Using bandwidth for band

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This article was published 22/01/2021 (1964 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Grade 5 students pluck guitar strings on a website. Grade 6, 7 and 8 students keep their band instruments at home. J.A. Cuddy School is still having music classes, but they’re much different than teacher Nenad Zdjelar ever expected.

“We’re managing,” said the music and band instructor. “I’m not complaining. It’s just, that’s the way it is … If the kids can learn something and we can have fun at the same time, that’s my goal.”

Schools haven’t been allowed singing or the use of wind instruments in music classes due to public health rules. This, combined with the need to maintain social distancing, has made teaching music lessons extra difficult, Zdjelar said.

Kids in the sixth to eighth grades have taken the school’s tubas, euphoniums, trombones, trumpets, clarinets and flutes home. Zdjelar sends the kids links to YouTube videos so they can practice skills. They send him questions as they arise.

“I try to help them as much as I can,” he said.

The students have music books filled with songs to practice. Occasionally, Zdjelar will assign a playing test where kids record themselves practising and post it on a platform where he can view and listen.

Last spring, Zdjelar tried to host real-time practice with band classes over video call, but the timing was off because of internet connection.

“I was counting one, two, three, four, and then you’d hear cacophony,” he said. “It’s not their fault, it’s just technology.”

He said he’s sticking to simpler songs this year, as opposed to the mixed bag of pop and jazz he’s taught in past years. During lessons in school, Zdjelar goes over theory.

Grade 5 students usually learn guitar. However, the classes can’t use physical guitars this year — the school wants to avoid any potential transmission, Zdjelar said — so the instructor has found a guitar program online.

There are guitar frets and strings for the kids to click on and play. 

“It’s interesting, and it gives them a pretty good basic knowledge about guitar, so hopefully if we go back to normal, they’ll be kind of familiar with the guitars,” Zdjelar said.

Grades 3 and 4 normally have recorder lessons during music class. They still do, to an extent, but all practising is done at home.

Zdjelar shows the students how to play without ever blowing into the instrument himself. Kids show him their finger patterns for songs like Hot Cross Buns, also without putting their lips to a recorder.

Interspersed in the lessons are activities where kids learn about different composers and eras of music. 

Kindergartners, and Grades 1 and 2, learn music concepts through games. Zdjelar said he had to adapt all the games to ensure social distancing.

They can’t sing, so Zdjelar has his students chant songs. He’s had to skip his lessons on pitch because he can’t teach it, he said.

“There’s some good stuff,” Zdjelar said — he plans to integrate more online activities in the future.