Teacher finds unique way to create virtual concert

Andrea Reno, a music teacher at Mater Christi and St. Madeleine Sophie schools, scoured online music forums and Facebook interest groups in hopes of finding a way to better connect with her students outside of the classroom.

Then, inspiration struck from her husband, Dr. Timothy Reno, associate dean of Liberal Arts and associate professor of Creative Arts at Siena college, when he began collecting video re­cordings of students singing to be mixed together as one collective ensemble.

As schools transitioned to online curriculums, classes in the arts field were left to find alternate measures to connect with students due to the restraints of the online tools.

“Google Zoom or FaceTime or any of the video conferencing — it doesn’t really work for ensemble music making because of the lag, and so it ends up a big jumble,” Reno said.

So Reno tasked her third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students to learn new music at home. By listening to a practice track and then recording themselves singing, Reno would use GarageBand, a music creation studio program, to turn each voice into one collective virtual choir concert.

“I sent them a practice track, so they had to listen, and I sent them instructions like, ‘Just listen the first few times; don’t try this thing at once, so your brain can really absorb everything. Listen and read the lyrics but don’t sing.’

“And then after doing that so many times — to try to sing along and to practice every day — they learned that remotely.”

While listening to a practice track, students heard Reno’s voice counting down, instructing them when to press record on a second device. Before students sang, they were instructed to clap, creating a heightened sound wave for Reno to use as a guideline for stacking each student’s voice in unison.

“So it had my voice superimposed at the beginning, and then in their ear buds, they’re hearing the sound of their part and they sing along with the recording device only picking up their part,” Reno said.

She then added students’ photos sent in from parents, that were used in iMovie, an app that lets the user create dramatic videos, which garnered an unexpected reaction.

“I’ve had more people tell me that it made them cry than I was expecting or even more compared to a normal school concert,” Reno said. “That was really special because a lot of people are experiencing being at home right now and things are different.”

Reno says curating a concert online benefited the students just as much.

“There’s been studies about participating in music in childhood. It creates connections in the brain that can’t be made as efficiently or to the same degree if done later and it can benefit all areas of learning,” Reno said.

In a recent study at MIT, scientists note that music sensitivity may be more fundamental to the human brain than speech perception. “There are theories that music is older than speech or language,” according to one study.

“As a music educator, I believe that the arts are an important part of the human experience and beneficial to many aspects of development; music is an important part of education for the whole child,” Reno said. “This does not stop even though we are not currently physically together in school.”

The students at Mater Christi School sang, “We Won’t Stop Dreaming” while the St.  Madeleine Sophie students sang, “The Dreamer in Me” both by Pinkzebra. Reno chose the songs because of their relevance during these times.

“This message really does fit in; that it’s hopeful. It was talking about doing things in a new way, and that it was our time. I liked the message of continuing to dream,” Reno said.

“I think, especially for children, we have to look for the silver lining or as Mr. Rogers would say, ‘Look for the helpers’ and that fits with that positive message.”