I have been thinking about modern technology such as skype as a way of teaching people beyond sensible distance and wondered how common it is used or if anyone has had much success with it. I would admit it will never be as good as real life teachers and not just because of the time delay, but it definitely has advantages. You would of course rely on pupils to have skype and the necessary cameras.

My son, wanting to have some lessons with a teacher who lives a little way away from us, had arranged to go over there for his first one, and thanks to an almighty series of misdirections and goofs-up on the part of dear Scotrail, missed his transport there - he contacted the teacher as soon as he could, and they then went on to conduct the lesson over Skype. Despite initial fear that this might be less than ideal, he came away from the experience enthusiastic, wanting to learn more, and with the feeling that communication had worked well. He's had another such lesson since, and very much wants to continue the experience. He does still feel he'd like some face to face tuition as well, and will be trying to organise that with the teacher too, but Skype seems a perfectly valid way of communication for this purpose .

It does help that the teacher in question is well used to using Skype, and is exceedingly good .

From experience I would not recommend Skype to anyone. They are just a bunch of con-merchants. I registered an account with them last year because they advertise free Skype to Skype calls and I have some friends in China who use it. Every time I tried to call them I received the message "insufficient credit". Why do I need credit if the calls are supposed to be free? Anyway, I put $20 dollars credit on my account and it still said "insufficient credit". So now, they still have my $20, I can't use the service and they are refusing to give me a refund.

But in this case I am talking webcam to webcam which is free, not phone calls.

I've taught someone over Skype, but it's value is limited. In this case the guy lived in another country and wanted lessons from a fellow English speaker. I just did a few lessons to get him to where he wanted to go with a specific technical obstacle he was experiencing, but when it came down to it he didn't have it in him to go away and practice, so it didn't last that long.

The limitations were in the delay between sound and movement on the webcam (trying to work out exactly why his bow squeaked at that moment was tricky as the moment didn't fully match), in the lack of a 3D view (posture for a stringed instrument) and in not being able to work tone quality in any great detail because Skype murders the quality. But for quick technical pieces it worked nicely and I was able to figure out what was going wrong for him. I think it would be useful for someone who has literally no alternative (lives in the Australian outback?) or for someone who can travel to a face to face lesson once a month or so but wants to learn weekly. I don't think I'd take someone on for full tuition over Skype, but if they wanted 5/6 lessons on Skype or just had a specific problem to overcome like the guy in Germany it's very usable.

EDIT: It murders different instruments to a different degree, we have played recorder duets over Skype and it's fine, flute duets don't work at all. You'd have to get your own instrument out and play the complete compass into the sound test.

I have had lessons via Skype with my teacher for two and a half years and I'd definitely recommend it. I don't know how well it works for other instruments but I find it works really well for singing lessons. I know Dugazon also teaches via Skype and other singing teachers I know do.

I play a track this end, but even when we have face to face lessons he rarely accompanies as he prefers to focus on what I'm doing. We've rarely had connection problems. Obviously, it's nice to have face to face lessons but I'd far sooner have Skype lessons with a great teacher than have lessons face to face with someone who lives nearby but isn't as good.

Not for everyone, I know, but works really well for lots of people.

Yes, I've taught musicianship a fair bit this way.

Far from ideal but also far from ineffective. The only real problem is that we can't sing in two parts because of the time delay (intrigued as to how you managed recorder duets, RoseRodent !).

One of my students is moving to China for a year and we are hoping to carry on lessons via Skype. It's great to read the different views on it, I'll keep you updated on how it works for us!

Yes, I've been doing it for quite some time now, and it works really well. Face-to-face is of course always preferable, but you can absolutely make it work. I sometimes tell people to move through the room a bit if I need to see posture etc, it's really not a problem. Might be though that it doesn't work equally well for all instruments.

It doesn't need to be Skype btw - Google+ and Facetime work equally well, although most people decide on Skype.

The slight delay has already been pointed out, but you can work your way around that as others said. It's also not always the case in an extreme way, it's really minute and depends on both people's set-up. You can't accompany (don't do that much anyway though) for that reason, so if you want to work with accompaniment, the student needs to have it on their end.

It is paramount that BOTH parties have fast Broadband, otherwise it can get a bit frustrating

I also take my own check-ups via Skype. That way, I still have access to top industry people whenever I need it. As others already said: Better Skype sessions with a good coach than face-to-face with someone who isn't that great, or doesn't teach advanced level.

It's not been easy, but having failed with flute duets and having tried all sorts of different input and output methods we found that recorder duets will work if we set up the correct distance and angle from the microphone. We spent some time maximising the input delay while minimising the output delay, so that what we see on screen matches what is coming out of the headphone. We had to meddle in the settings (can't remember now what, though, sorry) to match our connection speeds as I have faster internet than him, which contributed to the delay. It wasn't straightforward, but since my friend lives in another country we had the motivation to persevere.

Thanks!