If you are a student, taking lessons from your teacher online, there are plenty of challenges. One of those challenges should not be your teacher's ability to hear what you're playing clearly. Here are some tips for changing your settings in Zoom to get the best options.

None of these tips will work if you join the Zoom meeting in a browser window, because you don't get this much control over your audio input there. So, you'll need to download the application, whether it's on your computer or smartphone.

Computer Application

If you're using the Zoom application downloaded to your computer or laptop, You can set things up before the meeting, or you can do it in the meeting.

Before the Meeting

Before the meeting, open up Zoom and click on your avatar/picture in the upper right corner. A menu will drop down, and you'll need to select Settings from that menu.

In the Settings, select Audio. The first thing to do is turn off the option to "Automatically adjust microphone volume." Remember that Zoom is designed to deliver the best experience for people talking to each other, while still allowing them to have conversations in the background with people in the same room. So, if someone is talking softly, away from the microphone, to another person in the same room with them, that person might not be part of the Zoom meeting, and the conversation may be unrelated, so they don't want everyone in the Zoom meeting to be listening to that, instead of the speaker who is currently talking to them in the meeting. Unfortuantely, if you play with any dynamics, Zoom thinks it needs to lower the microphone volume when you get quiet, making the sound of your instrument almost completely disappear. Turning this off will prevent that from happening. And turn up the volume. If you're too loud at the other end, your teacher can reduce the output volume on their end, so don't worry about that. They want to hear you as clearly as possible.

Next, you'll want to click the Advanced button in the lower right corner.

In the Advanced settings, you'll make some important changes that make it better to hear your instrument. Zoom tries to equalize the sound automatically for better sounding voice response. Remember, however, that this is designed for speaking voices, not singing voices, and it might "color" the sound in ways that we don't always want as musicians. To prevent this, click the checkbox to show the "Enable Original Sound" option when your in a meeting. For music lessons, Original Sound is best.

Another part of Zoom that has to do with people talking during meetings, and other things going on in the background at the various locations everyone is at, is that background noise can often bleed in and be a problem. Again, when you're having a music lesson, this has the effect of Zoom thinking it needs to suppress that quiet "background" noise when you are playing softly, or if you have a rest. It takes Zoom a few miliseconds to figure out that it needs to turn things back up, and while this is fine for human speech patterns, it makes your instrument sound like it's cutting out, then cutting back in, then cutting out again, over and over again. This makes it really hard for your teacher to hear what you're playing, so disable both options for background noise suppression.

When you close the Settings, the changes will automatically save.

During the Meeting

If you forget to set this up before the meeting starts, you can do it during the meeting.

Find the microphone in the lower left corner and click the arrow next to it to open the menu. Click Audio Settings, and then follow the same steps above.

When you're in the meeting, make sure you click the button to Turn on Original Sound so that you get the best audio sound.

Smartphone Application

On your smartphone, you'll need to change the settings before the meeting starts, because you don't have the option to change them during the meeting.

Before the Meeting

The images in this article are from an Android phone, but the menus look the same on iPhone. If you have a Zoom account, and you're signed into the app, the gear icon for the settings is in the lower right corner. If you're not signed into an account in the app, the gear icon is in the upper left corner.

Once in Settings, tap on Meeting.

In the Meeting settings, find the option for "Use Original Sound" and tap the toggle to enable this.

During the Meeting

When you're in the meeting, tap the option to Turn on Original Sound.

Following these steps will give your teacher a much better audio of your playing, which will greatly enhance the lesson experience for both of you.