How to Teach Piano Online (2024 Edition)

In this post, I wanted to share some insights along with a few resources that can help you stay competitive as an online piano teacher in 2024 and beyond. In my somewhat biased opinion, this is a really important post because it contains a distillation of many of the hard truths that I have learned after choosing to specialize in this type of business. You might even encounter some advice that you haven’t heard elsewhere!

In order to teach online successfully and actually be competitive, you need a few things:

• Competency in your chosen specialization

• A polished website that generates leads and establishes authority

• A niche or speciality or some kind of competitive advantage and a means of marketing this to others

• A means of scheduling, billing, and enforcing policies

• An online setup that leverages your strengths while not distracting you during lessons

While there are likely other aspects to consider, these are the big ones.

Please note that some of my links are affiliate links which may reward me with a small commission should you choose to use any of these products or services (at no additional cost to you).

You Need to Be Good at What You Do

It goes without saying (but I am going to say it!) that you need to be capable of proving that you are a capable pianist in order to convince someone to study with you. Regardless of the level of student that you typically teach, you need to be capable of inspiring people to want to learn from you. I am not saying that everyone needs to reach an elite level, but you need to be good at what you do and you need to keep your skills sharp.

Try to be open minded about keeping up with your own abilities. For example, if you only work with beginners, but you personally struggle with intermediate level material, you might benefit from some lessons yourself! There are many teachers who would be happy to work with you to push your own abilities up, and this will push the quality of your teaching up, and it will show! In fact, it’s worth considering a season of lessons every few years or so at a minimum so that you can keep up your abilities.

Also, if I were you, I would be careful about sharing recordings that might take away someone’s confidence in your abilities. You only get one chance at a first impression! Note that not all of your shareable media has to be in the form of polished performances. It might be a good idea to share how you teach or how you might learn something. This way, you can keep things casual while still creating the space to inspire new students.

You Need a Real Website

If you want to fill your teaching schedule with online students, I cannot overstate how important it is to have a modern looking and well organized website. These days, it’s so easy to create a simple and functional website that you will stick out if you don’t have one or if your design is super dated. Pretty much everyone you’ll be competing with has this covered!

Also, online lessons are inherently technical, and so you need to look like you know what you are doing on the technical front whenever a student first discovers you. If you have a website that looks like it was from the 90s, you are very likely going to experience difficulty getting discovered and filling your schedule.

The standard recommendation up until recently has been to get a domain and install Wordpress. However, I do not suggest this, as Wordpress has a ton of little knobs and levers for you to turn and waste time messing with…it is inherently not simple. This is especially true when you consider that you will need to install plugins and manage other services as part of your online presence. Instead, I would like to suggest that you use the website platform called Podia. This is the platform I currently use and I absolutely love it.

You should also know that Podia as a platform was designed to help you sell digital courses and products. However, you don’t need to worry about that right now. Instead, take advantage of Podia’s simple and powerful editor, and build yourself a quick one page website. You need the following things at the bare minimum:

• Something about you, your background, and/or your teaching philosophy

• Contact information (Podia has a built in chat feature which helps with this quite a bit)

• Your services and booking information

• Some images and recordings that present you in a good light.

Once you cover these basic points, you can focus your efforts elsewhere. You can even get into digital products and course building later on (as I ended up doing).

Podia Referral Link

You Need to Talk About What You Do...Online!

If your schedule isn’t as full as you would like, and assuming you have already setup a website, you should consider doing a little writing and create some blog posts that answer some common questions that you get all the time. By the way, this post is an example of what a post looks like on Podia, so if you enjoy this experience, you have another reason to consider Podia!

You might wonder what the use of blogging is. After all, you probably want to get busy teaching rather than writing about yourself online. However, blogging is an important way for you to associate phrases and keywords with your name or brand. It’s not even something you need to do regularly. You just need to get some posts up so that search engines can connect you with students searching for things that you might specialize in.

You have to think about what prospective students might search for, and it needs to be more specific than “online piano lessons.” I can share more this another time, but you should know that it takes quite a while for new sites to start to rank in search engines. The best time to get started was yesterday. The next best is today!

You Need a Competitive Advantage

It’s also a good idea to be aware of your strengths and interests, especially as you are putting together a website or developing your online presence. Here are a few questions to consider:

• Do you prefer to work with beginners or people that have some experience?

• Do you only teach a particular style or are you comfortable with multiple styles?

• Are you capable of teaching advanced students?

• Are you capable of helping students navigate RCM or ABRSM?

• Can you get students through the audition process for a music degree?

The answers to some of these questions should definitely be found on your website! You should do as much writing and sharing as you can, and you will end up with the type of students that you can actually serve.

You might also consider networking with a few other teachers with different specialities and referring students to one another.

You Need a Solution for Scheduling & Billing

If you want to scale up in any capacity, you need to eliminate wasted time in your schedule and minimize time spent on administrative tasks. If you are teaching online lessons, I highly suggest you pick an application or service that allows students to schedule and cancel lessons themselves and automatically handles payments.

My preferred scheduling and billing application is called Fons. I have been using this application for a few years now. Fons is all about minimizing friction when it comes to dealing with payments and scheduling, and it does a great job with this. Fons doesn’t even generate invoices. Instead, it automatically collects payment at the end of the lesson, or when a package balance reaches zero, or as part of just about any other financial arrangement you and your students can come up with.

Also, since I teach completely online, my business model greatly benefits from students managing their own schedule. I am pretty hands off when it comes to my lesson calendar these days. I just show up and teach whoever is on my schedule that day. All the rest is done behind the scenes without my involvement, thanks to Fons.

If you are hesitant to create a full website but you still want to put something out there, Fons has a feature called Fons Marketplace where you can basically create an SEO optimized listing. While this is not nearly as powerful as having your own website, it is still a great start. I currently use my Fons Marketplace listing to store all of my policy and scheduling information and link to it from my main site.

Fons Referral Link

You Might Need Some Equipment

In my experience teaching online, I have learned two very important things about online setups. The first thing is that most students really don’t need very much in the way of equipment. This is because the teacher is the one with the ear and the education, and this can make up for quite a bit of lost fidelity over the internet. However, teachers really need to make an effort here, especially considering the competition.

My setup consists of a side profile camera view, an overhead camera view, and a view of my iPad where I can annotate sheet music for the student. I also use a stereo mic setup that is mixed with a vocal mic so that I can optimize for my voice and the piano at the same time. Additionally, I am usually wearing headphones in lessons. Believe it or not, I do consider much of this a luxury. You really don’t need all the fancy views and buttons, but they certainly can help if you get skilled at using them.

What you really need is a clear view of yourself and your instrument, a really good internet connection (that is also very close by), and as good of a microphone as you can afford. You may also need some lighting, depending on your environment. You want to be seen and heard well. Your setup should help you engage with the student (and keep them engaged).

If you really want to get into the specifics about online teaching equipment, I created a helpful resource that spells out all of the details about my online setup. I highly recommend you give it a look!

Go Forth and Get Students!

In summary, you need to be good at what you do, you need to be discoverable, and you need to have solutions for administrative and technical issues. If you concentrate your efforts in these areas, you’ll have the greatest chance of getting the results that you desire.

Before you go, know that I have put together a page of resources geared for music teachers that explore many of these topics further. You should check it out when you have a moment!

I’d love to hear from some teachers on these topics. How is your online studio situation going?

Leave a comment below!