Primary school pupils across North Yorkshire have been learning new instruments for the first time this year – without meeting their teacher. The Connect: Resound project is exploring the ways digital technologies like Skype can help children learn music.
Written by Emily Penn and first published by Music Mark. Emily Penn is the project manager for Connect: Resound. The Digital R & D Fund for the arts is a £7 million fund to support collaboration between organisations with arts projects, technology providers and researchers. It is a partnership between Arts Council England, Arts and Humanities Research Council and NESTA. More information about the projects supported by the fund can be found here.
Music development charity NYMAZ is a key partner in the North Yorkshire Music Hub, and we work in a large, rural county where we are always striving for ways to provide access to diverse musical opportunities for young people. In common with many services, particularly rural ones, we face cost and transport issues a lot of the time. So we were intrigued by the notion of distance learning for instrumental tuition. Could it work? How would the children respond? Can you really put a clarinet together via Skype?
It’s been a roller coaster ride, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the experience. Support from the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts enabled us to work with UCan Play and researchers at the University of Hull. We’ve tested different setups for teaching online, including a basic Skype connection, as well as using an audio-visual mixer (Roland VR3- EX) plus three cameras in addition to Skype, to maximize the quality of the sound and image. The equipment has been sourced with best value as well as quality in mind, and is intended to be a cost effective solution for the cash strapped education sector.
So rather than making a 200-mile round trip, teachers have been based at home, or in a teaching room at our Harrogate base, and beaming into classrooms many miles away where children wait in front of a screen, clutching their guitar, trumpet, violin or clarinet for the first time. The pupils have embraced the experience with enthusiasm, and teachers report their progress is comparable to face-to-face teaching. Many new learners have made the decision to carry on with their instruments after this pilot project, which is fantastic. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they seem unfazed by being taught via a screen, although they all want to meet their teachers in real life. It’s been great to see how the rapport has been built up quickly.
The teachers approached the project with equal parts enthusiasm and trepidation and are now real digital ambassadors, ready to champion the project and its approach. Having overcome challenges like trying to explain which shoulder the violin rests on (remembering that everything on the screen is a mirror image), or how to beat time when there is a second or two delay (get the pupils to do it!) they are ready to consider the project a success and to find new ways of incorporating the approach into our on-going teaching.
We have worked with seven schools in total – some with much faster internet connections than others. One thing we’ve learned is that just because a school is in an area with superfast broadband doesn’t mean they are necessarily connected to it! And without decent broadband speeds, things don’t work. So we are discovering new barriers to rural schools accessing music education even as we tackle long established ones.
We’ve also found new ways of delivering music enrichment activities to schools, including live broadcast performances from festivals including Musicport and Harrogate International Festival, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at life in a band and the recording process. These have been made available free of charge to all the schools in the county, allowing pupils to access musical experiences they may not otherwise have participated in.
As a music hub, we are really enjoying exploring the different ways in which digital technology can be used in music education contexts. The aim is to identify a new business model which will be shared with music hubs and music development organisations nationwide. A report and project toolkit will be available to download here later this year.
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