Episode Summary
Amy chats with piano teacher Anna Fagan who teaches online full-time from her RV home.
CONNECT WITH ANNA ONLINE:
Facebook @FaganPianoStudio
Website Faganpiano.com
Instagram @afagan and @rvpianoteacher
Transcript
Amy: Welcome to episode number 35 of the Piano Pantry podcast and the seventh teacher talk episode. If you’re new around here, while this podcast is primarily a solo podcast, every five episodes, I have a low key rejuvenating chat with teachers just like you. This week, I’m chatting with Anna Fagan, a teacher I met through Facebook social circles over the years.
Anna and her husband made a big life move a couple of years ago, and she now teaches full time from their RV home. Their RV repair dealer is only 30 minutes from me, so last year I got to go over and meet her in person for the first time and check out her RV teaching setup. She was back in the area this year, so I invited her over to share with us in today’s teacher chat.
Enjoy!
Welcome to the Piano Pantry Podcast, where together we live life as independent music teachers. I’m your host, Amy Chaplin. In this space, we talk about all things teacher life related, from organizing our studios to getting dinner on the table and all that comes between. You’ll get loads of easily actionable tips on organizing and managing your studio while balancing life and home.
Welcome to the Piano Pantry Podcast, Anna. It’s so great to have you here today. Thank you. I’m excited to be talking with you today. Could you tell the audience a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, and maybe just give us a brief picture into your current teaching setup and your day to day teaching schedule?
Anna: Oh, sure. I was born in Orlando, Florida, and I’ve been in that area my entire life. Which led me to to where we are now, teaching, working and teaching from an RV. My husband and I moved full time into a motorhome in April of 2021.
Amy: Prior to teaching from an RV, what did your teaching life and schedule look like?
Anna: I was teaching five days a week and I’ve been a church musician for probably 40 years now. So I have choir rehearsals on Wednesdays and services on Sunday. And I teach them. Anywhere from 30 to 35 students a week privately.
Amy: Do you still teach that many students online from your RV?
Anna: I didn’t lose a whole lot of students when I went online and also didn’t lose many when I went into the RV. I have about between 25 and 30 now. I was teaching group piano for the last year before we had to go online. So I probably had more students then. I really don’t remember how, but I loved group lessons.
Amy: So did you do group lessons online at all?
Anna: I started again because it was the end of March when we went online, and I’d been doing groups for a little over a year at that point. And almost all of my students were in group lessons. So initially, yeah, I, you don’t, didn’t want to change anything you didn’t have to change. So I did groups online on Zoom, but I personally didn’t find it nearly as fulfilling. The things that I liked about group in person didn’t translate well.
Amy: So you made the transition from teaching in person to teaching. In your RV, did some of that happen like during COVID or did it happen after COVID or what was your time frame for that?
Anna: It’s really interesting the way it all panned out. My husband and I have talked for years about living full time in an RV, traveling, visiting around the country. In the summer of 2019, we started talking about putting it on a timeline. At that point, it was a four to five-year road timeline. And then when COVID hit, and if you wanted to continue teaching, you had to go online, I did, had done a little of it in the past didn’t love it, didn’t hate it but it was a necessity. And what I found, I was surprised, was that I really liked it. And my husband has some immune issues, immunity issues we really wanted to be safe in our home. So I shared with my families that I would probably be staying online for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t until October of 2021 that we actually ordered the RV. Then we moved into it full time the following April.
Amy: So did you, after COVID, did you go back to in person lessons at all, or did you pretty much just stay online and you just remained online?
Anna: No I didn’t, I never did any more home lessons at all. As most piano teachers know, it’s always a concern having students in your home who are bringing illnesses in. Even though We counsel them to please be considerate. They are not what they consider to be contagious. It’s not always what we might consider to be contagious. And especially when you have someone in your home who is immune compromised. We want it to be extra careful with COVID. So no, I, my last in-person lesson was at the beginning of March 2020.
Amy: Did you lose very many students in that at all? Like, I guess you stayed online, so did it just naturally flow right into like your RV life, or did you see any big loss of students in any way?
Anna: I wouldn’t say I saw any loss of students due to me going online or anything that had to do really with the pandemic or going into an RV. There’s a normal attrition, as you know, with students. Students come and go based on I was, I started to say moving away but if you’re teaching online that’s a bonus because they don’t have to they don’t have to find another teacher. I had one six-year-old student at the time that I did refer to a friend in the area because I just, personally, feel like online works best with 07 or 08 years old and older.
