[Research] How do you like your online piano lessons?

HaileyChen

Hi everyone! I am a PhD student in Music Education at the University of South Florida.

Before starting my PhD, I taught piano online to older adults in China. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I witnessed the massive shift to online learning. I noticed that online lessons come with a unique set of trade-offs. On one hand, they offer incredible accessibility and convenience. On the other hand, we all know the technical challenges, such as audio latency or the difficulty of demonstrating physical techniques through a screen.

This observation sparked my curiosity: How do adult learners actually weigh these pros and cons? While there is plenty of research on children, the voice of the adult learner is often missing. I want to understand your perspective—whether the convenience outweighs the technical limitations for you, and what factors matter most to your satisfaction. That is why I came to the US to pursue this research. I want to fill this gap and help educators understand what adult students really need.

[Who can participate? ]
You are invited to participate in this study if you:

Are 18 years of age or older.
Are currently taking (or have previously taken) online piano lessons with real-time teacher interaction.

[Study Detail（IRB STUDY #9347）]
Time: Less than 5 minutes.
Format: Completely anonymous and voluntary.
If you are willing to participate. Please click the link

[Discussion]
Even if you don't have time for the survey, I’d love to hear from you in the comments:
How did you find your current teacher or course? (Word of mouth? Google? Social media?)

If you know any other adult learners who might be interested, please feel free to share this post with them!
Thank you so much for your time and for supporting a junior researcher!

Animisha

Done! One comment though.
My most important lesson goal is to play with better technique. This is something we work with in every lesson. So for your question "Lesson goals of the online lessons were achieved within the expected timeframe" - it is just not relevant. We don't have any expected timeframe, and I would not like to have one either.

TheBoringPianist

Short answer is that online lessons are great for expanding your set of possible teachers to more than just the set of teachers that teach in your local area, but yeah you can't get the same level of fidelity that you can get in person.

I think this difference in fidelity is most pronounced when it comes to sound production as opposed to technique (but I may be biased because my current in-person teacher almost focuses exclusively on sound with me rather than technique). As an example, I have a piano friend who takes online lessons from someone across the country who specializes in the Taubman technique, but also supplements with occasional in-person lessons with a different teacher.

I've done mostly in-person lessons but I did dabble with online lessons at one point, and lately have been considering taking additional one-off online lessons as well for specific purposes (for example, recently I saw that a former Cliburn medalist who has played a couple pieces I'm also working on was giving online lessons so I reached out).

Re: audio issues, I will say that having a hybrid piano at home is in some ways a cheat code for online performances/lessons — I can plug the piano directly into my computer and get pretty clean sound without suffering from digital piano touch or worrying about figuring out how to mic my acoustic grand (which I will do eventually but have been too lazy to do).

thepianoplayer416

During COVID, the building where my weekly lesson was held shut down for a few months until the administration got the teachers connected with Zoom. Online lessons lasted for 6 months before in-person lessons resumed.

Many of my teacher’s students are retired adults 60+. Few if any plan to take conservatory level exams. And they’re not concerned with slow progress like repeating the same pieces for over a month.

Many people learn piano or another instrument as a hobby with 1 lessen per week. In the past learning was from your teacher. Today we can be watching online tutorials from many teachers during the week. And people upload their recordings for comments.

Today people are not only learning through weekly interactions with 1 teacher but we also learn from online teachers, student performances, recording from professionals. The in person lesson is usually 1 hour. The other instructions we get throughout the week are online.