Internet2 Member Community Education Initiatives
Internet2 member universities, affiliates, and their collaborators are taking advantage of the CD quality audio and broadcast quality video made possible by Internet2 high-performance networks. Through this technology, the Internet2 member organizations can reach out to students, professionals, and experts of all types in virtually any location.
Music Bridges: K-12 Faculty-Driven Music Programs
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| Photo by Fred Cattroll. |
The Manhattan School of Music distance learning program is partnering with Michigan's St. Clair County Regional Educational Service Agency, located in a largely rural county just outside the Detroit metropolitan area, to present music programs delivered via interactive videoconferencing over Internet2 advanced networks. St. Clair County, which includes 57 schools in 7 local school districts, will receive offerings such as American Composers; A Personal Introduction to Opera; Jazz: Get into the Groove; Music from around the World; group instrumental lessons; and the type of custom telementoring sessions that require the high-fidelity, broadcast-quality streaming audio and video available over Internet2. Additionally, these programs will enable partner schools to tap into the rich musical resources of Manhattan School of Music's artist faculty and student teaching artists, thereby eliminating the barriers of time and distance and allowing musicians to extend their expertise to new students and audiences around the country. In the image shown above, saxophone students representing several Canadian universities and high schools receive broadband videoconference instruction from world renowned Manhattan School of Music faculty member, Dave Liebman, saxophone during a similar distance learning initiative.
Slides of March
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| Photo by Mike Hutmacher provided courtesy of The Wichita Eagle. |
An ensemble of Wichita State University (WSU) trombone students performed an arrangement of Scarborough Fair during a videoconference on 15 March 2005 for members of the New World Symphony (NWS) trombone section in Miami, FL. The high-bandwidth, low-latency audio and video streamed over Internet2 advanced networks, provided musicians in Wichita and Miami an experience that was as close to "in-person" as possible. The two-hour exchange, dubbed "The Slides of March" by WSU music professor Russ Widener, allowed the students to perform solo pieces as well and receive one-on-one critiques and tips on technique from the NWS musicians. Widener added, "It's like taking a trombone lesson, and you don't have to fly to Miami to do it." NWS loaned WSU an MPEG-2 codec to provide the live, interactive stream to Miami. The event was also streamed live across Kan-ed, the new Kansas statewide broadband network for educational institutions, hospitals, and libraries. Kan-ed funds a program called Kan-ed Live! which provides both live webcasts and a webcast archive to Kan-ed members.
MusicPath
The MusicPath project
is exploring uses of technology and advanced networking to deliver
enhanced music learning and performance capability to remote locations.
The MusicPath lesson joins videoconferencing with transmission
of piano codes between two digital acoustic pianos causing the
remote piano to play in real time with every nuance of the originating
pianist. Both teacher and student are able to experience learning
interaction of the same quality as if they were in the same room.
The MusicPath software, created at Acadia University in Nova Scotia,
has enabled two digital acoustic pianos to be connected over IP.
Digital acoustic pianos combine the acoustical musical qualities
of a regular piano with the ability to capture a digital translation
of each keystroke and pedal movement. While previous projects have
successfully used videoconferencing for music, this project actually
enables the remote piano keys and pedals to be controlled from
a distance. As a result, piano pedagogues listen to the true acoustic
performance, not amplified sound. Since the fall of 2003, a 12
year old piano prodigy in remote Nova Scotia has been receiving
lessons from a professor at the Royal Conservatory of Music in
Toronto. A live demonstration of such a lesson using MusicPath
will be shown at the Fall
2004 Internet2 Member Meeting. (Click here for video
clips of previous MusicPath demonstrations.)
CANARIE's CA*net 4 high speed network provides the connection that enables the MusicPath research and subsequent music lessons. Explains Karen Wilder, MusicPath Project Leader, "Through the interconnection of Internet2 advanced networks and CA*net 4, we are now free to conduct music lessons or give piano performances between any locations where the network travels. Without the software and advanced networks, the lessons could only be conducted by traveling from rural Nova Scotia to metro Toronto by car or plane."
