At EMTI Fervienza we teach Asturian bagpipe and tin whistle live, in a synchronous session, regardless of where students live. This article answers the question that comes up most often from people writing in from outside Asturias or from a different time zone: is there really room for my schedule?
The schedule is agreed, not picked from a fixed list
One-to-One and Group Lessons don’t have a fixed timetable published in advance. The lesson time — one hour a week, live — is agreed directly between the student and the teacher, looking for a slot that works for both sides. This holds regardless of the student’s time zone, including the Asturian diaspora outside Spain.
That agreement doesn’t get left for later: it happens during enrolment itself. When you sign up for a One-to-One or Group Lesson, the specific time slot is fixed then and there, not left as an open point to sort out afterwards.
What this means if you live in a different time zone
There’s no timetable that excludes, by design, anyone living far from Spain. If you’re writing from the Americas, from another part of Europe, or from anywhere else with a significant time difference, your starting point is the same as any other student’s: tell us your real availability and we look together for a slot that works.
This doesn’t depend on matching a default European calendar. It depends on there being a compatible slot between your availability and the teacher’s — which brings us to the real limit of this arrangement.
The honest limit: availability isn’t unlimited
This isn’t a promise of open scheduling around the clock. Availability depends on the teacher’s real diary, not on an unlimited calendar of hours. Agreeing on a time slot means looking together for what works for both sides — it doesn’t guarantee that any hour of the day, in any time zone, has a slot open.
In practice, this comes down to a real conversation before you enrol: tell us your possible time window and we’ll tell you how it might fit with the teacher’s diary. The more flexible you can be with timing, the easier it is to find that match.
Enrolment doesn’t depend on a term start date
Enrolment in One-to-One and Group Lessons is open all year round — there’s no closed enrolment window that leaves out anyone arriving at a different point in the calendar. The only real limit is available capacity, tied to the teacher’s real capacity, not to a specific date in the year.
For anyone living outside Asturias who discovers the school at a different moment than the September start, this means there’s no need to wait for a new intake: the process of agreeing on a time slot and starting classes is the same at any point in the year, subject only to a place being available.
An extra safety net for weeks when the time zone works against you
Every lesson, one-to-one or group, is recorded, with the student able to access their own recording at all times through our own platform. If some week an unexpected timing issue makes it harder to follow the session with the attention you’d want, the recording is there to come back to afterwards — it doesn’t replace the live lesson, but it adds margin when the clock isn’t on your side.
How to take the first step from outside Asturias
If you’re weighing up whether to get started and you live outside Asturias, the most direct thing is to write to us and tell us your real availability, time zone included. From there we look together for a slot that fits, within the teacher’s real diary. One-to-one classes in English are on their way — for now, get in touch and we’ll figure out together how to make it work for you. You can also check the rest of our course offering, read our frequently asked questions, or get in touch directly.