Our school has a long tradition of teaching students to perform on the Gamelan and it is an excellent way for students to demonstrate their teamwork and communication skills. There was an on-going issue of how the students could practise these skills between lessons without access to the Gamelan instruments and how they could gain a deep understanding of the relationships between the different instruments within the group. A new free app ‘Virtual Javanese Gamelan’ was given to the students before starting the project and students were able to practise the piece ‘Lancaran Baitok Kandhas’ using all of the different Gamelan instruments before performing the piece as a class and to practise any parts they found challenging between lessons to allow us to spend more of the lesson concentrating on the group performance rather than individual practice.
The performance level and engagement from the students was noticeably better than in previous years thanks to the use of technology and the subsequent filming of the performances with the iPads has allowed students to evaluate their performances in much more detail and given them the opportunity to show their work to friends and family
Will H.
Steve Morgan Training 