Video Chat Tool Support For Music Teaching - Current And Future

The aggregator platform in focus here will provide a base for peer-to-peer interaction between instrument teachers and students, but what type and degree of interaction does that imply? Based on available and anticipated web technology, we take a wee peek into the crystal ball.

Big, brave, open-source, non-profit, community-provisioned, cross-cultural and bohemian rhapsody crazy. → Like, share, back-link, pin, tweet and mail. Hashtags? For the crowdfunding: #VisualFutureOfMusic. For the future live platform: #WorldMusicInstrumentsAndTheory. Or simply register as a potential crowdfunder..

Video Chat Tool Support For Music Teaching - Current And Future

For the moment, an instrument teacher trying to teach via video chat is rather stumped as far as supporting toolsets go. They are obliged to resort to labour-intensive exchange of notation, chord diagrams, theory introductions, and possibly links to audio or video recordings. Given an established teaching environment at one end, all this could all be automated down to a single click or tap, and placed under multi-level remote or shared control.

Cross-Browser (P2P) Controls

Potential Crowdfunder? First Name Email Address

Note that by 'P2P' here, we are talking display elements shared (duplicated, i.e. jointly visible) in a teaching or knowledge transfer context. The controls discussed manipulate these graphical elements directly within the linked browser displays. These have nothing in common with P2P file sharing via (for example) torrents.

Several legacy teacher-student interaction models would have been at our disposal, ranging from simple, one-way video or webcast with no student interaction, through webinar with limited interaction, to the web conference, where all participants can communicate and share documents. (There are further models such as blended learning, but our focus here is the purely online).

Yet our data-driven, graphical approach liberates us to go a step further, in that the reference materials (instrument models and theory tools) are an integral and interactive part of the environment itself.

Everything needed for dynamic, immersive learning will be available from the moment teacher and student connect. This implies simple, flexible, fine-grained yet clear inter-browser controls.

Teacher-Student Interaction (Photomontage)

This means participants will, in addition to the models and tool themselves, have access to fine grain environment, model and tool configuration and score playback controls.

Teacher-Student Controls

Direct P2P Controls vs Legacy Interaction Modes

We've already identified some of the control mechanisms our P2P approach will make possible. These were identified as being available at a range of levels. Critically, these go beyond simple 'application-level' controls, extending instead to individual models, tools and their interactions.

Cross-Browser (P2P) Controls

All going to plan, participants will be clear on who is teacher and who student, and which capabilities are associated with each role.

The teacher's methodology is to be a success, he or she should be free to configure progressively more challenging learning workflows in the most effective way, and dependent on the various strengths of the individual student.

These decisions may include who has the right to start and stop synchronous playback of scores at each end, whether a student can override a teacher's choice of instrument model or theory tool, or which incidental displays (genre/history/events etc) a student should or should not be able to access at a given time.

Propagation

Given an established working environment, it's propagation from teacher to learner mimics what happens on it's first being loaded, except that instead of being loaded locally, the configuration is 'single-click-or-tap' propagated to the learner's device. If accepted, it will temporarily override the learner's defaults. If wished, it can of course be saved for own use.

Teacher-Learner Tool Support In Music
Currently: Static (Non-Existent), Future: Dynamic With Single-Click-Or-Tap Propagation

This cuts out the whole document exchange mess. No exchange of hard-copy fingerboard diagrams, links, tunes or scores in PDF format. Instead, with a single click or tap, the entire current interactive configuration is sent to the remote device.

Latency

With P2P teaching and learning goes latency, but is more of an issue on the receiving end. Our concern is how to reassemble and synchronise disparate video, notation and dependent animations into one harmonious body of movement.

Latency In Web-Based Music Teaching And Learning

While the above diagram hopefully provides some contextual help, this is clearly a topic that merits some dedicated writing. More on this in the future.

Environmental Controls

• Instrument models.
  
  We have two ways of getting to an instrument model, each a two-step process.
  
  1) The first (and default) method would to select it from the Hornbostel-Sachs hierarchy (accessed through the upper menu bar) using it's classification code or name, which automatically populates the user's 'My Instruments' menu.
    
  
  2) Create the desired instrument from scratch using a generic model.
   

• theory tools
  
  Theory tools are less numerous than instrument models, so there is no need for generic-to-specific build process. As with instruments, however, we can populate our 'My Tools' menu from our ad-hoc theory tools classification hierarchy.
    

• genres
  
  The genre menus are anticipated as providing a means of globally restricting the search for instruments, teachers and so on.
  

  Genre Hierarchy

• events

Radar Plot (Joint Configuration Tool)

Musical Configuration Controls

• number of notes per octave
• temperament or intonation
• scale, channel or resonant lengths
• number of courses, channels
• tunings
  
  
  Additionally:
• wind instrument wall thickness
• bore tapering
• hole sizes and placement.

Moreover, users have control over global colour schemes, sound libraries and other personal preferences.

Score Playback Controls

Security (privacy) is central, hence in addition to connectivity, control over webcam and microphone, with webcam and microphone given priority.      

• Connectivity controls

     

• Forward, reverse
• start, end
• loop A-B
  
  
  
• Playback speed (BPM)
  
  
  
• part or voice selection
• volume, mute
• show, hide
• transpose

     

• Various..

---

Keywords

---

online music learning, online music lessons	distance music learning, distance music lessons	remote music lessons, remote music learning
p2p music lessons, p2p music learning	music visualisation music visualization	musical instrument models interactive music instrument models
music theory tools musical theory	p2p music interworking p2p musical interworking	comparative musicology ethnomusicology
world music international music	folk music traditional music	P2P musical interworking, Peer-to-peer musical interworking
WebGL, Web3D, WebVR, WebAR	Virtual Reality, Augmented or Mixed Reality	Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
Scalar Vector Graphics, SVG	3D Cascading Style Sheets, CSS3D	X3Dom, XML3D