Amy: Is there anything that you miss about your prior teaching setup when you were able to teach in person and in your home before?
Anna: I miss the groups. I’d always done five or six group lessons a year. And I still do those when we’re coming up on recitals. In fact, next week, we’re recording this in mid-August, and the kids are going back to school. I think for a lot of kids today is their first day back at school. So I’ve traditionally done an ice cream and goals group lesson.
And even though you can eat ice cream, you can watch each other eat ice cream on a zoom screen. It’s not quite the same. You can play games, but they’re not quite the same. And then, as I said before, I was teaching primarily group lessons and that was my favorite format ever. I, anyone who I could get to sit down long enough, I would sing the praises of these particular style of online lessons that I had found and was enjoying. And I’m, I still miss those.
Amy: I love that idea of ice cream – what’d you say? Ice cream and goals?
Anna: It’s an idea that I got from another teacher. Ideas come from someone else, right? Yep. And I just, it was many years ago, and I just reworked it, and I reworked it every year. I, when I was doing it in person, I would usually send out a form for the kids to hopefully sit down with their parents prior to the group lesson and fill out goals. And of course, as with kids, you can’t just say, what are your goals? You have to give them a list and then they check the box or whatever. Hopefully, the parents will also have some input on what they would like to see their child do. I would supply the ice cream. The kids would bring in their favorite topping and we would make the ice cream sundaes and they; we would sit around the table and eat ice cream and always in group lessons, they play a piece for each other, a favorite piece. And then we would talk about the plans I had for the coming school year. And for each one of them, what kind of things they wanted to do in the coming year. So we still do that.
Actually I, because for most people in my area, back in Florida. We are not experiencing a big surge in COVID right now, so I’m actually going to have a live Ice Cream and Goals next Tuesday. It’ll be the first one since 2020 and it will be actually, the first one since 2019. . And we’re hosting it at my church. I’m not going to have five or six kids come into my RV if you were imagining that. No. That will not be happening.
Amy: Is there anything? In particular, that you now do, that you teach online full time, that feels unique to the online setup.
Anna: Most of it translated really well. So there’s not a whole lot of new. I do have a new lesson format that I’m just, have just rolled out in the last few months. Yeah,
Amy: I’d love to hear about that.
Anna: They are the big word for it is asynchronous, but most people are like, excuse you. So asynchronous means out of time or at a different time, and a lot of teachers in schools are doing this now with pre-recorded lessons that students can watch whenever it’s convenient for them.
And there are a number of music teachers that are creating videos that they put a bank of videos together, and then students buy a subscription to those videos, and that’s been very successful for a lot of teachers, but not something that’s particularly interesting to me, but because of some of the online subscriptions that I use Those are easy for me to do personalized and I have done some of this over the last couple of years if a student is unable to attend a lesson, you probably have done a video for a student.
And so what I’m doing now, and I’ve just started this in the last few months, is I have students that are only learning with videos. But they are videos that are personalized for them. So it is an ex a video exchange program. So once we get past the first lesson, which, of course, they’re working with, They’re brand new, so they’re working with a video that is probably tweaked a little bit from one that I would use with any brand new beginning student. Each video exchanged after that will be based on my reaction to a video or an audio recording that they sent me, and it will be personalized with the music that they are working on.
But in that way, students who are really busy with after-school activities, or adults who are in a job that their schedule fluctuates a lot, or even for, you, I have these students every now and then who you can tell just really don’t like to practice in front of you. And if you’re, if they’re working with videos, they never have to do that. And they’re short videos that I make one video that’s three or four minutes long for one piece The format that I’m working on would give them the option to meet, depending upon what level I have three levels and three tuition points for these. So they would get anywhere from one to four short meetings with me a month so they could work all month and just have a 1-minute session with me But other than that, it would just be them watching the video Working with the video, sending me a video that I review and then send them a reply video.
Amy: So it’s a video exchange. It really is just video exchange.
Anna: It’s a video exchange. Yeah. But it’s, and it’s personalized. So it’s not like you’re, it’s not like you’re obligated to learn this piece of music. And I have found this, I’m sure you have, that everyone learns differently.
Yeah. So that you explain something one way doesn’t mean that It’s going to be successful, a successful explanation for every single student. So that’s why I didn’t really want to go with all prerecorded.
Amy: It’s not like a predetermined course that they all do the exact same thing necessarily.
