Hi Guys, so I have done a couple of hundred lessons now since live performance has been off the cards due to Covid. Here are some things I have been doing to help with the remote learning situation.
AUDIO SETTINGS FOR PERCUSSION ON ZOOM
I have found that Zoom can be tricky, especially with percussion instruments because Zoom seems to mute out some instruments, mistaking them as unwanted noise.I have managed to bypass this by going in to the Preferences in Zoom, then going to Audio preferences and hitting "Advanced". Once there, under "Audio Processing", I have gone to "Suppress Persistent Background Noise" and changed that to "Disable" and also to "Suppress Intermittent Background Noise", and changed that to "Disable" as well. Under "Echo Cancellation" I have left that on "Auto". This will greatly improve the Audio your student hears during your Zoom session. If you ask your student to make these changes on their device as well, you will also be able to hear their drums better. You should and your student should only have to do this once and next time you should be good to go straight into the lesson. I think the Automatic settings on Zoom are really there for talking in meetings but once a percussion instrument is added, the pre-sets just try and block that as unwanted noise.
LATENCY
I have found that once we have demonstrated things and the student can play them more or less, its hard to take them to the next step in terms of musicality, feel and groove in an online lesson. Due to latency, we can´t play together but what I have been doing is just asking them to play along with me for a while. I will take off my headphones so I can´t hear their delayed audio coming back to me. After a while I will stop and ask them to continue and see how they are going playing on their own. This has been a beneficial technique for my students because they can really find it challenging to play along to a backing track or click alone on their end. Especially for beginners. They really feel so much more comfortable playing along with me.
What tips do you have for teaching percussion online?
Thanks for the tips! The only thing I can add is that I was running two separate mics through an interface (because I didn't know about advanced settings). This was my workaround through the noise cancellation because it didn't interrupt my instrument line. I will definitely use your advice in my upcoming lesson; they are a beginner so it's easy to see if they are playing correctly, but it is tricky when they are playing with a track because of the muffled sound. Thanks again for sharing!
Hi Troy, glad to be of assistance.
For students using a phone, sometime it has been hard or we have actually been unsuccessful in finding the Advanced Audio Settings in Zoom, but anyone using a computer should be able to follow these instructions just fine. In terms of playing along to music, after numerous attempts, I haven´t been successful adding an audio input via an interface and combing the backing track to my live audio. I have ended up just having a separate sound system and letting that come through the audio my computer´s mic is picking up. I try to keep my playing as quiet as possible so they can still hear the music. It`s not great solution but so far I haven´t found another alternative.
Hi Nasrine,
Thanks for the tips. I was giving a lesson and yes, this happened. So, thank you very much.
When I did this one live concert, where we did one tune each, it was better when we turned on "Use Original Sound". it Says,
this will allow you to enable or disable original sound in a meeting. Orig. sound will turn off noise suppression.
Yep, the audio is an issue. I do what you do, play softly, so they can hear the music or .... click, as I use a Metronome at times during lessons.
If you have a CD box, maybe put it closer to your video, so it's a little louder when teaching / playing.
Wow, congrats on all the lessons! Hope to hear back from you.
Have a great weekend,
Kerry Kennard
Hey thanks for a great post!
I did the same in regards to zoom settings and helped my students to do the same. It works really well. Otherwise, you basically can't teach drums if you don't manually change it. So this is really important to do and know about before your first lesson.
In regards to latency, yeah I have to trust that my student is on track. It's not perfect but like you say kids and people are usually happier being a part of something rather than doing the work on their own though it is obviously so important to practice with a click or favourite piece of music. So I would start with making sure student knows the beats and fills what's required get him sort of playing it correctly and then do some passes on my own. Then he/she can try keep up with what I'm doing making a guide and I check in after to see how they feel they did.
Hello, I am zoom student of conga drums, and I'm doing a little research to help out my teacher. She is currently using the built in mic for zoom, and when she is playing, the drums drown out her audio. She does not have a small voice at all, it's just the decibels of the drums in relation to the mic, I think. Looking for an over the ear omnidirectional bluetooth microphone that will collect both voice and drums, but will have a bigger sound for her voice due to it being in much closer proximity to her mouth. (sort of like the pic, only no cord).
Looking for something that doesn't need a bunch of other equipment, just laptop.
Thank you in advance for any help you can give.
For drums and percussion you don't have much control if your teacher is using a phone. If she's using a laptop then she can change her zoom audio settings refered in the post above. I'd start there because a lot can be solved by changing just a few simple things.
Good morning,
There are a few options out there, but the best minimal set up would be the following.
Audio interface (2 channels)
https://www.amazon.ca/Behringer-UMC204HD-Interface-microphones-instruments/dp/B00SAV96JM/ref=asc_df_B00SAV96JM/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292945958873&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12768581179414754870&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlo...
Then a room and a vocal mic.
Room mic
https://a.co/d/37IAuB4
Vocal mic.
https://a.co/d/3MHnvZr
Cable for it. (Mini xlr to xlr)
https://a.co/d/0SS0IiA
Your teacher will also need headphones to hear you well.
