Teachers Coach Budding Composers on Internet

U of Ideas of Education ó August 1998 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Contact: Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor (217) 333-5491; [email protected]

EDUCATION

Internet project allows teachers to coach budding composers from afar

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ó When a budding high school composer sent ìThe Complete Squirrelî over the Internet to his University of Illinois student-mentor, the mentor was able to listen to the creatively titled composition, analyze it and send feedback almost instantaneously.

The pair was brought together earlier this year to participate in Network for Technology, Composing and Music Mentoring, or NETCOMM, a pilot project designed and coordinated by U. of I. music education professor Sam Reese. ìThe purpose of NETCOMM is to promote the teaching and learning of technology-based music composition as a means to better musical understanding and responsiveness,î said Reese, who got the idea to try teaching composition over the Internet while working as director of fine arts and technology for the Park Ridge, Ill., public schools from 1987 to 1995.

Reese was hoping to solve a problem that made it difficult to introduce middle and high school students to musical theory and electronic composition: ìtoo many students and too few teachers.î

ìSo few teachers in the local environments were qualified to teach these subjects,î Reese said. And while the U. of I.ís highly ranked School of Music had an abundance of skilled faculty members and advanced music students downstate, ìthere was the problem of distance and time. Not only was everyone too far away, they were all on a different schedule,î Reese said. ìThis situation seemed like a natural fit for a solution involving an asynchronous, Internet environment.î

The goals of NETCOMM ñ as outlined on the projectís Web site ñ are twofold: first, ìto connect university students and public high school students who are both doing music composition with MIDI sequencersî; and second, ìto determine if and how music and Internet technologies can be used to promote the teaching and learning of music composition with students in different places and times.î

While middle and high school students may likely gain new, basic skills through their participation, Reese said NETCOMM isnít aimed at ìhelping students become composers, per se; I am interested in the process of students becoming more perceptive about music.î

The pilot project paired five sets of public-school students and university student-mentors, who worked one-on-one. Additional assistance was provided by online composer-in-residence Timothy Bowlby, who reviewed interactions between students and mentors, and provided feedback to all ñ including the studentsí classroom teachers. Students used Musicshop 2.01 sequencing software with General MIDI keyboards to compose, and students and mentors sent music files and messages back and forth using First Class conferencing software.

This summer, Reese is evaluating the projectís initial launch and fine-tuning it to gear up for an expanded effort during the upcoming academic year. The biggest question heís looking at now is, ìWhat can we do to scale up and yet maintain some quality of the interactions?î

The NETCOMM Web site is located at www-camil.music.uiuc.edu/NETCOMM/default.html.

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