VLong time at home: Since the beginning of the pandemic, this has been the new normal. Unfortunately. This presents amateur musicians with new challenges, but also opens up opportunities. Making music at a distance is the new thing, with online lessons, learning videos or on online platforms.
“I have had a student living in Switzerland for over ten years, whom I have never met in real life,” reports Konstantin Gutmann, founder of an online music school. The pandemic has made significantly more students aware of this type of learning.
“We started our online classes back in 2011. At the time, many were skeptical about it and asked how it was supposed to work. But it works and the internet and the technologies for it are getting better and better.”
All you need for distance instrument lessons is a computer with a webcam and a stable internet connection via a LAN cable. The weekly lessons then take place via video conferencing software.
It is important that the camera or the learners are positioned correctly in relation to the camera, says Gutmann. This way you can understand how the instrument is held and whether the tone is hit correctly. This fine-tuning of the image can only be dispensed with if you have perfect pitch.
Making music online is harder
Theoretically, online lessons work with all instruments. According to Gutmann, however, there are instruments where you have to get a little closer to the webcam so that your hands are in the right place and therefore clearly visible. A major downside is the acoustic delay, which makes it virtually impossible to play or sing together.
“I solve that by doing a lot of backtracks,” says Gutmann. “I record a lot and then I send it to my students as an MP3. Then they can play together with this recording of me.”
The musicologist Matthias Krebs, on the other hand, knows that many musicians, brass bands and amateur choirs have had good experiences with the Jamulus or Sonobus platforms during the pandemic. There you can make music together over a distance with little delay because less data has to be exchanged due to the lack of video.
“In contrast to Zoom or WhatsApp, local servers can be set up, which significantly improves data exchange,” says Krebs. “In addition, Jamulus and Co are simply optimized for sound and sound transmission.”
Music teachers discover online lessons
Since the beginning of the pandemic, not only professional musicians and music teachers, but also many music amateurs have been dealing with digital technologies out of necessity. “Even less tech-savvy people have found ways to learn, for example through internet tutorials or topic-focused zoom meetings, how to use these platforms and which additional devices are helpful to make this virtual space usable for singing or making music,” says cancer.
For many educators, this experience was an impulse to continue using these resources and methods. Before the pandemic, there were relatively few instrument teachers who had experience teaching online.
“Platforms like Jamulus are more than ten years old, but before that most people didn’t care because people were just used to meeting at a certain time and in a certain place, i.e. in a classroom or rehearsal room,” says Krebs. Some musicians are now using the online options “to spontaneously do an additional rehearsal, for example, or if long journeys make regular meetings difficult.”
Learning via YouTube tutorial
You can also learn an instrument by watching YouTube videos. The spectrum of different approaches is large. “YouTube tutorials are an interesting way to learn an instrument,” says Krebs, “because you can learn about a variety of playing techniques and get inspired, which goes beyond just a guitar teacher.”
With the piano, it is relatively easy to visualize which keys have to be pressed in videos. There are also exciting visualizations for ukulele, drums or vocals. However, Krebs points out that many students find it difficult to understand the physical aspect of making music.
Your own music teacher can respond to this in a completely different way. “He can give feedback on the learner’s game and also demonstrate problem-related options on how to better execute game movements.”
Real teachers are always better
Even if new teaching methods are constantly being developed online, it is of course something completely different if you can meet in person during class, explains Katrin Bock, pedagogue and program manager at Lugert Musikverlag: “In the mediation process, it helps a lot if the teacher has a direct reaction from the student. In addition, making music together still has its digital limits.”
According to Bock, some teachers are now practically becoming YouTubers themselves for their students: “They then sit down at home and explain in 45 minutes how quarter notes work, for example. Because of course it’s different when your own music teacher can be seen in a video than when it’s a YouTube video from a stranger.”
Overall, according to Bock’s experience, music teachers are very willing to undergo digital training in order to reach their students with new digital means. As far as the motivation to practice is concerned, however, a real teacher who notices directly when playing the game, whether it was practiced or not, is probably more helpful.
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