Open a lesson room on Harmoniva, send your student one link, and teach with two camera angles at once — your face and the keyboard. Nothing to install, no meeting codes, no account for your student.
Create a free teacher account to build your profile and take students, then upgrade to Premium when you want to hold the lessons here too.
A lesson room built for instruments rather than for meetings: two camera angles, sheet music you can draw on, and audio that does not mistake a piano for background noise.
Every room has a teacher link that stays yours and one student link. Your student clicks it, types a name, and waits until you let them in — no sign-up, no app, no meeting code.
Pair any phone with a QR code or a six-digit code and point it at the keys. Your student sees your hands and your face at the same time, and can pair a phone of their own.
Upload a PDF into the room, turn pages for both of you at once, and draw on the page with the pen while you explain a passage.
Switch between presets for talking, hands only, sheet music with a small video, or both keyboards side by side — whatever the moment needs.
Noise suppression built for speech flattens an instrument. Music mode switches it off and lets the dynamic range through, so a quiet phrase stays quiet instead of disappearing.
The lesson page and the link you share are both harmoniva.app pages with your name on them. Your students never see a third-party meeting URL.
Live lessons are part of the Premium teacher plan, and of every music school plan on any tier.
Used up the month’s allowance? A top-up pack adds 50 more lesson hours for $5. Write to us and we will add it to your account.
Ask for extra hoursTeaching far more than that every month? Tell us about your studio and we will put together a plan that fits it.
Time counts while a room is open with somebody in it. Ending a lesson from the room page stops it at once, and a room left open closes by itself after 12 hours.
On the free teacher tier the lesson room stays locked, while students, assignments and messaging keep working.
No scheduling, no invitations, no waiting for anyone to install anything.
From this page or your dashboard, name the lesson and press start. The room opens immediately.
Copy it from the room header or send it on WhatsApp. It is a harmoniva.app link, so your student knows where they are going.
They arrive in the waiting room with their name. You admit them when you are ready, so nobody walks into the end of the previous lesson.
Pair a phone, open the sheet music, pick a layout. When you are done, press end — everyone is disconnected and the link closes.
The same four steps on every device, at both ends of the lesson.
An online instrument lesson lives or dies on what the camera shows. Fifteen minutes of setting up once, and you stop thinking about it.
Your main device — laptop or tablet — stands on the piano itself, in the middle of the lid, turned back towards you so your student sees your face and your upper body across the keys. The phone goes at the side of the keyboard, clamped so it looks down the keys as the second camera. Between them your student has the two views a lesson needs: you, and your hands.
Seen from above: you at the keyboard, the laptop in the middle of the lid looking back at you, the phone clamped at the side of the keys.
The main camera carries the conversation. It belongs on the instrument, looking back at you across the keys — on an upright the lid is about the right height, on a grand the music desk or a stand behind it. From there, frame yourself from the waist up at a three-quarter angle to the keyboard, so your student sees your face, your shoulders and the line of your arms. A camera placed low turns every explanation into a view of your chin; a camera behind your shoulder makes your posture impossible to read.
From the side: the laptop stands on the piano across the keys from you, its lens at about eye height and tilted a few degrees down, framing you from the waist up.
Clamp the paired phone at the side of the keyboard — the middle of the lid belongs to the laptop — raised above the keys and looking down along them at roughly 45 to 60 degrees. The playing range should fill the frame with a little room at both ends — if the keys run off the edges, your student loses the hand they need to see. Keep the phone on a charger, because a camera feed empties a battery fast, and put it in do-not-disturb so a call cannot interrupt the lesson.
Clamped at the side of the keyboard, the phone looks down along the keys at 45–60°, with the whole playing range in frame.
Clamp the phone to the end of the case or to a stand beside the music desk, high enough to look down over the keys rather than along them edge-on.
Clamp it to the music desk, or use a tripod to the right of the bench, high enough to look down the keys rather than across them.
A gooseneck clamp on the stand works best: it keeps the phone off the instrument, so key action and pedal movement do not shake the picture.
Three frames of the same keyboard. Only one of them teaches anything.
Both hands, the range you are playing, and a little of the key fronts so depth reads.
Too far away: the keys are in shot but fingering is a guess.
Too flat: filming across the keys hides the black keys and the shape of the hand.