ANET: High Quality Audio over Networks Summit
Stanford
University's CCRMA (Centre
for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics) held a
series of summer workshops in 2004 at the Banff
Center in Alberta, Canada. CCRMA is a multi-disciplinary
program that supports composers and researchers using computer-based
technology both as an artistic medium and as a research tool.
The three-day ANET
Summit was an exploration of the state-of-the-art in ethernet-based
professional audio networks. Developers, engineers, musicians
and others interested in the growing practice of high-resolution
audio over ethernets gathered to focus on the new technology.
The scope of the summit included IP-based systems and systems
with dedicated protocols.
A 1998 whitepaper "Networking Audio and Music Using Internet2 and Next-Generation Internet Capabilities" presented at the Audio Engineering Society expressed a vision of the future and challenges that lay ahead. Six years later, with technical developments continuing, musical collaborations of various kinds have been tested and the Internet has evolved. Predicted application areas which are now taking off include audio production, music education, broadening musical participation, and scientific and engineering data representation (sonification). The summit provided an opportunity to compare today's reality with what was foreseen and to look ahead to what's next. The program included hands-on demonstrations in the Banff Centre's concert and recording facilities, a "how-to" covering representative open-source software-based systems, demos of products, presentations, a tutorial, and a panel discussion.
Distance Learning for Music Education
On
1-2 April 2004, the New World Symphony collaborated
with several Internet2 members to demonstrate distance learning
for music education over the Abilene
Network. On April 1, at 2:30 pm EST, the New World Symphony
(NWS) connected to the Eastman
School of Music for an interactive clarinet master class. Andrew
Marriner, clarinetist and first chair of the London Symphony
Orchestra was in Miami at NWS with Michael
Tilson Thomas, Founder and Artistic Director of NWS.
Marriner coached two NWS fellows locally: Kazam Abdullah and
Pascal Archer. He also remotely coached two students,
Brian Dredla and Nick Siedentop, at Eastman School of Music in
Rochester, NY. The connection to Eastman was over Internet2
advanced networks and both NWS and Eastman used MPEG-2
codecs for this event.
The NWS also conducted a cello sectional rehearsal on 1 April 2004. NWS connected to Columbia University to bring in Carter Brey, first cello of the New York Philharmonic, live from New York and at the same time NWS connected to Cleveland Institute of Music to bring in cellist and professor, Stephen Geber. Michael Tilson Thomas in Miami also conducted the cello sectional rehearsal of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and both Carter Brey and Stephen Geber participated remotely interacting with Michael Tilson Thomas and with the NWS cello section in Miami. The connections used DVTS and MPEG-2.
On 2 April 2004, Michael Tilson Thomas and Neville Marriner in Miami hosted a conductor round table discussion. At NWS`s invitation, conducting professors and their conducting students were joined remotely over Internet2 from Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, and University of Michigan. NWS connected to each location using DVTS technology. Michael Tilson Thomas also performed a conducting master class and coached student conductors and an ensemble at the Cleveland Institute of Music, connected remotely via Internet2. This event also used DVTS and MPEG-2.
Choreography via Internet2
On
3 March 2004, the Florida
State University (FSU) Department of Dance used Internet2's
Abilene Network to provide long-distance coaching for dance students
at the Wayne State University
(WSU) Maggie Allesee Department of Dance. This interactive
rehearsal session enabled choreographer and FSU Professor Jawole
Zollar to observe dancers at WSU and provide them constructive
feedback via Internet2 as they rehearsed excerpts from her recent
work HairStories.
