VEMUS - Virtual European Music School
VEMUS will create a music tuition environment equipped with advanced tools for automatic performance evaluation and feedback, for collaborative learning and group activities, and for distance learning.
- Strategic objective: Strengthening the Integration of the ICT research effort in an Enlarged Europe
- Project type: Specific targeted research project (STREP)
- Start date: 1 October 2005
- Duration: 36 months
- EU funding: 1 813 000
- Number of partners: 8
- Project coordinator: Institute for Language and Speech Processing/ILSP, Athens, Greece
- Contact: Mr. George Tambouratzis
The project team aims at building a highly interactive and networked music practising environment for popular wind instruments such as the flute, the clarinet, the saxophone and the trumpet. VEMUS seeks to put e-learning in the forefront of the music tuition agenda by smoothly blending technology with traditional face-to-face lessons and by developing the technological basis and a set of innovative, pedagogically-motivated tools to support different learning contexts:
- Self-practicing at home will be supported by automatic performance assessment and rich feedback complemented by informative and meaningful visualisations of different aspects of a musical performance that will make music practising much more effective and fun.
- For practising in groups or in the music classroom, VEMUS will develop innovative assistance tools to support collaborative learning and practising activities that enhance the students' learning experience and link teaching in the classroom with studying at home.
- A distance learning platform will extend collaboration facilities to virtual classes through the Internet. The platform will offer a content repository, communication and progress monitoring tools, and set the ground for a virtual meeting, practising and remote coaching site.
The project will build on the knowledge and results of the IMUTUS project (FP5) that delivered an efficient self-practicing environment for the recorder, offering clear evidence of the strong potential of the concept and approach. VEMUS will largely extend the pedagogical and technological basis of IMUTUS to cover additional popular instruments, additional learning environments, and enhanced pedagogical scenarios.
The VEMUS partnership includes eight organisations from six countries, three of which are new EU Member States or Associated Candidate Countries. VEMUS adopts a strongly user-centred approach, with user groups actively involved throughout the lifetime of the project: from requirements, to field-tests, thorough evaluation activities, and more.