Going the old-school way and taking music lessons is still the best way to go about learning music and playing the instrument that you want. However, as all of us already know by now, things can sometimes get a little complicated; this means the instrument or vocal lessons in person might not be possible. Whether it’s a global pandemic or just the fact that you cannot bother to spend hours in traffic to take lessons, you can always find a simpler way out and take lessons through Zoom or any other chat platform.
However, is Zoom or FaceTime or Skype worth it? Sure, you’ll be able to hear and see your teacher, but will it actually do the trick? After all, these are great tools for communication, but learning how to play an instrument requires more attention. This is why we would like to share a few details about a very potent alternative to taking music lessons through regular live chat platforms. The tool in question is called Rock Out Loud Live and it takes things to a whole new level.
What Is Rock Out Loud Live?
In short, Rock Out Loud comes as not only versatile but also very potent for music students of beginner and early intermediate levels. It is specialized to work for guitar, ukulele, and piano lessons. The platform also works for bass, drums, and voice lessons as well.
We are looking at the first virtual music lesson platform to take on the virtual experience domain, featuring a secure P2P layer of encryption. The Music Instructor is granted access to the search library of sheet music and tablature, which appear inside the Virtual Music Room and is shared in with the student in real-time. For instruments that require chords, the platform offers a library of the most commonly used chords for piano, guitar, and ukulele.
The main intention is to fuse two different concepts together and allow both music teachers and music students to have an easier and much more productive exchange. And that’s the most important thing here and the platform’s main goal – having a simpler and quicker exchange will result in much more effective lessons and ultimately the student’s quicker progress.
The platform itself has the basic video chat option. At the same time, you can either download it as an app through iTunes or use it through any regular browser. But either of these versions comes with the same exact features that we’re going to look into now.
How Does It Compare to Zoom When It Comes to Music Lesson Settings?
These days, Zoom comes as one of the most popular platforms for business meetings and education. While it also found use in music education for pretty much any musical style, it’s still lacking in a lot of ways. Sure, you have a lot of useful options at your disposal, including private rooms for plenty of participants, as well as screen sharing, audio muting, and camera on/off toggle.
But that’s about it! Those are all the important practical features that you get from Zoom. And, to be fair, it’s far from a perfect setting for an effective music lesson. At this point, a lot of teachers still use it for music lessons and they manage to achieve some decent results. However, things are changing, especially with a highly specialized platform like Rock Out Loud Live.
Looking at the RockOutLoud.live site, you can go there and simply create a private room for a teacher and a student. You get a simple lesson ID and you get to choose what type of lesson you want (guitar, piano, or ukulele) and what name you want to give to this session.
Furthermore…
The room type comes with its specialized features. The most developed one is for guitar lessons, providing you with chord diagrams. When you open the session in your browser, you’ll also get an option to search for chords that you need for the required lesson. But aside from chord diagrams, the platform also includes a vast database of sheet music and tablatures of many different songs. And whenever a teacher pulls up a song file, it automatically shares it with the student. What’s really exciting that the platform’s database is pretty big and includes almost any song that comes to mind.
All of these song transcriptions are also available for download as classic PDF files. Additionally, you also get the option to upload and share any PDF file with the student. Just click on the “Select PDF” option and upload it from your hard drive and you’re good to go!
Of course, safety comes as one of the biggest priorities for us. And knowing the controversies that Zoom was involved with when it comes to safety; well, this is another territory where Rock Out Loud Live prevails. And this is exactly why we went with peer-to-peer connection, making the platform much safer compared to Zoom.
Getting the Best Out of Online Music Lessons
As already explained, the main goal of a platform like Rock Out Loud Live is to use the full potential of online music lessons; also, to make things not only easier but also more effective. As a result, a teacher will have a much easier time explaining things to the student. The student will, in return, get a better grasp of them in a shorter time span.
Although Zoom and other video chat platforms have taken things to a whole new level; they’re still far from perfect for a thing like music lessons. While online communication can be flawless, it takes more than just that to have a good lesson for any instrumentalist or a vocalist. After all, these aren’t like your standard high-school or college classes. Quite the contrary; for music lessons, you’ll need to have integrated file sharing, tabs, sheet music, and other features that will make it much easier to understand everything in a given time period. And isn’t that the whole point of music lessons? Rock Out Loud Live will be your perfect ally in this. And, above all, there’s also a free version.
If you’re interested, you can find more info here.
