Effective Use of Recording Technologies in Private Music Instruction

Abstract

Vocal and instrumental musicians face a paradoxical problem when evaluating their sound: it is impossible for them to independently assess their sound from an audience perspective because they must be actively performing in order to produce that sound. For a variety of reasons, including absorption by the head of sound vibrations and the directional nature of certain instruments, musicians themselves do not hear the exact sound that the audience perceives, in exactly the same way that people are often startled to hear themselves speak on a recording, mistakenly believing that the sound of their voice should be the same on a recording as when they hear themselves speaking live. In addition, student and amateur musicians are frequently unaware of many of the characteristics of their sound, often because they are distracted by the immediate technical challenges posed by their instrument or voice. Recording technologies afford us an effective solution to the problem of increasing musicians' awareness of their sound production. Music teachers can now easily record excerpts of students' playing and allow the students to independently evaluate their own playing. This capstone will critically evaluate how to best use recording technologies in the context of learners and learning principles, the learning environment, the curriculum and teaching strategies, and assessment.