Pros & Cons of Youtube Lessons
Can learning a musical instrument from Youtube videos do you more harm than good?
Streamed video on demand has taken the world, so it is no surprise that music education has been making use of this resource.
Canned music lesson videos have made online music tuition accessible across the world by storm. The great thing is that they help to encourage people to learn and play music. There are many pros & cons of Youtube lessons:
These are some of the main problems of learning music from Youtube videos:
Positioning Yourself at Your Instrument
- Students use the wrong fingers for certain notes.
- Hands are too tense.
- No practical knowledge about how to set properly your instrument, hold it and blow air into it (embouchure, reed, blowing air etc).
Specifically at the piano:
- Fingers are positioned flat on the black keys, when it is important that they should be rounded.
- Shoulders are hunched.
- Students are sat and positioned incorrectly on the chair.
- Make sure you are always positioned correctly so you won’t develop bad habits.
- Help you to break any positioning bad habits you may have developed.
- Make sure you are comfortable and avoid physical trauma.
- Poor rhythmic skills when learning new pieces.
- Difficulty in learning new pieces from scores.
- Missing the basics (proper foundations are essential for mastering your instrument).
- A reliance on learning by ear rather than from scores.
- Develop your rhythmic skills.
- Help you to learn new pieces properly from scores through many techniques.
- Help you build the proper foundations by teaching you the basics.
- Teach you how to read scores fluently and with ease.
Expression & Musicality
- Poor articulations especially in legato/staccato.
- Poor dynamics and phrasing, which are often not indicated in the score.
- Dynamics being followed only generally.
- A lack of understanding of a musical score.
- A lack of emotional depth.
The Invisible Audience
- There is never a connection with a live audience (be it one person or many).
- Audience feedback or reaction is never experienced.
- Stage fright is never overcome.
- Learners can become musically isolated and musically unsocial.
- Various difficulties may be experienced when playing publicly.
- Many learners never play with other musicians.
- Feedback as an audience to your playing.
- A live presence and listener to your playing so you become used to playing to a live audience.
- The opportunity to meet with other online students so you can play to each other.
Tracking Your Progress
- Gaps in theory knowledge.
- Gaps in technique.
- Difficulty in keeping on track.
- Lack of motivation as no realistic goals are set or reached.
- No proper learning curve is maintained.
- Provide up to date feedback on the progress you are making.
- Tell you where you need to focus your practise.
- Identify your strengths so you can apply these to areas of weakness.
- Set achievable goals, tailored to your ability.
- Shortening of attention spans.
- Distraction which wastes time allotted to learning.
- A sense of underachievement when seeing professionals or peers performing.
- Lack of self discipline which means you will never excel in your instrument.
- Keep you stimulated and thus motivated.
- Provide you with engaging exercises to keep you focused.
- Provide balanced positive feedback and encouragement so you know you are making progress.
- Set achievable goals and structured practise schedules to develop your self discipline.
Quality of Tuition
- You will never be able to know what is good or bad teaching.
- You may not be able to distinguish a good performance from a bad one.
- You might learn to play a piece wrongly.
- You can choose a good and accomplished teacher.
- You can try some lessons with that teacher to find out if they are suitable for you.
- A good online teacher will be able to explain what is good and bad in music.
- You will be able to develop a deep understanding of music.
More reviews of our online music lessons are here
If you’d like to become an accomplished online music teacher, learn the ins and outs of how to do it properly with our comprehensive course ‘How To Teach Online’ here.
Take your skills to anywhere in the world!
If you have any questions about the pros & cons of Youtube lessons and the advantages of taking live online music lessons, or if you would like to see how live Skype music lessons work, try a free Skype piano lesson or other of our many other Skype instrumental lessons with us! Contact me, Tracy Rose, here.