Hope this helps
There are ways to do this for cheaper. But they are investments without the expansion possibilities.
I hope this helps. Ps: you can find all of this on marketplace or guitar center used.
If you want to reach out and a do a set up session. I'd offer it gor free.
Thanks,
PL
Good morning,
There are a few options out there, but the best minimal set up would be the following.
Audio interface (2 channels)
https://www.amazon.ca/Behringer-UMC204HD-Interface-microphones-instruments/dp/B00SAV96JM/ref=asc_df_B00SAV96JM/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292945958873&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12768581179414754870&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlo...
Then a room and a vocal mic.
Room mic
https://a.co/d/37IAuB4
Vocal mic.
https://a.co/d/3MHnvZr
Cable for it. (Mini xlr to xlr)
https://a.co/d/0SS0IiA
Your teacher will also need headphones to hear you well.
Hope this helps
There are ways to do this for cheaper. But they are investments without the expansion possibilities.
I hope this helps. Ps: you can find all of this on marketplace or guitar center used.
If you want to reach out and a do a set up session. I'd offer it gor free.
Thanks,
PL
Good morning,
There are a few options out there, but the best minimal set up would be the following.
Audio interface (2 channels)
https://www.amazon.ca/Behringer-UMC204HD-Interface-microphones-instruments/dp/B00SAV96JM/ref=asc_df_B00SAV96JM/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292945958873&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12768581179414754870&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlo...
Then a room and a vocal mic.
Room mic
https://a.co/d/37IAuB4
Vocal mic.
https://a.co/d/3MHnvZr
Cable for it. (Mini xlr to xlr)
https://a.co/d/0SS0IiA
Your teacher will also need headphones to hear you well.
Hope this helps
There are ways to do this for cheaper. But they are investments without the expansion possibilities.
I hope this helps. Ps: you can find all of this on marketplace or guitar center used.
If you want to reach out and a do a set up session. I'd offer it gor free.
Thanks,
PL
Good morning,
There are a few options out there, but the best minimal set up would be the following.
Audio interface (2 channels)
https://www.amazon.ca/Behringer-UMC204HD-Interface-microphones-instruments/dp/B00SAV96JM/ref=asc_df_B00SAV96JM/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292945958873&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12768581179414754870&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlo...
Then a room and a vocal mic.
Room mic
https://a.co/d/37IAuB4
Vocal mic.
https://a.co/d/3MHnvZr
Cable for it. (Mini xlr to xlr)
https://a.co/d/0SS0IiA
Your teacher will also need headphones to hear you well.
Hope this helps
There are ways to do this for cheaper. But they are investments without the expansion possibilities.
I hope this helps. Ps: you can find all of this on marketplace or guitar center used.
If you want to reach out and a do a set up session. I'd offer it gor free.
Thanks,
PL
Good morning,
There are a few options out there, but the best minimal set up would be the following.
Audio interface (2 channels)
https://www.amazon.ca/Behringer-UMC204HD-Interface-microphones-instruments/dp/B00SAV96JM/ref=asc_df_B00SAV96JM/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292945958873&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12768581179414754870&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlo...
Then a room and a vocal mic.
Room mic
https://a.co/d/37IAuB4
Vocal mic.
https://a.co/d/3MHnvZr
Cable for it. (Mini xlr to xlr)
https://a.co/d/0SS0IiA
Your teacher will also need headphones to hear you well.
Hope this helps
There are ways to do this for cheaper. But they are investments without the expansion possibilities.
I hope this helps. Ps: you can find all of this on marketplace or guitar center used.
If you want to reach out and a do a set up session. I'd offer it gor free.
Thanks,
PL
Good morning,
There are a few options out there, but the best minimal set up would be the following.
Audio interface (2 channels)
https://www.amazon.ca/Behringer-UMC204HD-Interface-microphones-instruments/dp/B00SAV96JM/ref=asc_df_B00SAV96JM/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292945958873&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12768581179414754870&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlo...
Then a room and a vocal mic.
Room mic
https://a.co/d/37IAuB4
Vocal mic.
https://a.co/d/3MHnvZr
Cable for it. (Mini xlr to xlr)
https://a.co/d/0SS0IiA
Your teacher will also need headphones to hear you well.
Hope this helps
There are ways to do this for cheaper. But they are investments without the expansion possibilities.
I hope this helps. Ps: you can find all of this on marketplace or guitar center used.
If you want to reach out and a do a set up session. I'd offer it gor free.
Thanks,
PL
Great post, Nasrine!
Guitar teacher here, but your suggestions are applicable to almost any lesson! I love your trick about taking the headphones off and then just getting them to play back to check in on their progress - total forehead slapper of a simple lesson hack. One thing I like to do too is to get them to download a metronome app on their phone and show them how to set it up, then tell them to put the phone near their mic playing the clicks and get them to play the exercise to the metronome. This not only takes care of any latency problems with accurate rhythm sync since I'm getting the audio of them playing to the metronome from their end in real time, but it also coaches them through the process of setting up a metronome beat for their own practice.
Tyson Farmer
www.lessonface.com/TysonFarmer