Today I’d like to tell you a story.
I want to share with you how I started to teach singing lessons online. I think it’s an interesting story because it shows the truth that, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”
I started teaching voice lessons in my mid twenties, and at that time all lessons were obviously in person. In 2006 my wife and I moved to California from Lugano, Switzerland. We settled in a spiritual community in Northern California where we currently live; we both had jobs that were unrelated to music. My job was maintaining the database of the fast growing spiritual organization we’re part of.
In 2009 I developed hand tendinitis and I had to stop working at the computer for a few months. Since I had a lot of free time at hand, I decided to re-energize my teaching activity. The problem was that in a community of 240 people it wasn’t easy to find enough students to make teaching into a viable business.
But there was Skype! I had the then “wild” idea that I could use Skype to reach students who were far from me and teach voice lessons online.
Nowadays, online teaching is totally mainstream, but back then it was a somewhat revolutionary idea. Most people were adventurous enough to give it a try, though (I must say that I’ve always appreciated this trait in American culture: being open to trying new things!)
I remember how excited I was to know that I could literally have students anywhere in the world! I’ve had students in Italy, India, Israel, Canada, Indonesia, and of course all over the United States.
In a short amount of time I had enough students to actually replace my data entry job. A friend of mine, who had recently moved into our community, was interested in my job. Perfect timing! She took my job (which she still has today) and I continued to grow my teaching business.
As technology improved, my students and I were able to use better microphones, better headphones, and better streaming platforms, like Zoom. Currently, a voice lesson online is pretty much the same as a lesson in person.
When the pandemic started and everything had to be moved online, things improved even further, due to the fact that the whole world was on Zoom and it had to be good! 😁
Teaching voice lessons has been a deeply satisfying experience. And being able to do it online has allowed me to expand my horizons and work closely with people from other cultures whom I wouldn’t have even met otherwise.
If you’re interested in working one-on-one with me, just let me know by using this contact form:
