It’s shaping up to be a big year for Wimmera music teacher Unmani.
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Having taught piano to people around the world from her Wal Wal base, the 40-year veteran of tuition has plans to grow her number of students by continuing her lessons via video-conferencing software Zoom and Skype and moving into a new purpose-built facility.
Unmani said she first got the idea of giving remote lessons around eight years ago, out of necessity.
“The beginning of it was students who had to leave the area but wanted to continue with lessons with me,” she said.
“I got a local businessman to put an aerial on my roof, which cost me about $600 and caught the aerial at Rupanyup. It wasn’t as good as the NBN but it got me going.”
Unmani now uses the NBN satellite broadband program activ8me and keeps the original aerial as a backup. She also has a protocol for times when internet connection drops out.
“Before students even sign on and pay the money, they know (poor connectivity) is potentially part of the deal,” she said.
“They can ring my landline and continue talking. Sometimes I can maintain them on the screen visually and we can talk on the phone. Having an attitude of ‘how do I get around this’ is good.”
Unmani, who also teaches violin, singing and accordion face-to-face, said she would only have half the number of students she currently does if she didn’t give online lessons.
“I’ve got 33 students right now and another five past students who might come back when they’re ready. My goal is to get to 50 by Christmas this year,” she said.
Unmani said it was not hard to teach people to play via video because of the new method of music tuition she has adopted, known as “Simply Music”. This involves learning how to play the notes on the keyboard before learning to read sheet music, where for the traditional style of teaching it is the other way around.
“There would be all these languages you have to interpret before you could ever play a note,” she said.
“For the first year or so, there is no sheet of music. We first tap on and off the keyboard with our fingers, and I’ve got a camera over the piano so they can see where I’m placing my hands. I get them to sing what fingers they need to use: For example, when I teach “Jingle Bells”, they have to sing ‘middle-middle-middle, middle-middle-middle, middle-top-bottom-pointer-middle’.”
Unmani said she reached a global audience after giving a seminar in Seattle about how to teach online, and after Simply Music head office recommended her to women in Athens, Greece and Alabama in the US.
In April, Unmani plans to move into a new round, high-ceilinged building near her Wal Wal property.
“This building is a dream I’ve held for many decades,” she said.
“I’ll get better connectivity for my lessons up there as it’s in a raised area and it’s acoustically designed specifically for teaching.
“But it has a wider brief – community events, weddings, parties, anything… it’s going to last hundreds of years and will be a lovely building to be bequeathed to the local area.”