Learning to Play a Musical Instrument in Adulthood – Challenges and Computer-mediated Solutions

This article draws some directions in the field of music learning in adulthood, taking into account the constraints an adult has: a different style of assimilating new knowledge, less time to invest in hobbies, a lower availability to spend time on activities which don’t bring them visible profit. In order to meet the need of an adult to play a musical instrument, computer-mediated solutions are an easy and cost-effective method. Therefore, the authors present an application “Touch & Listen” which imitates 3 musical instruments- piano, steel drum and harp, by offering the users graphical interfaces similar to the real ones and sounds similar to the ones produced when playing those instruments. Also, the users have the possibility to record their compositions and replay them or retrieve similar fragments on web. The application was developed using Java technologies in university laboratories, thus proving the role of universities in enhancing and encouraging continuous education, as a form of fulfilling adults’ needs of self-development. The application can be used also as a composition instrument or as a search instrument: if the users can reproduce a small fragment from a song, they can easily find the entire song. A set of tests were made and positive results related to the efficiency of our tool for learning to play an instrument were registered.