Online Singing Lessons
Private Online Voice Lessons
Do online lessons work?
Simply: Yes. I have taken and taught many lessons online for over a decade to clients all over the world, and, while not the same as in-person, they are just as effective.
Are online lessons any good? Any fun?
Online lessons can be very fun, especially when you have the fastest, cleanest audio and video possible.
When you have fast, clean signal, lessons can feel a lot more like ‘in person’ lessons (minus long, dark commutes in the rain).
CEVS uses current best practise technology for audio and video and a direct fibre connection, to help ensure we’ll always have the best possible connection.
Like Zoom lessons… but Better:
Cleaner Audio
Have you tried Zoom or Skype lessons? How was the audio? Did it ever become garbled or distorted? What about the video quality? We can do better!
The Software
Best practices and web software are always changing, but CEVS mainly uses two amazingly fast, clean apps: JitsiMeet for video, and Cleanfeed for audio.
Both of these apps are browser-based apps and free to the client. They create direct connections from teacher to client, for much faster, cleaner connections than Zoom, whereas Zoom always adds a 'middleman' in the form of a server, which results in more frequent dips in signal quality and speed.
Clients will also receive lesson recordings after each lesson.
For those with a direct fibre provider (e.g. Telus PureFibre in BC) there is the option of true real-time lessons—at which point, the main thing you’re missing about in-person lessons is long dark commute in the rain.
The little grey box, top right, is a FastMusic Box—a small quad-core computer dedicated to sending and receiving audio much faster than can be done with most laptops.
You don’t need to have a FastMusic Box, but if you have direct fibre internet, it means we can likely have incredibly clear, in-sync online lessons.
Make Music Together. Online. In True Real-Time.
Defining 'True Real-Time' for Singing Lessons:
All videoconferencing is sort of real-time, but nowhere near fast enough for music-making--there is too much delay or 'lag.' It used to be nearly impossible to have a singer and an accompanist in different places perform a song together over an internet videoconference connection. Not anymore.
Here, at CEVS, True Real-Time means an audio connection fast enough that you can sing in your place, and I can play piano in mine, and the delay is no greater than if we were on stage together.
FarPlay and SoundJack: up to 10x Faster than Zoom:
True Real-Time music-quality two-way audio is hugely ambitious and only recently possible. It's completely cutting edge. But if clients can afford singing lessons, they can likely afford the technology--it can all be acquired for the cost of a few lessons. And for many singers, the benefits of investment in True Real-Time technology outweigh the small one-time additional cost. Better lessons. More joy :)
Zoom delay is often over half a second (i.e. ~500ms). The solutions we use for online lessons, here, range between 10 and 22ms in this region—up to 50x faster than Zoom!
Step-by-Step Guidance:
So how do we acheive real-time online lessons? There are a few steps involved, but if you have clear guidance, they're straightforward and surprisingly low cost for the results they deliver.
I have been working with the new software and setups for real-time online voice lessons since early 2020. I've already made all the mistakes, so you don't have to.
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A short friendly chat to answer any questions you may have about lessons here.
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