Imagine a vast online music library, accessible to everyone, consisting of thousands of computer files of individual pitches, played by individual instruments, with a choice of dynamics and note length, of phrases and articulations (a tongued slur on the clarinet, say) and even of orchestral effects, described in such terms as “a big orchestral whoosh with echoes”. By replacing pen and paper with mouse and monitor, live instruments with sampled clips and music lessons with online tutorials, the net is liberating the would-be composer. With only a computer and an internet connection, budding virtual virtuosos can learn about making music.
At the age of 17, Adam Nicholas has written, arranged and recorded a short CD of what he describes as a “hip-hop opera”, conceived as a tour of places and musical traditions. Currently studying for a music AS-level at Thomas Mills School in Framlingham, Suffolk, he is a classically trained musician who has played the guitar since the age of six and is passionately devoted to hip-hop. He constructed his opus from resources found at the Philharmonia Orchestra’s new online project, the Sound Exchange (www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange), which the orchestra formally launched this year at its 60th-birthday celebrations.
Adam is generous in his praise of the Sound Exchange as a source of live samples, but he is also aware of its limitations, observing that the process of patching together prerecorded clips can “restrict what you create”. Like painting by numbers, this form of composition can work counter to the creative imagination, making it difficult to devise anything original or spontaneous from these predetermined musical building blocks.
Victor Meldrew-like, I believe that online courses can work only on the most elementary level. Learning any instrument means acquiring two things: a fluent, correctly applied technique and an ability to interpret music in a stylistically appropriate manner. There is no substitute for a real, live, experienced teacher, able to react spontaneously and sensitively with criticism or encouragement.
Distance learning and creativity are often only feasible through ultra-high-speed video conferencing (impressive projects can be seen at www.digitalworlds.ufl.edu). It is possible to learn basic music theory from sites such as www.musictheory.net, but a competent, flesh-and-blood human being is vital to help turn theory into practice.
Indeed, a teacher’s enthusiasm and presence is crucial in all branches of music education. Which is why I’m suspicious of a program such as Starclass, devised by the creators of the Sibelius score-writing software. This package, aimed at teachers of primary-school children, essentially sets out lesson plans, one of which claims to obviate the need for a teacher who has anything but very basic musical experience.
That sets a dangerous precedent. Would a teacher who can’t do arithmetic be allowed to teach maths in this way, or one without a firm grasp of grammar be let loose on an English class? How is it possible to encourage a lively and questioning classroom approach without an adequately educated flesh-and-blood motivator? In another sphere, more and more of the principal orchestras’ websites are including educational elements. The well-designed London Sinfonietta site, for instance, presents in imaginative ways information on special projects such as the recent Harrison Birtwistle festival. It also includes a sophisticated 3-D Music area, a kind of sonic adventure through many levels that is beautiful to behold — all whirling shapes and Mandelbrot-derived patterns — and offers a wonderful range of cacophonous sounds. Yet the site does not seem to link with anything that goes beyond the computer screen.
The didactic value of such interactive elements is surely limited. They are less about composition than therapy. So, for that matter, is the ostensibly higher-level experiment Brain Opera, by the Canadian composer Tod Mach-over, which invites visitors to “play” a hyper- instrument and thus contribute to live online “performances”.
Crucially, the Philharmonia’s Sound Exchange website does aim to connect the online experience with a nonvirtual reality. It arose from the orchestra’s desire to bridge the gaps between its education programme, the large constituency that knows it only from recordings and the core concert- going audience.
“In other words,” says Alice Walton, the orchestra’s spokeswoman, “how do we move into the 21st century? Creating a virtual relationship with our audiences seemed the most exciting way to engage every age group, not presuming that everyone wants to go to live concerts. We started with the notion of broadening the concert experience by helping them prepare for a concert and interact during a concert.”
From these grand ambitions, the concept of the Sound Exchange emerged, Walton said, acknowl-edging the sponsorship of BT, whose rich-media platform is vital to the site and particularly to the live webcasts of concerts. (The next, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Festival Hall in London, is on Saturday, with supporting notes and chat online. Advance registration is strongly recommended.) Serendipitously, one of the Philharmonia’s residencies — at Leicester’s De Montfort Hall — spawned the involvement in the project of Andrew Hugill, professor of music at De Montfort University. Together, Hugill and the orchestra came up with the idea of creating two huge, fundamental resources, neither of which existed online commercially or educationally — the first a sort of online orchestration manual, the second a comprehensive collection of sound files, each devoted to a particular instrument playing at a particular pitch, dynamic and duration, or using a particular articulation.
There are complementary sections on the history of sampling, an interactive guide to creating a dance track, using sampling techniques, and an interactive cartoon, designed especially for younger children, which gives appropriate sounds when a mouse passes over the image of a particular musician.
After the technological, passively consumed constituents of the Sound Exchange, there remained the integration of the human elements. For the past two years, the Philharmonia has run out-of-term courses in Leicester and Bedford (where, at the Corn Exchange, the Philharmonia has another residency), as well as at the BBC’s 21st-Century Classroom (www.bbc.co.uk/21cc), at Broadcasting House, London, deliberately aimed at teenagers and called Sound Ideas.
