Will Artificial Intelligence Spell the End of High-Quality Violin Pedagogy?

By Thomas Wolf

When it comes to instrumental teaching, tradition is generally celebrated. Musicians trumpet their bona fides by listing distinguished teachers who themselves studied with legendary pedagogues. One of my flute teachers, William Kincaid, studied with Georges Barrere who himself was a product of the 19th century Paris Conservatoire. My other teacher, Marcel Moyse, also traced his lineage back to Paul Taffanel at the Conservatoire and used Taffanel studies as part of his instructional arsenal.

Conversely, innovation in instrumental pedagogy is often viewed with suspicion. When Shinichi Suzuki developed his revolutionary method for teaching violin in the mid-twentieth century, many top teachers dismissed it as useless; some even said it was damaging to young players. Nor had the debate died down more than fifty years later. In 2014, superstar violinist Mark O’Connor criticized the method and made personal attacks about Suzuki himself, claiming he had fabricated much of his biography.

A violin instructional group. According to one criticism, a significant amount of group teaching too early encourages students to develop bad habits that would get eradicated much earlier through individual instruction. Another claims group instruction prevents students from developing their own unique voice. Source/credit: Stilfehler, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

My grandmother, Lea Luboshutz, a professor of violin at the Curtis Institute of Music, lived long enough to view the rise of the Suzuki method with alarm. Her criticism centered around the idea that beginning students were attempting to learn the subtleties of violin technique by playing together in large groups. There were two problems with this according to her. “Each student is different,” she would say, “and each needs his or her own individual instruction at the beginning. The more students learn in small groups, the more their bad habits will be reinforced.” She also felt that young people must develop their own voice and expressiveness as early as possible, not become automatons imitating some imagined ideal.

Despite the fact that the debate about the Suzuki method still flames up on occasion, it has long proven effective and has silenced most of its critics, helping millions of youngsters master not only the violin but other instruments as well. Symphony orchestras today are full of players who were “Suzuki students” and even some soloists began their studies with the Suzuki method, including superstar violinist Hilary Hahn.

“Hilary Hahn began her great violin journey as an almost-four-year-old Suzuki student who went to Saturday group classes at the Peabody Institute’s Suzuki program in Baltimore,” reported an interviewer in 2020. “‘That was such a positive situation for me, and I think it's a good way for anyone to start an instrument,’” she said. Hahn has even recorded Books 1, 2, and 3 of the Suzuki method for use by teachers and students.

Superstar violinist, Hilary Hahn, began her studies as a Suzuki student and endorses the method. Source/credit: Quincena Musical, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The debate about the Suzuki method may have died down by the turn of the century, but another revolution in instruction—teaching over the internet—emerged at about that time and many established teachers originally viewed it with concern.

I had an opportunity to view one of the first high profile lessons given remotely at the New World Symphony in Miami. Pinchas Zukerman was teaching remotely via what was then a revolutionary new technology called Internet2. The system had enough broadband capacity to transmit huge quantities of data, including CD-quality sound and DVD-quality images, at as much as 250 megabytes per second (more than 4,000 times the rate of a standard dial-up modem; more than 800 times that of a cable modem). At a subscription cost of $12,000, few music organizations could afford it.

As impressive as the demonstration was, some felt it was more of a stunt than a serious glimpse of the future and many traditionalists claimed it was absurd to believe such teaching could replace in-person instruction.

By 2004, the system caught the attention of the New York Times and an article appeared about how classical music instruction had successfully emerged on the internet. The article described Carter Brey, principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic, and Stephen Geber, formerly of the Cleveland Orchestra and at that time a member of the Cleveland Institute of Music faculty, teaching a masterclass of young cellists in Miami on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. They taught remotely, utilizing the power of Internet2.

Innovative as it was at the time and much as it depended on expensive specialized technology, a mere two decades later, teaching over the internet was commonplace and, for anyone who had a modem, and a Zoom account, it was basically free. Such instruction got a special boost during the COVID-19 pandemic when all instrumental teaching was forced to go online. Not only were lessons being given to youngsters just starting out, but conservatory students were forced to learn via the internet given the fact that their schools were shuttered. Today such teaching is commonplace at all levels.

A child learning violin via the internet. Such teaching and learning became ubiquitous during the COVID pandemic and now is considered quite acceptable as a teaching approach. Source/credit: famveld / Alamy Stock Photo.

Matthew Garcia, who taught himself how to play the viola on the internet and became sufficiently proficient to play with many competitive ensembles. Source:/credit: Matthew Garcia.

The internet not only aided students who were required to self-isolate during COVID. Consider the case of Matthew Garcia, a student who in the sixth grade wanted to learn to play the viola so he could participate in his school instrumental ensemble. Unfortunately, he did not have access to a viola teacher in his small Texas town. So ever resourceful and utilizing YouTube, he taught himself how to play the instrument and became proficient enough not only to play in his school ensemble, but later in Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra, and after that in the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra where he had matriculated as a college student.