Anna: Yeah. Exactly. Customized to them. And as you get to know students, you know that they need to see you do this, or they need to hear this, or they are somebody that really reacts more to a visual. Yeah. I want you to imagine that something is you’re playing a piece about something that is falling.
What is it that’s falling? Yeah. And how do you feel about this thing that is falling? And so in, in anything that I teach there are a number of different angles. And so that’s why I wanted to personalize the videos.
Amy: The fact that you teach online, of course, is not really unique anymore because there are many people doing this in this world. But the fact that you live in an RV. And can go wherever you want, whenever you want is what if there was a teacher that was out there that was intrigued by doing this? Do you have any advice for them?
Anna: We have no regrets at all. That’s awesome. I would say that probably the most research you would want to do would be into is our being really for me is living full time in a very small space with probably one other human is that something that you would enjoy? And my husband and I watched tons of YouTube videos. We looked, we went to RV shows, we walked through a lot of units. Of course I was looking for a space in which I could put the piano and all the equipment, because really everything that I’m teaching with is what I taught within the house. The footprint takes up the same amount of space.
In fact, the last couple of months we were in the house, I would imagine, okay, if this is all I had, Would I have room for everything that I need and I do and so I would say probably more research would need to go into, are you the kind of person that enjoys the adventures that are not always fun adventures like the reason I’m seeing across from you right now is because this is where the factory is for our unit. And this is the second time in a year that we’ve been up here to have repairs done. Now we don’t, you can get repairs done anywhere, but. We’re still under warranty.. So you have to be willing to pack up your entire house and not have it available to you for eight hours, 10 hours a day. For a week or two.
I would say you have to be somebody that likes the outdoors because it’s small space. We’ve got about 300 square foot of living space. But I love sitting outside. Yeah. I love sitting outside and watching the TV on the outside of the RV. As long as I’ve got my bug. repellent next to me. So I would say do more research into that end of it.
Amy: Now you guys have the type of RV, is it called like a class A or something? Where you actually drive the RV is not like a pull behind or of any.
Anna: No, it’s a class A motorhome. So it’s and it’s definitely glamping if you’re familiar with that. That term, it is it’s about 39 feet long and we do tow a Kia Soul. So we do have a car with us, which is important because you don’t want, if you’re staying somewhere for, say, three weeks, you don’t want to have to pack everything up just to go get groceries. Yeah, no. But we have a king-size bed. We have four televisions. A fireplace that actually heats the unit, provides some heat. We have two full bathrooms, like two showers. So it’s not, we are not hurting for any of the luxuries of life.
Amy: For sure. And I can attest to that because my husband and I last summer went to visit Anna when her and her husband were up the first time getting their RV worked on. And got to have a little tour and see her teaching spot in the RV, and it’s luxurious for a 300-foot space.
Anna: Yeah. And when Amy saw it, like if she came over today, it’s a mess because, where it’s. We move every three weeks anyway, and so you pack everything up to move. Imagine if you knew in your house, you were going to have an earthquake in two hours.
Yeah. What would you do? What would you move off of? What, what’s going to be, what’s going to bounce off of a table and break? How would you secure things in cabinets and refrigerator? Yeah. See, if you live in a space that gets earthquakes, probably, and so every time we move, RV is being moved every day right now.
They come and get it every morning. So we can’t really unpack anything. So everything’s sitting in boxes and laundry baskets.
Amy: And that’s a good way to think about it actually. Like when you’re putting things in places, like I have to be able to like shake this whole place and let this not go anywhere. And we have gone through the same thing teardrop camper. It’s a Braxton Creek. Bushwhacker plus like 17-foot teardrop. And that’s been one of our big things. We just bought it this year, and next summer, we’re talking about taking off for the whole summer and travel, like going out West or something for a couple of months. And so this whole year has been about getting it set up and going through that same process that you’re talking about okay, can we need to be able to tear down? In less than 30 minutes and just move to the next spot. Like we don’t want to have to spend three hours tearing down every time, like we did when we were tent camping, and yeah, it’s just, it’s a little bit of, it takes a little bit of organization and creativity to figure out how to make that work.
Anna: Absolutely. And cause you’ve got all your outdoor stuff. As well as your indoor stuff. So you’ve got your hookups to power and water and sewer. And then all your fun outdoor stuff, your chairs, your grills, tables, your tiki lanterns, all the stuff that makes it home. So I would, people ask me how much longer, I don’t know, as long as we can as long as we can, we’ll be doing this.
