How to teach Singing Online: the Ultimate Guide

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How teaching online singing lessons can benefit your studio

We all know that the pandemic forced a lot of teachers into the online space, but many also opted out of moving online – a fair choice, especially considering all the effort and change needed to gain online students. It’s a big leap!

What has surprised me is the number of emails I receive regularly even now (late 2023 at the time of writing this) on how to teach singing online. Perhaps in the wake of all that has happened in the last three years, teachers are realizing the potential that teaching online lessons has:

It opens up new markets
In the online space, teachers can find students from around the globe – we are no longer limited to people in our immediate geographical area.
It opens up new flexibility
Many private music teachers teach out of a music studio or somewhere else that isn’t their home. This could be for a lot of reasons – roommates, pets, accessibility to their home, space available, you name it. While this solves a lot of problems, you are also beholden to the studio’s schedule. When you teach online, you can create a schedule that works for you.
It cuts costs
By conducting lessons online, private music teachers eliminate travel expenses associated with commuting to students’ homes or renting studio spaces. This allows them to reduce overhead costs and potentially offer more competitive pricing or invest in quality equipment.

And these are benefits that I have seen first-hand in my own teaching experience!

That being said, here are some best practices to use when transitioning to online voice lessons:

Set up your office to be able to teach singing online

Technology

If you’re wanting to move part of your studio online, or expand to teaching some of your voice lessons over the internet – and you haven’t before – you are taking a big step that relies heavily on technology! The main things you will need to make sure you have in place before you start are:

Quality internet
A poor internet connection will absolutely ruin an otherwise perfect online singing lesson. Noise and video may cut in and out, the call may drop all together, and you just won’t be able to have any real teaching happening.
While a better internet plan (you want to look at internet speeds and data limits) may cost you more money, it is a vital investment if you are looking for how to teach singing online. Plus, you can write the cost off on your taxes each year!
A Quality Computer
If you only teach in-person lessons, you can probably get by without a computer at all, or a basic one. If you want to teach voice lessons online, you will need one with at least a little bit more power – to be able to run multiple programs at once (at the very least your video platform and your internet).
I’m a mac girl myself, so I have been using a macbook pro for the past 10 years or so. I like the portability, and they have a built-in webcam and microphone. While they are more pricey than other brands, I have found that they last much longer than other computers, so it’s an investment I’m willing to make.
If you’re on a tighter budget, HP makes some pretty good laptops that are less expensive but do the job well, like this one. You can also find good deals on refurbished computers and laptops to save even more money.
A Microphone and Webcam
If your laptop has a built-in webcam and microphone, that will do in a pinch. If you’re working on an older desktop, you may need to buy a webcam and a microphone so your students can both see and hear you. Nowadays, most come as a combination webcam & microphone! They are relatively inexpensive, and you can find good ones on amazon:

If you want a more versatile setup for recording music, podcasts, videos, or all of it, there are more considerations to take when purchasing a microphone. You can find expert recommendations on which microphone to purchase depending on your needs here.

A quiet space

If you teach music lessons in person, you already have a space set up to teach, whether that’s in your own home or in a shared studio. If you’re looking into how to teach singing online from scratch, without a current teaching space, you will need to set one up or find one.

If you have a music studio near you, they will often have practice rooms you can rent. This can be a good starting place because they have sound proofing, internet access, and a piano ready for you to use.

If you have space in your home (you don’t even need much space, just enough to set up your computer and whatever you use for accompanying students), you can set up a desk with your computer and a piano if you use one. You will want to have your set up in a space that you can keep private either from other housemates, pets, or whoever might be at your house, and ideally a space with minimal noise pollution. Bonus points for temperature control and a window for good lighting! (if you don’t have good lighting in your room, you may want to grab a ring light from amazon – they are not expensive, and it is very helpful if your students can see your face clearly!)

Online payments and lesson tracking

If you teach music lessons in person, you probably are aware that cash and check payments are slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past. Online methods like venmo, apple pay, and others are becoming more and more common, and us music teacher have needed to adapt.

When looking at expanding to online music lessons, you will need to have a way to take online payments – if you aren’t seeing your students in person, they won’t be able to pay you in person. There are a lot of options, but I have highlighted the best free online payment options in this blog post.