This event followed a two-week residency at WSU during which Wanjiru
Kamuyu, a member of Zollar's New York-based company Urban Bush
Women, taught HairStories to the WSU Dance Company. This
telematic dance coaching session was the inaugural event of
the Black Box Studio, a technology-enhanced FSU facility for video
documentation, telematic research, and multimedia theater design. “Telematics”—a
term created to describe the blending of computers and telecommunications
technologies—provides a set of applications often used in
the delivery of distance education. This choreographic collaboration
with WSU represented the first in a planned series of FSU
telematic sessions utilizing Internet2 advanced networking
technologies for applications of distance learning in dance. Support
for these initiatives has been provided through generous support
from the FSU Office for Distributed and Distance Learning and the
FSU National Center for Choreography. According to Tim Glenn, Assistant
Professor and Director of Telematic Research at FSU, “Advanced
network technology opens the door to a whole new approach for how
we create, teach, and perform dance works. As a result, the art
of dance is redefined by incorporating the tools of new technologies
into the dancers' experience. Empowered with these new skills,
dancers illustrate their ability to extend their performances beyond
the stage.”
Both FSU and WSU are members of the Association for Dance and Performance Telematics (ADaPT), an interdisciplinary consortium of artists, technologists and scholars dedicated to research on performance in telematic space.
Internet2 and New World Symphony Performance and Master Class Production Workshop
Internet2 and the New
World Symphony hosted a Performance
and Master Class Production Workshop, 14-15 January 2004.
This hands-on audio/video production workshop was held at the
New World Symphony campus in Miami Beach, FL. Workshop participants
learned how to connect in real-time with remote sites, set up
live collaborations involving incoming and outgoing video/audio,
handle a multi-camera shoot, place lighting and projectors, and
troubleshoot and operate codecs. This workshop explored in
depth the elements needed to do everything from simple one-on-one
interactions to larger scale stage productions via Internet2 advanced
networks. According to Ann Doyle, Internet2 Program Manager for
Arts and Humanities, “Internet2
is very grateful that the New World Symphony hosted this workshop
on their campus. This provided a wonderful opportunity for participants
to work in their state-of-the-art facility, which has cameras,
codecs, and other equipment all in one place.”
The New World Symphony’s Lincoln Theater is a state-of-the-art facility that has a control booth with robotically-controlled cameras, codecs, and other production equipment all in one place. The workshop began with a series of overview presentations, after which participants broke into small groups for tours of the control booth followed by hands-on mini-workshops for lighting, videostreaming, and audio techniques. During the lighting session, Clyde Scott, Video Production Manager at New World Symphony, demonstrated the do’s and don’ts of effective lighting for video transmission by showing participants how to place lights around a subject. Jonathan Tyman, Internet2 Manager for Digital Video, assisted remotely from the Internet2 office in Ann Arbor, MI, and provided critiques of the workshop participants’ lighting techniques. A mini-workshop on video streaming featured a side-by-side comparison of several codec models. Columbia University served as the remote site workshop participants connected to using the various codecs, with Alan Crosswell, Director for Networks and Computing Systems at Columbia, providing support remotely. An audio mini-workshop was hosted by Brian Shepard, Coordinator of Music Technology Programs at the University of Oklahoma School of Music. Dr. Shepard—a pioneer in the use of Internet2 to conduct master classes and performances with remote collaborators—guided workshop participants through microphone selection, microphone placement, and other audio techniques. On the second day of the workshop, participants had the opportunity to pull together all these elements—lighting, audio, and codecs—to set up their own simulated live event. According to Shepard, “The explosion of artistic and performance collaborations that are possible as a result of Internet2 advanced networks has created a huge need for people skilled in the creative uses of audio and video as well as networking technologies. By bringing together audio and video specialists as well as network engineers, this workshop goes a long way towards filling that need.”
Performance Production Workshop and
Music Education Symposium
Internet2
and the New World Symphony hosted
a two-day event, 28-29 March 2003, at the New World Symphony campus
on Miami Beach. The purpose of the event was to introduce educators
and technicians from major music schools to the power of high-performance
networking for distance education and music collaboration.
March 28 featured an Internet2 Performance Production Workshop designed primarily for technical personnel supporting schools of music and performing arts departments involved in producing live performances and music education events over Internet2. The focus was on performance production technologies designed to help members create successful multi-site, interactive, digital video/audio productions. Here are some presentations from this Workshop.
