As online courses spike in popularity across the nation, students are finding that even the most traditional face-to-face courses offer virtual options that are just as thorough as in-person classes—and music instruction courses soon could follow suit.
This past spring, Louisiana State University (LSU) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) partnered for a remote piano teaching demonstration using technologically enhanced pianos from Yamaha.
During the demonstration, LSU connected a Yamaha Disklavier IV piano over the internet with another Disklavier at UCLA. The demonstration featured a mini-master class with LSU School of Music professor Michael Gurt teaching a UCLA piano student, UCLA visiting associate piano professor Jennifer Snow interacting with an LSU piano student, and LSU graduate students in piano pedagogy teaching a UCLA undergraduate student.
Such a program could have great implications for aspiring music students and professors alike.
“This has big potential for us at the university level. We’ve wanted to do this for a few years. I’m very intrigued by it,” said Pamela Pike, assistant professor of piano pedagogy at LSU. “Yamaha experts have demonstrated this long-distance teaching at professional conferences, [but] this is the first time that faculty at a university have engaged in this type of long-distance teaching.”
Music educator, clinician, author, performer, and music software developer George Litterst led the LSU demonstration. He showed that while the Disklavier looks like an ordinary piano, it is digitally enhanced and uses a musical instrument digital interface program (MIDI) to communicate with another Disklavier.
The pianos’ audio signals are transferred through the connection. Also, through the use of optical sensors, keys played on one piano show up as being played on the other, as well as pedals being depressed.
“It is an acoustic piano. It has hammers and strings and must be tuned, just like a regular piano,” Litterst said. “But, it has something regular pianos don’t—the ability to record and play back and to be connected to other Disklaviers.”
Litterst and Snow have been part of a multinational team working on behalf of Yamaha to help develop the remote learning program. Other members of the program are located in Texas, Minnesota, and Colorado, as well as in Toronto.
“There are many ways the piano can connect,” Litterst said. “For this demonstration, we used a built-in program called Remote Lesson. The program has been evolving over the past few years. We’re still working on some aspects of the software and hardware, such as microphone audio cancelation.”
Litterst said the schools used a telephone-based internet connection during the demonstration to link the two pianos, and operated the connection through the use of a smart phone that calls the IP address of the other piano to connect.
“Basically, we’re making a piano-to-piano telephone call,” he said.
Video cameras at each location, connected through the Apple iChat program for this demonstration, also allowed participants to communicate, as well as to see hand positions, arm movements, and musical gestures during performances. Litterst said popular video conferencing programs such as Skype or iChat can be used to provide visuals for Disklavier connections.
- ‘Buyer’s remorse’ dogging Common Core rollout - October 30, 2014
- Calif. law targets social media monitoring of students - October 2, 2014
- Elementary world language instruction - September 25, 2014
Comments are closed.