, follow-up email and all that).
Harry, now, if you can fix a car or replace a worn washer at that rate you’d be overwhelmed with business:
…drivers frequently pay more than £100 an hour for labour at franchised dealers. The random testing of 200 dealers across the UK discovered that hourly rates varied enormously. They ranged from £49 at a Vauxhall garage in Scotland to £140 an hour for BMW in London. The magazine contrasted this with the fees earned by a locum doctor, charging up to £500 a day, and a junior barrister, who can earn as little as £30 an hour.
Yeah, except those are all business charges and have little to do with what the worker actually delivering the service actually earns per hour in real, take-home pay. They aren’t really good comparisons. I agree Harry’s rate is very good value. FWIW, the current Musician’s Union minimum hourly rate for private tuition is £28 per hour. But very few music tutors get a full 8 hour day of work; nor, on the other hand, do they have the kinds of overheads a e.g. large garage or a barrister has.
