Why music teachers need to ‘take to the internet’
Why music teachers need to ‘take to the internet’
by jamescross
We had the latest version of Cubase installed today. A few incremental changes and improvements, but nothing groundbreaking. There’s nothing in there that’s going to change the way that I teach. In fact, it’s been a good while since a new piece of ‘music technology’ tool had an impact on my teaching. It’s even been a while since I heard an album that’s defined by some new recording or production technology. We think of music technology as being related to recording and production, but the equipment related to both seems to have reached a plateau. My argument is that the internet presents the ‘next big thing’ in music teaching.
The internet has brought about two changes that we need to take notice of as music teachers. The first is that the music industry has been decentralised. The second is that the students we’re teaching have ‘grown up digital’. I’m going to explore how we can adapt to these changes as music teachers.
The music industry is in a state of confused flux, as the fallout from file sharing challenges traditional revenue models. Technology has democratised the industry. We’ve benefited from this before as teachers, with computer-based recording and production getting so cheap that high quality music could be produced in schools.
Now, promotion and distribution is becoming so cheap, easy and accessible that anybody can get their music out there, without the backing of a wealthy label. In the past, a student who was producing great music faced a lengthy, uphill battle to get themselves known. Now, they can get their music online instantly, with a global audience. Getting a student’s track in record shops would have been unimaginable ten years ago. Now, a they could have their track for sale on iTunes, the world’s largest record store, in a matter of minutes.
This is the world that our future musicians will be entering. Success won’t only be down to musical skill - it’ll also be down to self promotion, online networking and personal branding. Music technology teaching in schools is giving them the skills to make good music and record it well, but I’d argue that we also need to be showing them what they can do with these recordings, in terms of distribution and promotion.
The second change is that the students we’re teaching today are part of this drastically evolving landscape. They’re the ones who are consuming digital music, who view the internet and social networking as an intrinsic part of their lives, and who are uploading twenty hours of content to YouTube every minute. They’re responsible for the radical transformation of the music and movie industries, as they expect content to be free and readily available. Their needs and expectations are changing things.
Music teaching must adapt to cater for this new generation of music fans and musicians, just as the industry itself has had to. Performances from gigs live on forever as online bootlegs - so why shouldn’t performances from our lessons and school concerts? The music that’s being made in bedrooms across the world is making its way online for all to hear - why shouldn’t our students’ creations? Millions of amateurs are uploading and using ‘how to play’ videos, in an exciting resurgence of the ‘folk’ way of disseminating musical knowledge. Why can’t we be embracing this as teachers?
Musical Futures has shown us that music teaching works best when it mirrors how things are done in the real world. Now it’s time for music teachers to take to the internet, showcasing their students’ work and sharing music and knowledge in a way that’s engaging and suited to the way our students are ‘wired’, and in-tune with how musicians and music fans in the ‘real world’ are using the internet to hear, share and learn about music.
Make a class blog on Tumblr. Create a station on NUMU. Get videos of concerts up on YouTube. Promote school gigs using Facebook. Get students to create videos or podcasts explaining musical terms. Experiment, share and get the musical life of your school and your students online.
I'll put together a resource on Teaching Music to link up to the editorial, with examples and lots of links and guides.
James Cross jamescross.org.uk
