Yamaha Education News

Yamaha and Gigajam launch 'Music Classroom of the Future'

Visitors to the Gigajam-Yamaha 'Music Classroom of the Future' stand at the 2010 BETT show in London

Yamaha and the e-learning music company, Gigajam, launched their new partnership at the 2010 BETT (formerly the British Educational Training and Technology) show at London's Olympia in January, which will provide a cost-effective way for secondary schools to provide entry-level rock band tuition via e-learning.

Yamaha already supports the cream of the nation's gifted and talented young classical, jazz and rock musicians, though its extensive scholarship programmes. It is also a principal supporter of the Federation of Music Services, which provides instrumental and vocal tuition which is approaching 20 percent of pupils up to the age of 15 in England and Wales - impressively up from just over 8 percent in 2005.

Of the remaining 80-plus percent, some young people learn privately but there is still a large number, particularly in years 7-9, who are interested in learning a rock instrument but who do not currently have access to tuition. Yamaha sees its new Gigajam partnership as a key strategy to help address the problem of access to learning to play - in this case, rock band instruments - for everyone else.

The Gigajam system provides a well structured system of tuition and assessment for guitar, bass, drums and keyboard, which is delivered and assessed online. Learners play along with a series of structured and well designed exercises, initially using Yamaha MIDI and electric instruments. Advanced software then provides assessment and guides the student, at his or her own pace, through the materials. Gigajam is currently preparing a groundbreaking new assessment system for audio instruments, too, which will further radically transform the already effective system.

At any stage during the learning process, learners can choose to play along live with their peers, once they have developed a basic level of skills and confidence.

The Gigajam system is certainly not intended to replace high quality instrumental tuition. However it has already proven to be an effective way to give young people who may not already be learning an instrument the chance to do so, up to an intermediate level. Following this innovative and cost-effective way of introducing more young people to music making, many who have been through the system so far have gone on to learn, either with the local music service or with a private teacher.

Yamaha's education manager, Bill C Martin, commented: "Yamaha's vision is simply to expand the number of people learning music and to help make it an inspiring journey for all. We are already doing much at the inspiration end of things: our extensive Conservatoire Scholarships programmes across the genres and our support for the Federation of Music Services, whose members in the local music services provide world-class, high-quality instrumental tuition. The FMS has done a great job helping extend this via its support for the KS2 Whole-Class Instrumental and Vocal Teaching Programme (Wider Opportunities), which has provided at least a year's free instrumental tuition to junior school children and which has been praised in a report published by FMS in January 2010. However there is more to be done at secondary level to boost the numbers of young people who are learning to play. We believe that Gigajam's proven track record over the past few years speaks for itself in providing a positive experience for young musicians. We can now begin to develop the quantity of learners without losing quality."

Watch a video report on the Yamaha-Gigajam presentations at the 2010 BETT show.

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(Posted: 2 February 2010)