Amy: So talking about organization, what are some. Ways that you keep yourself in your studio space organized in such a small space, especially
Anna: Mainly, you do as much as you can digitally because I just can’t have a lot of printed music. So I’ve got those magazine – I saw you have some of the plastic magazine holders. I have I think five of those that sit on the floor next to my right foot that stay there all the time in front of the piano. And then I’ve got three more that are on a space over my head when we’re not moving. But other than that, I’ve just been really grateful for some of the publishers that have put atlases online where you can, like all of their music is online. And I used a lot of online resources prior to that. I was really happy that I had a lot of studio-licensed music because it’s great to be able to share it now. And I’ve been really fortunate in that I was using a lot of online organizational tools before. Before COVID, I had rolled into some of those.
Amy: Is there any one particular tool or resource that you use? You mentioned a few things, but is there just like one specific, maybe it’s an app or it’s something that you use in your RV that you’re just like, I cannot do this without this.
Anna: Oh aside from the keyboard. Of course, yes. The iPad with the Fourscore app. Oh my gosh, I have to have that. And really, Tonara. I would not want to. You know, My Music Staff and Tonara, I had, before.
Amy: So I’m curious: how do you use Fourscore in your online lessons? Is it mostly for you, like creating lists for students? Or do you mark up and actually show them scores?
Anna: The iPad plugs into my laptop. So, you can share that on Zoom as a shared screen. And the other online platforms I use, Rock Out Loud and Forte I use the QuickTime app. To share the screen because with young students with new students that haven’t worked online, you can’t reach over and point to something. They learn really fast when you say. Tell me when you’re looking at measure 17. Tell me when you point to beat three and I can’t really see, but I can get the general idea if they’re in the right now. But I can see you use the Apple Pencil and you circle.
Amy: Yeah, I couldn’t use my iPad anymore these days without the Apple pencil It’s just so I mean I think about the old days of styluses like And how inaccurate they were. And I used to have this one that had this little plastic end on it. It was like a circle.
Anna: Oh yeah. I have that. I have one in my purse, but they break. Or your kid breaks them; your student breaks them. And the Apple pencil is so worth it. I know. I, people will ask me do you mind if I, can I try it out?
And I’ll say, I don’t mind, but you will want one. Just know that you’re going to buy this. If you just want to look and see how much they are. Yeah, my husband actually gave me his because I left mine in the RV this morning. So I have his with me.
Amy: At the end of every episode, I like to finish off with one silly or fun fact about me. Since this chat is with you, could you share something interesting with our listeners about yourself?
Anna: A lot of people, even people I’ve known for many years, are still surprised when I tell them that I worked at Walt Disney World in Florida for almost 24 years. That is so fun. Yeah, it was. It was a lot of fun. And I have, my husband, that’s where my husband and I met, and he worked there until COVID, and fortunately he was one of the thousands of people, thousands that got laid off. But I have two younger sisters that still work there.
Amy: Was there anything that we didn’t talk about today that you wanted to share with the listeners?
Anna: One thing that I found surprising is there wasn’t about RV life, not about you, Amy. One thing I found surprising about Amy. One thing I found surprising about RV life, because as I said before, my husband and I did so much research and we watched so many YouTube videos, but I had no idea how loud it is when it rains. Have you been in your teardrop when it rains?
Amy: Yes. That’s a great point. Yes. That’s a great point
Anna: Especially when you’re teaching. I’ve been grateful to have headphones because then I can still hear the student because the sound’s coming right into my ears. But if it starts pouring down rain, I’ll usually say, can you still hear me?
Amy: Yeah. Wow. That’s one of those things that you don’t think about until you actually have to experience it.
Thank you very much for being here today, Anna. It was great chatting with you.
Anna: Thank you for chatting with me, Amy.
Amy: That’s a wrap! I hope you enjoyed my chat with Anna. I just love how little things bring us together, such as Anna simply being 30 minutes away from my house for an RV repair. If you would like to connect with Anna online, you can do so at Fagan Piano Studio on Facebook. On Instagram at AFagan or through her website FaganPiano.com, and I will link to all of those in the show notes.
As always, thank you so much for showing up here week after week. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button so new episodes will download automatically. Head on over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review. Next week, I have a special new series coming to you I can’t wait to share. But it’s a secret. You’re gonna just have to wait. See you then!