Additionally, you’ll want an online program to track student’s homework – I know the good ol’ pencil and notebook are great homework trackers, but that just doesn’t work as well with virtual lessons. I like using Google Classroom – it’s free, and very easy to use.

Advertise your voice lessons online

One of the main benefits of teaching voice lessons online is expanding your client base – you can teach students outside of your immediate area, which can be extremely helpful especially if you live in a small town or more rural area. However, that means that your typical advertising routes – word of mouth, local facebook groups, etc – aren’t going to help you find your virtual students. In order to book students for online voice lessons, people need to be able to find you online.

Have a vocal teacher website

Potential students need a place to go where they can see your rates, maybe student reviews, and at the very least book a lesson with you. An online scheduler like Square is hugely important when you’re looking to book online music lessons!

There is a lot that goes into building an effective voice teacher website and tons of considerations to keep in mind – too much to put in here – so I made a separate post about it! Click here to read how to create a great music teacher website.

Have vocal teacher social media

Let me be clear: this isn’t for everyone, and it’s not 100% necessary, but if you are willing to maintain and grow a voice teacher social media account, it can only help your business! Social media can be used very similarly to in-person socialization when it comes to building trust and networking with fellow teachers and potential students, so it can be a wonderful way to build those connections online

There is a lot that goes into advertising your voice lessons online – way more than I can put in this post – so you can click here to read an in-depth look at how to do that.

The nitty gritty: how to teach singing online

If you already teach in-person voice lessons, great! You are so close to knowing how to teach singing online. However, it is unfortunately not a simple ‘cut and paste’ job – you can’t just take your in-person lesson plans and translate them directly to online. Some tweaking is needed!

Plan your lessons

So, first thing’s first: you need to plan your lessons. Just like in-person music lessons, failing to plan is planning to fail. The pieces you plan (warmups, repertoire, music theory, etc) should all still be there, they just might look a little different – make sure to make provisions for those changes in your plans! for example:

What will warm ups look like? Will they have pre-recorded accompaniment? Show and repeat?
How will accompaniment work? Pre-recorded tracks to purchase, make, or find?
How will they turn in written homework?
Music theory learning: can you share your screen? Staff paper?
… and so on

If you don’t currently teach in-person lessons, make sure you grab a lesson planner (we have an inexpensive digital one specifically for private music teachers) or pre-written curriculum to get you started.

Utilize outside resources

The internet is vast, and has a wide variety of resources available to music teachers and students (some, admittedly, better than others). Youtube videos, blogs, and online courses can be invaluable when planning your online singing lessons. “Outsourcing” a portion of your lessons to a trusted source can be a good way to fill time or fill gaps in your own knowledge.

For example – we have a course titled “Theory for Singers” (yes, shameless plug, I know) that is designed to make basic pop music theory accessible for singers in short, easy lessons – perfect for supplementing current lessons that don’t yet involve music theory.

Side note: singers need to learn music theory, too. I wrote about it in this blog post.

Since the course is digital, it is an easy resource to utilize when teaching online singing lessons! The same thing goes for courses, videos, and exercises from other reputable sources.

Be patient

I saved the best, and most important, for last. Jumping from in-person lessons to virtual lessons is hard, and jumping straight into virtual lessons is hard. The learning curves are different, the types of resources you will need to use are different – it’s a unique pursuit with its own unique challenges. Be patient with yourself, be patient with your students.

There you have it – that’s how to teach singing online.

Now, this final thought is important: the things I wrote above are what I have found to be best practices. The actual nitty-gritty, day-to-day how to teach singing online will absolutely vary from person to person and situation to situation. Much like the voice lessons you will be teaching, your approach needs to be tweaked and tailored to best suit you – your teaching style, your personality, and your unique set of talents that make you, you.

Operating in a void is hard, and it’s the fastest route to failure. Being in community with other music teachers with whom you can talk, share ideas, ask advice, and problem solve is the best way to keep growing and set yourself up for success! My inbox is always open, and I also have a mailing list you can join for monthly musician and music teaching tips. As a bonus, I’ll send you the list of my favorite free resources I’ve used to grow my studio when you join.