Friday 31 July 2015

How The Landscape of Music Education Has Changed Through Social Media

There are some cons, but many pros to the internet age we live in. Borders between countries become less relevant, sharing of information becomes instant, and the ability to connect with anyone and everyone is made possible. This has had a massive impact on so many things, and music is definitely one of them. Lets leave music purchasing habits out of this (though this is one of the biggest changes in recent years), and focus on the music itself. There are so many new platforms to share your music, and collaborate with other musicians. Lets say you want an authentic tabla percussion part on your new track. You can now simply upload your unfinished song to a website like indaba.com and ask for any Tabla players interested in the song to work their magic! From your mothers basement you could have now had a musical conversation with a man in India! Whether you’re learning the guitar tabs to your favorite Blink 182 song or you’re posting a video remix that you made onto YouTube, it’s easy to see that the world of social media is making it easier for individuals to learn and participate in the musical realm. The term “music education” seems to come with the mental image of sitting in your Juilliard dorm room practicing violin for 12 hours a day. Though these days, like in many other fields, you can learn about and practice music with the very best of them from the comfort of your bedroom. With the advent of social media the world is learning about and participating in music much differently than it has ever before. Though there are hundreds of examples that I could point to to show this fact, I would like to delve into two particular collaborative musical efforts that are forever changing the way that we create, learn about, and enjoy music. INDABA MUSIC According to their website Indaba Music is a community that, “collaborates with some of the biggest artists and brands in the world to create incredible new music and engage millions of consumers across the web.” What this means is that users can collaborate with other professional or amature musicians in a variety of differnt ways through Indaba’s online platform. The most basic way is for a user to simply create a profile and showcase his or her music to other community members. This feature itself isn’t groundbreaking, but the ability to collaborate with other musicians through the online platform does change the way music can be learned. Through their web-based mixing console users can edit another user’s music publically or privately. For instance, a popular band could post one of their songs to Indaba and then have a remix contest for who can create the best new version of their song. Another company might say that they want to have a songwriting contest to see who can come up with the best tune for their new commercial; the possibilities of using the platform are seemingly endless. What [...]

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