For nearly all colleges and universities across the country (and much of the world), the Spring 2020 semester has taken an abrupt turn. With the “COVID-19” virus spreading rapidly through our communities, our campuses have shuttered for the next few weeks or months, and our courses are in the midst of moving rapidly online.
This semester, I’m teaching two courses: the music department’s senior musicology seminar (the topic of which is Sound Studies this year), and two sections of first-year aural skills. I’m not very concerned about moving the seminar online. Zoom meetings will mostly replace our on-campus sessions, in which we discuss the readings and listen to music. It will disrupt some of the activities I had planned for the second half of the term (such as a soundwalk I was planning to lead after spring break) but those will have to be solved through some creative assignment design.
The idea of moving aural skills online is much more daunting, however. I find it ironic that even though I’ve taught online before, I don’t have a traditional lecture-based course this semester. I think if I were teaching Theory II this term, I’d already be gleefully immersing myself in making video lectures and re-imagining my assignments and class discussions. But aural skills, at least as I teach it, resembles a choral rehearsal much more than it does a traditional class. Activities shift rapidly; students sing and conduct; they play short skills games with me; I speak off the cuff, responding to what I’m hearing (or not hearing) in the classroom. And since most of those things are musical, and collective, I don’t think they’re going to translate well to videoconferencing. So I’m planning to move many aspects of the course into an asynchronous mode. Here are my initial thoughts…
Performance Skills (Singing, Rhythm, Keyboard)
Continuing mostly as planned:
o Singing melodies – I will record introductory videos (i.e., “the next two pages feature melodies that arpeggiate the IV chord, so remember that’s Fa-La-Do. The first one on the page goes like this…”). Students practice on their own, send me YouTube recordings of themselves performing some or all by end of each week.
o Performing rhythms – Record introductory videos (i.e., “This is how you conduct 3/8,” or “this page is all about sixteenth-note syncopations, this rhythmic grouping might be new to you, it goes like…”). Students practice on their own, send me YouTube recordings of themselves performing some/all by end of each week.
o Warm-up of the day: students who still need to do one will record selves and circulate YouTube videos to class, on adapted schedule.
o Chord singing and other notation-based exercises: circulate as PDFs for independent student practice
Significantly modified online:
o Singing duets – cannot do live/remote. Replace this with multitracked recording assignment using Audacity or similar: students record selves, send file to partner to complete the other part, send final result to me.
Cut from online version:
o “Sing and plays” (sing while accompanying self at keyboard) – not all students have access to piano
o Non-notation-based exercises and skill games – can’t feasibly/meaningfully do via video
o Cut non-notation based exercises and games
Undecided: Should singing/rhythm quizzes happen synchronously through Zoom/Skype, or should I post files and give students a window to complete them? I.e., a seven-minute in-person quiz (three skills) becomes a 15-20 minute timed challenge, to allow for students to record themselves and post online?
Notation skills: transcription of melodies and two-voice examples; transcription of rhythms; transcription of basic chord progressions
In-class practice (melodic/harmonic/rhythmic)
o Post blank score paper and mp3 or YouTube examples, approximately three per week. Students turn in, get feedback. Occasional videos demonstrating my own transcription process, talking through problems, etc.
Take-home transcription assignments/projects (two)
o Essentially unchanged: one a transcription of pre-recorded examples, the other an assignment to transcribe part of a song.
Transcription quizzes
o Use Moodle to post blank test, mp3 files. Give window for completion (Weds – Fri?), students have one hour to complete test from when they open it.