Course: Group Piano
Instructor: Chen Wei, Clinical Assistant Professor of Arts, Group Piano
Students Enrolled: 42
Technology Used: NYU Zoom, Quicktime screen recording, WeChat groups, Google Drive Folders
Chen Wei usually teaches her Group Piano courses in NYU Shanghai’s piano studio, with students sitting in front of their own individual upright pianos while she demonstrates at her own instrument. A camera captures her hand positions and projects the image on a screen at the front of the classroom.
When Chen heard that NYU Shanghai would move to digital instruction two weeks before the start of the semester, she assumed that many in the class would drop out. It seemed like a class students would only want to take live. But only a handful withdrew. So with two weeks to the start of the semester, she set about recreating her live class online.
First, she sent out a survey to registered students to find out which time zones they were in and whether they had access to a keyboard or piano. 65% said they would need help procuring a practice keyboard. To solve that problem, Chen searched online and found a “handroll” piano that could be purchased for 200 RMB or less than US$30 on Taobao or Amazon. The NYU Shanghai Arts department offered to reimburse students for the “handroll” pianos after they returned to campus.
Chen quickly realized that she would need more than a single camera — since an effective piano class depended on students being able to see both her and her hand positions as she played. So she bought a tripod that she had seen YouTube stars use to film themselves at the piano, attached it to the music stand of her piano, and mounted her cellphone camera.
But how could she capture video of both herself and her hands?