Today we’re excited to bring you a guest post from Eugene Cantera, partner at the Dallas School of Music, whose innovative Discover, Learn, and Play training system is helping lead the way in learning music, instruments and ear training online.
At DSM we often say “one of the great things about music is the people you meet through it”, and though we’ve never actually ‘met’, I have been a follower of Christopher Sutton on Twitter and a fan of Easy Ear Training for quite a while. We blogged about them back in 2010 and ran a contest that gave away an EET app last year. So when Christopher asked if I would write a guest post, I jumped at the opportunity.
There is little doubt that technology is infiltrating just about every facet of our lives.
Just look at how much change has occurred over the past 10 or 15 years in the way we access news, entertainment, and information. Even our little corner of the archaic world (music education) is changing. YouTube makes it easy for budding musicians to copy their heroes and we’re seeing both current and future music teachers flock to Twitter to keep up with the latest thinking in the field. And applications like Easy Ear Training’s use technology to make it fun and convenient for students at all levels to practice this important component of musical learning.
As we’ve developed and now use our own music learning curriculum, we’re keenly aware that ear training plays an important role in a student’s success. Our program uses a 3-Step learning process on any of 39 instruments. In Step 2 we include ear training examples that coincide with the concepts learned in Step 1 (which are then played in Step 3). We’ve found that students who complete the quizzes and ear training questions correctly have a much better chance of accurately performing the songs in Step 3. In short: successful ear training leads to better instrumental progress.
Some students excel at ear training; to them it comes easily and naturally. Others (especially adult learners) find ear training to be somewhat tedious, unnerving, and even a little ‘mysterious’. For these folks and for most recreational musicians, apps like Easy Ear Training’s are an ideal mix of convenience and concept-specific training.
Through our Discover, Learn and Play program at The Dallas School of Music we know that technology is here to stay and it’s exciting to be at the forefront of advances in the field of music education. Perhaps that’s why we feel we’re kindred spirits with the folks at EET?! Together, we look forward to educating a growing number of music makers!
Kindred spirits indeed! Our thanks to Eugene for sharing his thoughts with us today. Be sure to check out the excellent DLP Blog for the latest in music tech and e-learning news and their cutting-edge online instrument tuition program.