March 29 featured an Internet2 Music Education Symposium geared toward deans, presidents, administrators and faculty of schools of music. Michael Tilson Thomas, Artistic Director for the New World Symphony, talked about the New World Symphony's experience with distance education over Internet2. To demonstrate the power and potential of using Internet2 for real time interaction in music education, live demonstrations were presented, including several master classes with remote participants.
In addition, participants saw an encore presentation of USC's Integrated Media Systems Center 10.2 immersive audio demonstration that wowed the audience at the Internet2 fall 2002 performance event. This demo featured a previously captured performance by the New World Symphony streamed over Internet2 networks in better-than-broadcast quality, high-definition digital video projected on a specially made 30 by 17 foot screen and 10.2 multichannel immersive audio.
The two-day event culminated on Saturday evening, 29 March 2003, with a reception and a live New World Symphony concert at the Lincoln Theatre conducted by Maestro Thomas.
International Association of Language Learning Technologies
Ann Doyle, Internet2 Program Manager for Arts & Humanities Initiatives
made a presentation on Distance Learning using Internet2 at the
IALLT conference, “Connecting with a Diverse World,”
took place 17-21 June 2003 at the University of Michigan. The International
Association of Language Learning Technologies (IALLT) is a professional
organization whose members provide leadership in the development,
integration, evaluation and management of instructional technology
for the teaching and learning of language, literature and culture.
Every two years IALLT hosts an international conference where several
hundred members meet to share experiences and learn more about administering
language learning technology programs.
Extending Outreach for Museums:
Visual Thinking Strategies
Utilizing
Internet2 high-performance networks, the Hammer
Museum on the campus of University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) launched a pilot program in collaboration with an elementary
school and academic technology research units at both MIT and UCLA. Visual Thinking
Strategies (VTS) provides a learner-centered approach to art
education for both school and museum-based art instruction. VTS
employs a discussion facilitation approach that encourages careful
looking and critical thinking, and supports a group's ability to
communicate and build on shared ideas. Students look together at
a work of art and voice ideas and responses to it, while the teacher/facilitator
paraphrases comments, asks for evidence, and links thoughts.
During VTS training, elementary teachers participated in lively discussions with a distant VTS mentor as they refined their understanding and techniques. Work with the teachers was so successful that museum educators in the project hope the VTS and the high-speed network can soon be used together with elementary students as well to foster active engagement with images and distant partners. VTS and distance learning over Internet2 networks have the potential to extend outreach for museums, beyond collection and exhibition access.
VTS was created by Visual Understanding in Education (VUE), a non-profit research group. VTS has been continuously tested and improved over the last ten years at sites in the US, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. In the US several metropolitan areas have large VTS programs in place, including Boston, Minneapolis, San Antonio, and New York City. UCLA's Academic Technology Services was the facilitator for many of the technology-related aspects of this project, including providing the videoconferencing hardware and the network connections.
Click here to see a video clip of VTS Training in action. (Requires QuickTime.)
Conducting Master Class
.jpg) Photo by R. Andrew Lepley |
Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director for the New World Symphony, provides long-distance instruction to conducting student Donato Cabrera. Thomas was located in Miami and Cabrera in New York for this remote master class. |
The January/February 2002 issue of Symphony magazine features an article "The Next Big Step? Long-Distance Learning via Internet2" by Rebecca Winzenried. Winzenried provides an excellent overview of how Internet2 is making both large and small-scale collaborations possible within the performing arts community. In addition to comments from Ann Doyle, Internet2 Manager for Arts & Humanities Initiatives, the article features interviews with Brian Shepard, Coordinator of Music Technology programs at the University of Oklahoma School of Music; Tom Snook, Director of Information Technology at the New World Symphony; and Christianne Orto, Director of Recording and Videoconferencing for the Manhattan School of Music. Shepard is known throughout the Internet2 community as an early pioneer in using distance learning to give his students access to world-renowned instructors and performers. According to Shepard, "We're not at a crossroad where we have lots of world-class artists here on a regular basis. Part of my whole goal was to make connections with the artists who could work with our kids." Activities at the New World Symphony, the first orchestra to become an Internet2 member, are also described in the article and have included performances, conducting master classes, and other educational events. Manhattan School of Music has collaborated with both New World Symphony and University of Oklahoma for both performance and educational events, and is using distance-learning to keep students connected with faculty member Pinchas Zukerman.
