Online Lesson Formats And Connectivity Procedures

The Music Academy uses Google Meet for online lessons. Below are student connection procedures for Google Meet. Please contact your instructor or the Music Academy Director with any technical or connectivity questions.

Google Meet

Make sure your computer and/or Internet device has a built-in camera and microphone.
Please use the Google Chrome browser on your PC or MAC computer for maximum compatibility. Other compatible browsers for Google Meet include Edge, Firefox, and Safari. Mobile device users will need to download the Google Meet application for their device.
Instructors will email students a meeting invitation several minutes prior to their lesson. Please check your inbox and SPAM folder for this invitation.
Open the email with the online invitation.
Click on the “Join Call” button within the email. If your instructor only sends you a meeting link then click on the meeting link within the email.
“Allow” Google Meet to access your camera and microphone. Older Internet browsers without the Google Camera Plugin may also be instructed to download and install this plugin prior to their first lesson beginning. Both of these steps in #6 will only need to be completed during the first lesson connection. Future lessons will be allowed to skip this step after this initial setup. Please use Google Chrome as your Internet browser for maximum compatibility.
Click the “Join Now” button.
You will now be connected to begin your lesson.

Google has recently updated Google Meets, and the background noise setting is set to “ON” as a default. This will cancel out any “noise,” such as drums, guitar, piano, violin, cello, etc., that Google does not recognize as speech or voice. Teachers and students will be able to converse, but will not be able to hear each other play instruments through your computer speakers. To turn this setting to “OFF,” do the following:

1. Click on the Audio Settings menu. This menu can be found by clicking the up arrow beside the microphone icon in your Google Meets meeting at the bottom of the screen.

2. Click on the Settings icon (Cogwheel) in the audio settings menu when it appears.

3. Set the noise cancellation to OFF in the Settings menu.

4. Exit from the Settings menu.