How Technology Has Changed the Way We Learn and Teach Music

HOW HAS TECHNOLOGY CHANGED THE WAY WE LEARN AND TEACH MUSIC STUDENTS AND TEACHERS ALIKE CAN NOW FIND HELPFUL RESOURCES ONLINE, AS WELL AS EDUCATIONAL APPS FOR TABLETS AND SMARTPHONES Want to make practicing more fun? "Music learning games" pulls up more than 300,000,000 results from Google. Looking for sheet music or tabs? Musicnotes.com offers nearly 300,000 arrangements for a variety of instruments; Ultimate-Guitar.com boasts a collection of Websites like Teachers Pay Teachers allow instructors to share lesson plans and get ideas from its 3.4 million active members 800,000+ tabs and chord charts. Available on the iPhone U App Store There are currently more than 500 apps in the iTunes App Store that help with learning music theory, ear training, scales, and more. STUDENTS CAN NOW TAKE LESSONS ONLINE, VIA PLATFORMS LIKE SKYPE Online lessons are a huge With recording programs built into many webcams, students can also get audio and video files to review outside of lessons, and easily track their progress. time-saver: if a student has an extra 20 minutes to practice each week instead of commuting to and from a lesson, that equates to 17 hours of extra practice time per year! Online lessons provide great benefits for teachers, as well, allowing them to retain students when either the student or teacher moves away, and find new students all over the country (or even the world!). TECHNOLOGY ALSO HELPS ASPIRING ARTISTS NETWORK, GET FEEDBACK, AND PROMOTE THEIR WORK. You Tube YouTube is a fantastic avenue for promoting music. It's estimated that more than 1 billion people visit YouTube regularly, and in 2014, the most searched topic was music. Want to find auditions near you, or book gigs? Websites like Backstage.com and GigSalad.com help performers of all types find paid performance opportunities. backstage. Website-builders like Bandzoogle make it super simple for artists to create their own * REVERBNATION sites for listing tour dates and connecting with fans; ReverbNation and other artist communities encourage networking and offer online marketing tools. WHY OMLINE LESSONS? Studies show that children who study new concepts from home as opposed to in public environments are more confident in their skills. (And with online lessons, it's that much easier to learn at home!) Studying from home means fewer missed lessons due to weather, traffic, or other unexpected life events. Additionally, both student and teacher save time (and transportation costs) by not having to commute to the lesson space. According to a study published in the American Journal of Distance Education, students taking online music lessons showed a 36% decrease in off-task comments and idle chitchat as compared to in-person lessons. SOURCES http://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/oct/05/schools.uk https://itunes.apple.com/in/genre/los/id36?mt-8 http://www.youtube.com/ http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/us/music-lessons-on-webcams-grow-in-popularity.html http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ884029 to takelessons