Let’s face it – music education is changing drastically. In the past ten years or so, not only did we see a complete reinvention of some teaching methods, but a lot of individual teachers and entire music schools started using online video chatting platforms for lessons.
This particular way of teaching saw a steep rise in 2020 when even universities transferred to teaching music (and pretty much every other field) online. Looking at how popular it became, it’s only obvious that online music teaching is here to stay. After all, you can achieve the same results all from the comfort of your home and without having to bother with commute and traffic jams while going to a music school, right?
Well, things aren’t that simple. In fact, all of the standard online platforms proved not to be as effective for music education. Sure, some other fields can go smoothly. But for music, you’ll need perfect audio quality to get things right, along with some other features; this is especially the case with beginners. This is where Rock Out Loud Live came to the spotlight. It brings innovative features that come in handy for musicians of any skill level and genre.
What Is Rock Out Loud Live? And What Makes It So Special
Whether you’re an active music teacher or an active music student, there’s a high chance that you used Skype or Zoom for any kind of lessons. However, these came with their own limitations, not only with the sound quality but other issues as well. Rock Out Loud Live is a fairly simple yet very useful platform specialized for musicians of any kind. Available through Google Chrome a music teacher can just create a private room and share a link with their student. The first important thing worth noting is the very safe peer-to-peer connection model.
Another important thing is the improved sound quality and the overall simplicity with its accessibility. Sure, Zoom improved its overall streaming sound quality after plenty of music-oriented educational institutions asked for these upgrades. However, setting it up might be a bit complicated for some users, especially the youngest ones. On the other hand, Rock Out Loud Live brings an amazing audio streaming quality without having to add any settings.
But the platform’s biggest “secret weapons” are specialized features for some instruments. With specialized rooms for guitar, drums, piano, ukulele, and bass lessons, you also get an immense library of sheet music and tablatures for plenty of popular songs. Also, the platform also has a vast collection of chord diagrams that can be pulled up at any time. Just imagine how easier things are made with these features.
As if this wasn’t enough, Rock Out Loud Live also comes with a PDF file share feature; this makes it possible for both parties to share the needed lesson material. What’s more, the recent improvements to the platform also include an incredible sheet music editor, giving you the option to create custom lessons, tabs, sheet music, or even entire books, and download them as PDF files.
Rock Out Loud Live Subscription Models
Rock Out Loud Live platform comes with a few different subscription models. First off, you can use it completely free of charge; and have all the necessary tools for a simple music lesson. Just create your link, have a simple one-to-one direct video and audio chat, and exchange your PDF files. However, there are two more subscription models, each available through a monthly paid plan.
There are some common features that you get with both of these plans. The main thing to note is the direct telephone support if you need any help with the service. Available between 1 PM and 8 PM Eastern Standard Time from Monday to Friday, as well as from 9 AM to 3 PM EST; the support crew consists of actual Rock Out Loud Live who have been using this platform since its very inception. In fact, we refer to them as our Backstage Hands crew and they’ll be able to tell you everything from their first-hand experience with the platform.
Then there’s the obligatory upgrade in sound quality with both of the paid subscription models. The technology in question is called “Enhanced Audio Recognition,” or, more conveniently, EAR. This particular feature allows users to keep all the necessary audio qualities with the minimum possible latency. Even if you’re using a solid video quality and a high-definition audio quality, you’ll have a pretty low latency, which makes these lessons run smoothly.
More tools
The Annotations Tool is one of the most surprising features that we added to the platform. As we already mentioned, this is essentially a sheet-music and tab-writing tool. It comes with the standard grand staff, all types of note durations, all types of stops, as well as all the necessary symbols. And, as if this wasn’t enough, you can always add text and position it any way you prefer. To put it simply, with the Annotations Tool Bar, the possibilities are almost endless. In the end, when you’re done, you can download the finished lesson as a PDF file and send it over to your students.
Going further into it, paid subscription models also allow for a custom URL feature. This means that you can get one custom URL for your live video lesson room and the link will remain the same. There’s no need to generate a new one every time, just like you have with the free subscription.
With this said; these two paid models are “Single Teacher License” and “Multi-Instrument License.” With the Single Teacher License model, you get an option for one instrument of your choice, an unlimited number of lessons, the Annotation tool, live telephone support, custom room link and ID, and HD audio quality. With the Multi-Instrument license; you get all of the specialized instrument lesson room types (guitar, ukulele, piano, bass, or drums) and a video-only room. The first one is great for individual teachers, while the other one can work for entire music schools.
Sounds interesting? More info on Rock Out Loud Live plans and pricing here.
