Instructional Technology for Musicians

So I was thinking the other day in my free time about emerging instructional technologies in education and in libraries while listening to my iPod. The iPod I carry with me is basically the first one I've ever had because the one I have at home is strictly for my car and I didn't want to take on "my person". Anyway, I was thinking how cool it is to have this tiny computer on me that can carry so much music and other forms of media and fit in my back pocket. This is a long way from the big radio/cassette walkman that my mom got me when I was twelve.

It did make me think of other technologies that have changed or have emerged that has made learning music all together easier and more helpful. When I was growing up you just had basically you, you're instrument and a tape or record player to learn popular music. Of course if your family had more money you could afford lessons and such.

Afterwards, I thought what are the 5 coolest technologies that have evolved in recent years that would have made my practice sessions when I was thirteen in my bedroom my life a whole lot easier for about $30-$150 or free in one case.


Metronome: No guitar player or most musicians were required to have it unless you played piano because they were big and bulky capable to sit on top of the piano. They were also very expensive. Portable metronomes can now provide you with instant time and leave you not guessing what intermezzo, fortissimo, blah blah blah is. Just turn it to 240 beats per minute (bpm) and rip the Slayer out of your loins or dial it down to 50 to get your Leonard Cohen on.


Electronic Tuner: You know what my first tuner was? A frickin' tuning fork. If you don't know what a tuning fork is, it's a metallic device that you strike on something (like your knee). Then the vibration from the fork gives you a perfect A note which you would tune your guitar to. Oy vey.
Now we have electronic tuners that allow you to tune to any note that you want. Stage tuners, or tuners that you can use when you play live and have a bypass button, would allow guitarists and bass players to tune quietly, instead of punishing the audience.


Drum Machine: After you played air guitar and practice for hours your favorite songs with out other musicians you would wonder how your songs would sound with some drums. Alas, affordable and decent sounding drum machines allowed you to construct your own drum parts and play along. Oh and you don't need sticks to play these, just your fingers.

Phrase Trainer: Ok, remember when I lamented learning songs on a boom box? Well guitarists now a days can buy a phrase trainer. Basically, you can record any musical part from a CD or DVD into the phrase trainer and it will repeat over and over again until you get it right. It can also slow the recorded phrase down so you can learn it slowly and train your ear to the right pitch.


YouTube: Yup you gotta it: information sharing and Web 2.0 is for musicians too. In the past classic music instruction required you to learn musical notation that later turned into tablature (a simplified version of notation that just tells you that exact location of notes according to instrument). Later you were able to use VHS tapes for lessons and later led to DVD instruction. These were all great but they cost $$ and once you were done with them they would sit collecting dust on your shelf or in your closet.

Musicians are now using you tube to share how they have learned the music they love and how to play it. Also, people get to comment on each other's playing and thus becomes interactive with an audience they would not have just practicing in their bedrooms without any kind of feed back.

Here's a young kid playing tool:


There's a lot more out there but this is just a simple list.

r.