Stephanie G. Mathis Social creatures are people. We’re better together than we are apart. This is particularly true when we create music together – from choruses and jam bands to orchestras. Music can connect us, and our spirituality and magnify our creative collective.
What will happen to music if we no longer can gather? Online transactions have replaced many of the ways in which we interact with each other. Can music help us make the transition to virtual connections?
I am a Professor in the School of Music of the University of South Florida. I also teach creative thinking through music. In my book, “To Create: Imagine the Good Life through Music,” I discuss how music can help us connect to our spirituality and with each other.
Until a month ago, the majority of faculty in the USF Music Department were opposed to the idea of a radical and immediate change being made in our way of working. As we became more aware of the dangers to our health, attitudes changed quickly. My university has moved all operations online in the last few weeks due to COVID-19. Video conferencing is used to conduct private lessons, deliver academic classes, and hold group meetings.
We had to work out the logistics of what many people knew for a long time. Making music online was not as difficult as we had thought. You can use this time to learn music and to connect with others online to create music.
A pianist in Moscow prepares to perform online without an audience. AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin
Community creativity is a powerful force.
Since the launch of YouTube in 2005, people have been creating music online. For many years, individual and group performances have been posted online.
We all have an inborn desire to create. To take simple elements and combine them with others to make something more complex. Music allows us to express ourselves through notes, rhythms, melodies, and harmony.
We can achieve more together than we could alone when we create music in a group. We make music with fellow musicians in bands and choruses. The result is intricate, complex, and sometimes beautifully simple music.
It can also be done online. It can also be done online. What’s my advice? Find your community. Here are some ideas for connecting musically to others without losing your distance.
Online music and people
Online music lessons are a great way to learn an instrument at a time when the history of music is advancing. YouTube is just one of the many online resources for music lessons. You can start or expand your musical career with online resources such as Fender Play and Playground Sessions. Yousician is also a great resource. These resources are usually free for the initial few months and require US$10 per month to continue.
You can start your band on the web. You may be a musician like me who has been displaced by social distance and is without anyone to play music with. You don’t need to be alone.
JamKazam and Soundtrap are platforms that allow you to connect with and collaborate with other musicians. You can start by creating a login and a profile. Then, you input the instrument/voice you want to work with. The first song you download is free. Each subsequent one costs about $3.
One morning, I received an invite from a German drummer who wanted to jam on Jamkazam with me. Coverwithme, Bandontheweb, and Guitarmasterclass.net are other places where people are forming bands and coming together musically online.
Take this opportunity to familiarize yourself or become re-acquainted with social media sites if you are a musician who used to share your music by performing. I upload a daily improvisation video as my primary method of musical expression. It is therapeutic and a release from the emotional drain that comes with social distancing.
The One Good Thing Chorus, based in Brooklyn, connected singers from around the globe by computer. Photo by Jessie Wardarski, AP
COVID-19 forced music educators into thinking about online learning. Friends in Minnesota compiled a resource list for Teaching Band Online. Researchers from Purdue University, Indiana, and the University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, are examining the methods that people use to learn music online.
This method of learning is likely to continue for a long time. It has many benefits that were not expected. This way of learning can be adopted by music teachers in both times of crisis as well as when life returns to normal.
