Apps in Music Education

In this workshop, we will introduce you to new educational settings and recent music technologies. Teachers and musicians are invited to enhance their toolset in musical projects with mobile technologies.

During this five-day course participants will get a solid overview of music making with the help of applications in education and art. This will open up new perspectives for an innovative professional field where different groups of people work creatively with smartphones, tablets and applications within cultural and educational institutions.

The demand for projects where a wide target audience can create music with applications has been growing for years, especially among music schools, youth organizations, concert halls, museums and theatres. These projects are meant to meet the needs of children, teenagers, people with and without disabilities, seniors, etc. as well as to connect music and media education in order to turn it to an integral part of the outreach practice, based on art und culture.

Contents:

- The course focuses on specific concepts, methodological and didactical approaches to music education, oriented toward digital technologies;

- the value will be placed on combining educational course contents with the participants' own artistic practice;

- to learn more about the diversity of music applications, we will discuss them referring to  specific project examples, as well as to pros and cons of using them in different contexts;

- own musical experiments will be presented to the participants and professors during a collective concert;

- central point of the course is to test the educational offer with applications (together with the students of a resort group).

Workflow

The course is carried out as a creative laboratory: from the very beginning, the participants will experiment on different topics in groups using music applications. These working phases will be guided by experts and reflected together with other students. Afterwards, the participants' own project ideas are the main focus. During the training they develop and test specific music projects and work straight on their portfolio, which represents their own app-based musical art and outreach practice.

Qualification target

The acquired competences will build the basis for educational programs with music applications, which are intended to provide access to modern music making for different target groups in regular and music schools, youth leisure events, concert halls, museums and theaters using their own or provided tablets.

Target audience

The course is suitable for musicians, teachers at regular and music schools, as well as freelance teachers, social educators and other multipliers working with children, teenagers, adults, people with disabilities and senior citizens.

Matthias Krebs and Marc Godau belong to the pioneers of app music. As DigiEnsemble musicians, they regularly perform with tablets on concert stages and are involved in numerous cultural and educational music projects as music teachers.