Face the light. A window or a lamp in front of you lights your face and your hands. The same window behind you turns you into a silhouette and keeps the camera guessing at the exposure all lesson. Mixed light is fine as long as the brightest source is in front of you.
Left: the window lights your face. Right: the camera exposes for the window and you disappear.
Audio matters more than picture in a music lesson, and it is the part most video tools get wrong.
Turn music mode on before you play. Speech noise suppression treats a piano as noise and swallows the quiet notes.
Wear headphones or earbuds. Open speakers feed your student back into your own microphone, and the echo canceller will duck your playing.
Keep the microphone off the instrument. A laptop resting on a digital piano picks up the key action as thumps.
Wired network for the main device if you can. Wi-Fi is fine for the phone, but a weak signal shows up as smeared hands.
In the lesson room, open the camera panel and choose to add a phone.
Scan the QR code with the phone, or open the short address shown and type the six-digit code.
The phone joins the same lesson as a second camera, in the room’s language. Lock its screen orientation and put it on charge.
The phone page opens directly in the phone’s browser — nothing to install, and the code only works for that lesson.
Open the room and check your own camera and microphone.
Pair the phone and look at the keyboard framing once, playing a low note and a high one.
Put the phone on charge and in do-not-disturb.
Music mode on, headphones in.
Upload today’s PDF to the room, or send it across from My Documents.
Send the student link if this room is new.
Everything here is in the lesson itself — you never leave the page to find it.
Upload a PDF, turn pages for both of you at once, and draw on the page to circle a fingering or mark a phrase.
From My Documents & Notes, any PDF can be pushed into the lesson you have open — useful for the piece you only decided on halfway through.
Six layouts cover the usual moments: talking, hands, sheet music, and both keyboards side by side.
Change camera, microphone or speaker without leaving the lesson, and see what your student is actually sending.
Nobody enters until you admit them, so back-to-back lessons never overlap.
Set an assignment from the same dashboard and your student practises on Harmoniva until next time, with their scores waiting for you.
The link you send — nothing else. No account, no app, no meeting code.
A recent browser: Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox, on a computer, tablet or phone.
Headphones. On a phone especially, they are what makes playing together possible.
If they are at an instrument, the same idea in reverse: one view of them, one of their hands.
Send the link the day before and ask them to open it once. A first-time microphone permission is better discovered then than at lesson time.
Music mode is probably off. Turn it on, and check the microphone is not resting on the instrument.
That is bandwidth. Move the phone closer to the router, or pick a layout that shows the keyboard large and the face small.
Somebody is on open speakers. Headphones at both ends fix it instantly.
A link stops working once the lesson has ended, and rooms left open close by themselves after 12 hours. Start a new lesson and send the new link.
They are waiting for you to admit them — check the participants panel in the room.
Usually the screen locked or the battery saver stepped in. Keep it on charge and pair it again; the lesson carries on while you do.
Yes. Lesson rooms are part of the Premium teacher plan, and music school accounts have them on every tier. Free teacher accounts keep students, assignments and messaging, but cannot open a room.
50 hours a month, included in Premium. They reset at the start of each billing month.
A top-up pack adds 50 more hours for $5. Write to us and we will add it to your account.
No. They open the link you send in any recent browser and type a name. There is nothing to install and nothing to sign up for.
Yes, and it is the single biggest improvement you can make to an instrument lesson. Pair it with a QR code or a six-digit code and it joins the same lesson as a keyboard camera. Your student can pair one too.
No. Live lessons are not recorded, and ending a lesson deletes the room.
Yes. The room is not limited to one guest, so a small group lesson or a parent sitting in both work. Everyone waits in the waiting room until you admit them.
While the room is open, the same student link keeps working. Rooms you do not end close automatically after 12 hours, so for a weekly lesson simply start a room and send the fresh link each time.
Upload a PDF to the room, or push one in from My Documents & Notes. You turn the pages for both of you and can draw on the page.
Two or three megabits up and down carries two cameras comfortably. A wired connection for your main device and Wi-Fi for the phone is the usual arrangement.
Yes, at both ends. Teaching from a laptop with a phone as the keyboard camera is the most comfortable setup, but a tablet on its own works.
The lesson room follows your Harmoniva language, and the phone camera page inherits it from the room.
Name it, start it, send the link. You can be teaching in under a minute.