An excerpt of this article can be found at: http://www.symphony.org/news/room/sym3.shtml.
Broadway Local
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| Photo courtesy of www.nycsubway.org, copyright David Pirmann |
"Broadway Local — Exploring The Nitty-Gritty of a Musical Theater Career and the Auditions It Takes to Have One" was multicast live from the Columbia University campus on January 29, 2002. A presentation of the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) Department of Recording and Videoconferencing in collaboration with their Internet2 Musical Theater Videoconference Program, this event was presented live to students and faculty at Weitzenhoffer Department of Musical Theater at the University of Oklahoma. Carolyn Marlow, MSM faculty member and Director for the American Musical Theater Ensemble used both performance and master class elements in presenting this interactive virtual medium. Ms. Marlow's students from the American Musical Theater Ensemble performed a segment of a musical revue written by Ms. Marlow called, "A Life in the Theater." This was followed by a master class session conducted by Ms. Marlow for two talented students from the University of Oklahoma Department of Musical Theater and MSM. The session concluded with a Q & A session open to students, faculty and audience members from the University of Oklahoma, Columbia University and Manhattan School of Music about the audition process for Broadway/Musical Theater. This program showcased innovative uses of Internet2 capabilities that combined various musical, dramatic, educational, and vocational components within a diverse and dynamic on-line, interactive educational format. Technologically, the program explored the Internet2 capabilities of high-fidelity stereo audio (CD-quality) and broadcast-quality video (MPEG-2) required by a musical genre that demands equal emphasis on both visual and audio aspects due to its musical and dramatic elements. This event was multicast using Internet Real streams and Cisco IPTV. Here is a complete Real stream archive of this event.
Cello Master Class
By using videoconferencing over high-performance networks, students can interact, in real-time, with some of the world's foremost master teachers of instrumental music. On 10 May 2001, University of Oklahoma School of Music cello student Erin Dunn had a master class with David Geber, Chairman of Strings at Manhattan School of Music. Without having to leave Oklahoma, Ms. Dunn was able to interact with Mr. Geber in real-time via the videoconferencing facilities at Columbia University in New York. The MPEG-2 videoconferencing equipment at Columbia and University of Oklahoma provides "broadcast quality" point-to-point and multipoint videoconferencing services at transmission speeds of 7 to 15 Mbps. This type of high speed transmission, with minimal network delay, allows the type of full-motion (30-frames per second) video and accurate representation of sound that make it feasible for musicians to collaborate from remote locations.
Members of the press were present to watch the demo. NY1 News featured the cello master class in their story Internet2 – The Sequel To The Internet. Columbia University provides this video (MPEG-1 rendering, 289 Mbps, 25:37) of the event. NY1 also featured this video clip (RealPlayer, 240 Kbps, 2:32) on their web page.
Internet2 would like to thank Brian Shepard (University of Oklahoma), Alan Croswell (Columbia University), and Christianne Orto (Manhattan School of Music) for making this demo possible.
Violin Master Class
On 8 December 2000, Maestro Pinchas Zukerman demonstrated violin teaching from Columbia University, New York City, using videoconferencing over high-performance networks. Maestro Zukerman´s student, Canada's exciting new violin talent Wu Jie, was located in Ottawa, Ontario. This event represented a multilateral international collaboration between leading arts, research and advanced networking institutions in both countries. Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University in collaboration with Internet2 partnered with National Arts Centre, National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and CANARIE —Canada's Advanced Internet Development Organization—to stimulate strategic international partnerships to ultimately ensure that learning, culture, and the musical arts play a preeminent role in the development of these advanced networks. Columbia University Press Release.
