Category: Distance Learning

As music educators, many of us are wondering about performances for next year, and if they will happen at all. One alternate to doing performances in person with an audience is to do a video conference performance.My youngest daughter Macy has had two performances over Google Meet. Her first performance was originally planned to be in person, but then was cancelled because of COVID. The classroom teachers at her school put together a “Carnival of the Animals” performance each year. Her class had a poem and dance to “The Swan” from “Carnival of the Animals,” as well as a Zebra poem and dance. Since we couldn’t do it in person, they had a rehearsal over Google Meet, where they reviewed everything with students, and then they had a performance. This was of course a different experience than in person, but still really cool! The teacher put the music on, and students danced. For the poem, all of their microphones were on…so there was some cacophony, but still a really cool experience!Macy also participated in a virtual ballet camp this summer, in which she had four rehearsals over video conferencing, learning a ballet dance and tap dance to music from “Frozen.” They even did some crafts, which was really fun! On the last day, they performed the dances together, with the teacher playing the music and dancing with them. I stood in front of Macy and video recorded both dances (and then of course, posted to Facebook for all of my family and friends to see!)In the music classroom, I think it would be difficult to do a full-length performance over video conferencing, but I think you could do parts of it, so that parents could get a better idea of what students have been working on in music. Here are a few ideas that come to mind:Folk dances (without partners)Recorder with backing trackUkulele with backing trackSinging with backing trackSpoken chantsIf students were comfortable, you could choose some solos for parts of your performance, so that those students could perform alone without lag from any other child’s computer.