Abstract:

The teaching of musical instruments at a distance has grown exponentially at all levels of education, from free courses to higher education. Audio is also an essential medium in this type of teaching modality. Whether in synchronous or asynchronous activities. Some studies have looked at the quality of audio in online instrument lessons. However, little is known about the influence of the audio used in distance instrument lessons on learning. The research reported here aims to investigate the use of audio in musical instrument lessons in a Distance Learning Undergraduate Degree Program in Music focusing on both instructors' and students' view of this use. To this end, subjective listening tests, non-participant observations and semi-structured interviews will be carried out with both instructors and students of the keyboard and guitar courses of the program. The Transactional Distance Theory, and more specifically the Educational Dialogue variable, will be used as the theoretical basis for this project. It is hoped that the results obtained in this research will contribute not only to distance music education, but to the field of music education as a whole. As aforementioned, distance music education is growing all over the world, at all levels of education. This modality of education is mediated by Digital Information and Communication Technologies (DICT) and, according to [1], although these technologies are widely used in distance learning courses and degree programs aimed at teaching music, little research has been published recently on this subject. [2], for example, concluded that audio is underused and neglected by educators. In addition, the same authors point out that the quality of the video or audio must be good enough not to interfere with the message being conveyed by the teacher. However, even after the advent of the pandemic caused by Sars-Cov-2, and despite studies such as the one conducted by [3] who carried out a survey of web conferencing platforms and evaluated the audio transmission quality of these software, or [4] who focused on analyzing the limitations of audio signal processing of platforms used for instrument lessons, there is still a lack of studies that focus specifically on the impact of audio quality on learning in distance musical instrument lessons.

The following research questions therefore emerged:
1) How is audio used in instrument lessons (guitar and keyboard) in a distance education undergraduate degree program in music?
2) How does audio quality impact on the educational dialogue between instructors and students in these courses?
3) How could existing audio technologies be used to optimize the construction of knowledge in these courses?

References:
[1] J. Bowman, Online Learning in Music: Foundations, Frameworks and Practices. Oxford University Press: New York, 2014.
[2] M. Moore, G. Kearsley, A Systems View on Online Learning. Cengage Learning, Boston, 2011.
[3] A.V. Maiorino, J.C. Colabardini, J.C. Pinheiro, Comparação da qualidade de áudio entre plataformas de webconferência aplicadas ao ensino e aprendizagem musical. In Diálogos Sonoros. V1, n1, p. 1-39, 2022.
[4] I.L. Howell, K.J. Gateureaux, J. Glasner, N. Perna, C. Ballantine, Preliminary Report: Comparing the Audio Quality of Classical Music Lessons over Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Voicelessonsapp, And Apple Facetime. Special Report of the NEC Voice and Sound Analysis Laboratory, New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, USA, 2020.

Keywords:

Distance learning musical instrument lessons, audio, digital information and communication technologies, educational dialogue.