Technological issues can make for some frustrations with virtual instrumental music instruction. However, singing and playing instruments online comes with its own set of technological issues, the most prominent of which is time lag - what some of my students refer to as “glitchiness.”
One student I was teaching set up a rhythm on Incredibox and left that window open and playing to accompany a Blob Opera set: not an obvious musical pairing but a wonderfully creative one.Įven before the pandemic, some music researchers were interested in helping educators overcome hurdles with teaching instrumental music online and how online lessons could benefit children in rural locations. I’ve found that when we introduce technology to students, they often take it in unexpected directions. On various platforms, students are able to share their creations live with teachers and classmates. Students can “take the blobs on tour” where they might sing a Korean folk song in Seoul, or a piece by composer Erik Satie in Paris. In Blob Opera, students manipulate four operatic blobs - a soprano, alto, tenor and bass quartet - and can have them sing a variety of pieces on global stages. Or teachers can introduce students to choral exploration in Blob Opera, a “ machine learning model trained on the voices of four opera singers,” developed by Google and AI artist David Li. Beatboxing musicians who create complete musical works manipulating their breathing, mouths and throats inspired this tool’s development.
As school budgets are always stretched, it’s important for programs to be very inexpensive or preferably free.Īt the elementary level, students can enjoy and learn from apps such as Incredibox, where students can explore beatboxing, combining rhythms and sound effects to create unique pieces. This often leaves online tools as the default. Going online has forced music educators to adapt existing ideas, or adopt existing technology, to discover, invent and share ways to reach students to keep music education alive.ĭuring the pandemic, most school-based music teachers have faced the challenge that elementary students don’t have access to instruments at home. However, as many teachers and students have discovered in the last two years of on-and-off virtual school, music lessons during the pandemic have unearthed some pleasant surprises. As a music educator, I’d hazard that few school music teachers would opt to teach their students remotely. Whether teaching how to play a musical instrument, or how to sing, teachers rely on learners’ physical cues to help them progress - cues that are often obscured either by watching someone on a screen or listening through a microphone.
Learning to make music is a full mind-and-body activity.
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