In Friday’s (3/6) Globe and Mail (Canada), Marsha Lederman writes that Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music “has been teaching kids how to play the piano (and more) since 1886. It offers a globally recognized and timeless system for music instruction and evaluation. But in this era of disruption and shifting pedagogical landscape,” the conservatory is “spearheading a two-year-plus initiative that will bring new learning tools to RCM students and teachers—beginning with an interactive video campaign, now underway, to help launch an updated set of piano instruction books…. Each book includes online access to recordings of each of the pieces by concert pianists…. Kids can listen to the music and aspire to replicate the performance, the same way they might hear a song … on iTunes and walk over to the piano and try to play it…. A new app, in development, will allow students to, say, spend five minutes a day on ear training using their smartphone. Or do their sight reading. There’s an app being designed for parents of infants to aid in their development; the first in a series of digital products for parents of children up to age five, to be launched in a few years.”
Posted March 11, 2015
