PRE/LUDE – Your Music Stepping Stone

PRE/LUDE is a music learning app that not only teach basic music theory, but hones a beginner's passion for music.

PRE/LUDE  – Your Music Stepping Stone

Problem Statement
e-Learning applications are an appropriate platform to teach lessons. ‘Prelude’ is a mobile application that uses an effective interface and easy to follow lessons to teach basic music theory.

Process
When brainstorming for this assignment, our team ensured to clarify our goals in order to achieve them. We asked ourselves two personal questions, which each individual member answered:
- What is the best way you learn?
- What is the reason why you delete certain applications? Which problems can you point out and how would you solve these problems?

Answering these questions, we each came up with unified problem statements, which are the following:
- The best way you learn is through visual flow and easy to read body content.
- Most applications are deleted because of their complications and their difficult navigation system that can often confuse users. This can be fixed by breaking down content and finding its commonalities.

With these problem statements and solutions, our team was able to find a purpose and a goal to achieve an effective e-Learning application.

We then set out to do research, starting with visiting one of Calgary’s music spot gems: The National Music Centre. The NMC is the first national cultural institution dedicated to music in Canada, whether it be through Canadian-made instruments or homegrown artists. It celebrates Canadian music in all forms and have various interactive sections throughout the museum. These include exhibits such as: (1) Plugged In - where you get to explore electronic instruments paired with an interactive tutorial. (2) Soundbox - which let you build and explore the creation of musical instruments through everyday objects. (3) Bodyphonic - which can played with pitch and timbre using the movement of your body. These exhibits helped us discover and inspire the structure of our eLearning application.

The topic that will be discussed is the basics of music theory through an e-learning platform. The rudimentary elements of music theory are boiled down to the ability to read and understand sheet music, rhythm, scales, and chords.  

The target audience consists of men and women ages 15-21. This is the age group that are highly influenced in regards to developing musical sensibility and memory training. Since this eLearning application is intended for beginners and adolescence, we plan to invest in developing fun and exciting features that will engage learners in numerous possible ways, thereby strongly grabbing the audience’s attention.

The word prelude means an introductory piece of music. That is why we decided to name our application PRE/LUDE, reflecting the application’s purpose to be an introduction to music theory. PRE/LUDE is a music learning app that does not only teach basic music theory, but more importantly, hones a beginners passion for music. While building the application, we kept music at our core and put ourselves in the shoes of a beginner.
Logo
The logo was created as a main building block for various visual elements throughout the app. The rectangle is a nod to dimensions of a piece of paper, symbolizing sheet music. This then includes a ‘/’ mark, which refers to the slash found in the applications name.
The Interface
The application is broken down into two simple sections: Sessions and Assessment. By breaking the app down to these two sections, we were able to achieve an easy-to-understand application. The Sessions tab is what the user is greeted upon opening the app and will be the home of the lessons. Assessment tab, on contrary, evaluates the user's knowledge and understanding of the material.
Reading Sheet Music – This module introduces all the elements related to reading and interpreting sheet music. It describes all the symbols that you see on sheet music and clarifies their use and purpose. By the end of this module, the audience will have a solid understanding of all the elements on the page and how to read notes.
Rhythm – Focuses on performance and illustrates how to play notes rhythmically. The timing of notes will be explained. After completing this module, the user will understand how to play in time and recognize the number of seconds within selected bars or measures.
Scales – This module teaches an efficient practice method with the application of scales. Incorporating scales into practice will increase beginner’s experience in playing several notes quickly and understand the fingering on instruments.
Chords  – After practicing scales and multiple different notes, the audience will learn how to apply chords when playing music. 
Music Theory – This is the final module and contains content that will ensure that the audience is on the right track and understands proper music convention.
Photo: “IMG_0187” by cbcmemberphotos2477 , used under CC BY 2.0
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