12 Ways Music Technology is an Effective Learning Tool for Your Students

We express a call for a fundamental rethinking of our basic assumptions about pedagogy and learners, as well as what we as educators view as “valid” musical expression.

Music technology and creative digital music-making software* can transform the way that young people engage with and participate in music forever. Not only that, it’s a powerful tool for engaging learners with learning – particularly those who are most disengaged in school.

One of the reasons is that they’re seeing, daily, what they can do and what they could be.

Young people see and hear the musicians they love using music technology in videos and on their apps. It’s ‘cool’ to be a music producer, DJ, or use music technology. The images are seductive, and the sounds compelling. So, music technology is aspirational yet accessible.

Students can use the same or similar tools to explore, create and analyse music for free or cheaply.

They can use virtual instruments and effects – a whole orchestra, rock band or electronic music group at their fingertips. They can choose what to use, and once completed and downloaded, their tracks are there, on their phone, tablet or computer – tools for creation, alongside their tools for consumption, publishing, socialising, connecting, finding out and sharing information and learning.

This is incredible.

It’s a huge advantage for all music teachers and educators that young people now see music-making as being as easy to start learning as social media. And that they can achieve success in learning, fast.

That doesn’t mean that music technology is an easy option.

It can be challenging. But once ‘hooked’, learners may learn about wider music styles and instruments – particularly with the help of a supportive teacher.

And this isn’t to say that music tech is ‘better’ or should replace traditional instruments.

It’s just that as music educators, we’re missing a trick if we don’t treat it with respect as a valid form of music making and learning because:

1. It brings outside passions and interests into the classroom, showing students that teachers take them seriously and value them. It capitalises on their interests and aspirations.

2. It makes learning fun, employing visual, audio and multi-media-rich tools that capture and retain learners’ attention and create an enjoyable, relevant experience.

3. It encourages independent learning through the intrinsic motivation and agency learners get from exploring something they enjoy, and that is relevant to them.

4. It is personalised learning, led by the learner. Because it is independent, intrinsically motivated, and personalised, it also encourages metacognition – the process of thinking about one’s own thinking and learning and using that knowledge to plan, monitor, evaluate, and adapt one’s behaviours and strategies.

5. It provides instant and continuous feedback, encouraging learners to reflect, improve and learn quality control (including through music editing and production).

6. It encourages creativity, providing a range of inspiring tools and sounds to spark curiosity and make it easy to create, edit and adapt musical ideas and compositions.

7. It can help you teach the foundations of music, including music theory and composition, without making learners feel like they’re being taught. It can also deepen their understanding of musical concepts.

8. It can be a first step to ‘playing’ musical instruments, giving young people ‘quick wins’ and early success with virtual instruments, encouraging them to continue learning and improving and perhaps move on to physical instruments.

9. Many tools teach music notation, with listeners able to ‘look under the bonnet’ of how music is made, by listening to individual instrument tracks and seeing names of notes or chords displayed as the music plays or is created.

10. It enables students to share their skills with others at a time and place they choose – because they can create, record and edit their own music. It can also provide a permanent record of their creations.

11. It develops digital skills, which can build confidence in other digital learning. This can lead to further study and employment in digital, music, or other creative industries.

12. It can be used across the curriculum to bring all these benefits to other subjects, such as using apps to create soundscapes for any topic, exploring rhythm in Maths, or studying sound waves in Physics.

Music technology can unlock learning and creativity, particularly but not only for those who’ve faced barriers in music or learning more widely. Students who believe themselves to be ‘not musical’ or ‘not successful in school’ change how they see themselves – and teachers and parents often change their views, too.

We can learn a lot from the students we teach, but only if we are willing to meet them where they are and take their interests seriously.

* from instrument and music gaming apps to music creation software and DAWs like YuStudio, GarageBand, Ableton, Logic Pro and Cubase.