The experience led him to form a nonprofit with friends that would match volunteer professional musicians with students like himself who did not have access to in-person teachers but could secure such pedagogy via the internet. Matthew told his story in a TED talk in 2022.

Today there is another innovation in violin teaching that is sure to fire up concern. A team at the University of Maryland (UMD) has received almost a million dollars from the US National Science Foundation (USNSF) to study the possible application of artificial intelligence to violin pedagogy. According to an abstract describing the work that began in September of 2023:

Irina Muresanu, the violinist member of the University of Maryland team exploring the potential role of artificial intelligence in violin pedagogy. Source/credit: Irina Muresanu.

“… this project develops a prototype AI system that acts as a virtual assistance to violin students, teachers, and supervising parents, and like a human teacher it also provides explanations. This is accomplished through two unique components: 1) a feedback system that provides advice based on visual and auditory analysis and causal relationships of errors, i.e., why a movement error caused non-ideal sound; and 2) assignment of educational materials specific to the students based on the perceptual evaluation and a corpus of recorded materials.”

The violinist member of the research team at UMD is concert violinist Irina Muresanu who, in addition to her international concertizing, serves on the University faculty.. She is key in ensuring the prototyped instruction is based on time-tested practice.

Again, quoting from the USNSF abstract:

“The technical work involves the collection of multi-modal data from violin players, the development of machine learning algorithms for analyzing the players’ performance, the recording and curation of a corpus of educational music pieces from videos and created sheet music, the design of a gamified user interface, and feedback instructions. The combination of developed AI software, data collected through observation of violin students, and the music corpuses to be digitized, recorded, and categorized constitute a major step forward into the 21st century for the field of music pedagogy and innovation of tools for studying human motor learning through perception.”

There is an obvious question that arises from this description. Is violin instruction being put through a straight-jacket, a one-size-fits-all approach? On the other hand, if someone has few opportunities to secure a well-trained individual teacher, isn’t the idea of a virtual teacher modeling best practices an important option?

Additionally, since learning involves practice without a teacher, isn’t the idea of a virtual mentor a real boon to learning? Think of Matthew Garcia’s struggles to learn the viola without access to a teacher in rural Texas and his ultimate decision to teach himself using information from the internet. The UMD approach, if successful, has the potential to be a preferable option.

All too often, our judgments about the merits of new approaches to instrumental pedagogy are based on the ideal of someone becoming a professional musician. We read the biographies of superstars and assume that the way they studied their instruments is the best way for everyone. But such thinking may well miss the point. Sure, it is wonderful to have access to exceptional individual instruction—promulgated by highly trained professionals at top conservatories who turn out superb instrumentalists who become great performers. But isn’t it just as important that millions of others will experience the joy of playing an instrument by securing good instruction delivered in any way possible?

A student in the Play On Philly program where Steven Holochwost conducted research showing the positive impact of studying an instrument and academic achievement and executive functions. Source/credit: David DeBalko, 2018.

And indeed, for those non-professionals, there may be other benefits to instrumental study that go well beyond simple enjoyment. We know from research that studying an instrument has all kinds of ancillary positive outcomes from childhood through old age. A 2017 study by Dr. Steven Holochwost [1] of WolfBrown showed the positive relationship between studying a musical instrument and improved performance on measures of academic achievement and executive functions. The rigorous research involved 265 school-age children (Grades 1 through 8, 58 percent female and 86 percent African American) who were selected by lottery to participate in an out-of-school program called Play On Philly that offered individual- and large-ensemble training on orchestral instruments.

We also know from the largest survey of classical music audiences in the last half century—the Classical Music Consumer Segmentation Study conducted by Audience Insight in the year 2000—that one of the strongest predictors of adult attendance at classical music events is whether individuals played instruments or sang in a choir as youngsters. Shouldn’t we be encouraging instrumental study, however it is delivered, if it is going to increase audience numbers at concerts?

Seniors playing piano. Such activity can sustain good memory and the ability to solve complex problems. Source/credit: Arlington County on Flickr, with CC license.

As with youngsters, so too are there benefits for older people studying and playing instruments. The BBC recently proclaimed that “practising and reading music may help sustain good memory and the ability to solve complex tasks.” This claim was based on a study in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry asserting that “playing a musical instrument was associated with significantly better performance in working memory and executive function.”

Indeed, if we could get past our notion that the most successful outcome in studying an instrument is that of becoming a professional performer and acknowledge that there are other results that are equally fruitful, we can consider the multiple routes to gaining proficiency. In this formulation, artificial intelligence, like the Suzuki method and teaching over the internet, can clearly play a positive role.

[1] May 2017, Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts 11(2):147-166.

Will Artificial Intelligence Spell the End of High-Quality Violin Pedagogy?

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