Music in the Air
How virtual learning has impacted musical instruction
—By Kiran Kumar
For music teacher Christopher Carlon, the initial shift to online learning was not as much of a challenge as he expected. “It wasn’t so much of an adjustment for me—it was more of an adjustment, and a learning curve for everybody else.”
For almost two years now, educators across the country have been faced with the challenge of facilitating instruction remotely to students. Like many others in the field of music education, Christopher Carlon has been faced with the challenge of adapting his instruction and teaching style to a completely new format. Carlon is a long-time piano instructor in the Ann Arbor area, who has traditionally commuted across Ann Arbor to give lessons in the homes of his students. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in March of 2020, Carlon immediately moved lessons online, opting to provide virtual instruction over Zoom. At first he expected the shift to be temporary, but as the pandemic continued on, this soon became a much longer period.
One initial hiccup experienced by students and educators alike in the shift to online learning was internet connectivity. With more people using video conferencing software to engage in live virtual instruction from home, internet usage has shot up. Like other educators in the area, Carlon provides lessons to families across Ann Arbor, many of whom live in more exurban areas with less stable WiFi connectivity. According to him, this was the biggest issue with virtual lessons in the beginning, as the weak connection combined with overall increased internet usage led to strains on the ability to facilitate video/audio connection. “Outlying areas were problematic,” he states. “I mean outside of Ann Arbor city limits for whatever reason, the connection just drops off. Ended up making it hard to consistently hear and see some students in the beginning.”
The experience of teaching
Educators across the country have found themselves in a new position, providing instruction to students over Zoom. While public schools across the country have struggled with this transition, Carlon believes that the transition on his end was comparatively faster. “For teachers in the public sector, they were still trying to grasp on their end how they were going to sequence and present material. K through 12, it took them about probably about nine months to actually get acclimated to the new style of learning.”
Musical education poses unique challenges however, as some of the most basic aspects of instruction—like musicality and technique—are especially impaired without the ability to hear in person. With regards to teaching, Carlon describes how he considers three fundamental aspects of musical instruction. “There’s the physical, there’s the communicative, and then there’s the musical.”
In terms of communication, Carlon found it relatively easy to facilitate this part of instruction. “I would say communication was pretty good. I could, you know, get my point across. I mean, obviously I could see them in person and get the concept across.”
With regards to the physical however, Carlon describes some of the issues he had to deal with during remote instruction. “The physical disadvantage is that I couldn’t see how people were playing—if their torso was in the right position, if their forearms were in the right position.” Despite this disadvantage, Carlon was able to implement adaptations to better improve his view of the student. “In many cases, I did have them change their camera angles to facilitate better instruction,” he states. “In other cases, it simply wasn’t possible.”
One such case was fingering, an important element of piano instruction where students are required to play certain notes with specific fingers depending on the piece. Carlon found it difficult to see the fingers being used by students in playing, and as such was unable to provide instruction on the fingering choices of students. Such details being obscured from the camera’s view has made it impossible for Carlon to properly observe and teach all the many physical aspects of piano playing. As a result, when Carlon returned to in-person teaching last fall, he was confronted with the task of correcting ingrained behavior that he was previously unable to pick up on during virtual learning. “After I started going back to seeing them in person, it was difficult for about six months to change everybody’s fingering and pedal technique because of the Zoom situation,” he stated. “I can only see that stuff in person.”
Musicality, to Carlon, was the hardest aspect to deal with—and the one most incompatible with virtual musical education. “Zoom is absolutely horrible, from a musicality standpoint,” he exclaims. “In terms of phrasing. In terms of nuance, in terms of pedal, technique order, pedal technique, dynamics, whatever pianoforte or crescendo and diminuendo of all that stuff. Just, you know, musicality.” According to Carlon, this was the most fundamental and intractable element of music education over Zoom. “Because I’m dealing with an art form that molds, essentially molds and shapes sounds,” he states, “I’m working with technology that diminishes this very thing.”
Students and families
The shift to virtual learning has also put students in a new position, being forced to revamp their entire learning process and school routine to a remote format. On his end, Carlon claims that he hasn’t had to deviate as much from his set pattern of student progression, even with online learning. “It all comes down to sequencing,” he states, “And I feel that I’ve got my sequencing pretty much figured out. In terms of, you know, one concept going into another concept and possibly skipping concepts if it’s a bright child.”
In some ways however, Carlon has noticed younger students struggling more with receiving instruction from him virtually. “There’s a certain age appropriateness,” he states. “If I’m dealing with, like, seven- to twelve- or thirteen-year-olds, the kids don’t necessarily understand what I’m talking about. However, when I start talking about teenagers, you know, like people in high school, they’re more experienced players, and they’re more apt to realize how important it is.”
Another issue for students during the pandemic has been sustaining motivation. The loss of social support infrastructure from peers and instructors is widely speculated to have affected the motivation of students to learn. Early research substantiates this, and indicates a loss in motivation and learning performance among students in online learning.
Carlon found that, with kids staying at home during the early stages of the pandemic, they had more time to devote to piano and often ended up practicing more. “It was a bit more last year because they were home more and so they had more free time, but that was definitely something I noticed,” he stated. “I did take advantage of that initially—I would say I gave some more challenging works to my students. That is my job after all—to take advantage of certain situations.”
In terms of long term motivation however, Carlon was hesitant to make any solid conclusions, believing that the long term effects of remote learning on student motivation would be studied by childhood psychology researchers in the future. “I haven’t talked to enough other educators, number one, either in a one-on-one situation or in a group situation,” he stated. “Yeah, motivation, it’s a gray area. Probably won’t have an answer to that question for another 45 years, right? A very valid area of interest though.”
Desire for normalcy
Many students and families have struggled to deal with the major lifestyle shifts during remote learning. Throughout the entire pandemic, a desire among many to return to normalcy has stood at odds with the real and present danger of Covid. For Carlon, he noticed a general desire among everyone—from teachers to parents to students—to keep everything as consistent as possible during the period of change and adaptation. “I think the public sector jumped right in because they were concerned about continuing things as much and as normal as possible,” he stated. “That’s what I would say, as normal as possible in any way shape or form that they could.”
Carlon described how his students and families had a similar regimen, and how the desire to maintain normalcy during Covid led them to closely follow their regimen. “In terms of practicing, people had a regimen prior to the pandemic, and when stuff went remote they continued to follow it.” In his view, this drive for normalcy was a factor in the ability of his students to stay motivated during virtual learning. “Because I look at it this way,” he says. “Not only were we as individuals—me as an educator—going through problems. But families were going through a lot of problems too. You know, parents were working from home, and kids were running around. So the whole dynamics shifted there, but the number one priority for parents was to continue as much as possible—and they really stepped up to the plate. I wouldn’t say any of the parents settled, with ‘This is too much’ or ‘I don’t want to do it’ or ‘This is no longer relevant, the fact that we’re doing it through Zoom.’”
Such a drive to not settle has been seen as a common theme among people making the remote transition during the pandemic—from educators to students and families. Still, despite the challenges of the past two years, one thing that Carlon remains proud of is the fact that he was able to retain all of his students.
“Nobody dropped. Not one person dropped,” he exclaimed proudly. “Like I said, if you have kids, you stepped up to the plate and they stepped up to the plate, because they wanted the best possible situation for their children.”