Overcoming the ‘tyranny of distance’ in instrumental music tuition in Australia: The iMCM project

Abstract

Instrumental and vocal music students in regional and remote areas of Australia are often significantly disadvantaged in their development by the lack of local teachers who specialize in the instrument being learned. The current rollout of National Broadband Network (NBN) across Australia offers the potential for overcoming this geographical disadvantage by providing specialist online tuition through videoconferencing. This article reports on an investigation of technical and pedagogical issues associated with synchronous online instrumental tuition. The outcomes from laboratory- and field-based trials included identification of optimal hardware and software delivery systems and pedagogical considerations for optimizing online instrumental learning.