Online Lessons

Click here to enter my Zoom meeting!While being in the same room togeth­er is obvi­ous­ly the best way to make con­nec­tions as artists and learn­ers, meet­ing vir­tu­al­ly can be a great way to over­come sched­ul­ing and trav­el dif­fi­cul­ties and con­tin­ue your musi­cal progress—as long as you’ve tak­en a few sim­ple steps to make sure that the tech­nol­o­gy will be a help rather than a hin­drance to our mutu­al goals!

Most video chat soft­ware is designed—and quite effective—for talk­ing to one anoth­er.  But these tech­nolo­gies can’t tell the dif­fer­ence between the back­ground noise of a busy café or com­put­er fan, and the accom­pa­ni­ment tracks that you’re singing along to—and many even fil­ter out a voice that’s singing rather than speak­ing.  If you have an online les­son com­ing up, I ask that you please review the fol­low­ing steps:

1. Confirm your hardware

For the best online les­son expe­ri­ence, you’ll need:

  • One device with the most up-to-date ver­sion of the Zoom app installed. A desk­top or lap­top com­put­er with Eth­er­net inter­net con­nec­tion is best. A com­put­er with wifi is accept­able. A tablet or phone might work, but usu­al­ly makes it very dif­fi­cult for me to hear both your accom­pa­ni­ment and your singing. What­ev­er device you use, please make sure you’ve updat­ed to the most cur­rent Zoom ver­sion before our les­son.
  • A sep­a­rate device to play your accom­pa­ni­ments. A phone is usu­al­ly fine for this, but be sure what­ev­er device you use gen­er­ates enough sound for you to sing along with—you may need to con­nect exter­nal speak­ers if not. Please, please, please do not attempt to use the same device for Zoom and accom­pa­ni­ment play­back!
  • Leg­i­ble copies of your charts. These may be hard copies, dig­i­tal copies on a tablet, or what­ev­er you’re most com­fort­able with, as long as you’re able to refer to spe­cif­ic measures/pages as we work togeth­er, and are able to do so while using both Zoom and your accom­pa­ni­ment device.
2. Log in to the waiting room

A few min­utes before your sched­uled les­son time, vis­it davidmglasgow.com/gozoom on your Zoom device, or just open the Zoom app and enter Meet­ing ID 812 642 1553. (This URL and meet­ing ID will be the same for every online les­son.)  You’ll be placed into a “Wait­ing Room” until I’m fin­ished with my pre­vi­ous stu­dent and ready to join you.

3. Turn “Original Sound for Musicians” ON

This step is both IMPORTANT and EASY TO FORGET: Once you’ve entered the meet­ing, please be sure you’ve turned “Orig­i­nal Sound for Musi­cians” ON in the top-right cor­ner of the Zoom win­dow.  (If you don’t see that option, please review this Zoom help arti­cle [if you’re run­ning Zoom on a Mac or PC] or this Zoom Com­mu­ni­ty post [if you’re using a Chrome­book] before your next les­son!)

Zoom Settings, showing "Original Sound for Musicians" active in the "Audio Profile" section of the "Audio" settings tab.
4. Test your speakers/headphones and microphone

Once you’ve con­firmed that Orig­i­nal Sound is turned ON, click the carat (upward-point­ing arrow thingy) next to the Zoom Audio icon (it may be labeled “Mute” or “Unmute”) and select “Test speak­er & micro­phone….”

Zoom will first play a tune through your speak­ers to be sure they’re work­ing, and then ask you to speak into your micro­phone.  For best results, please test by play­ing an accom­pa­ni­ment track and singing along for a few sec­onds.  If you hear both the accom­pa­ni­ment and your singing played back, every­thing’s good to go!