Pilots
Renewing tradition
Technology tested
AMPLIFY PORTABLE
Description of pilot
The first stage of the project will see tutors deliver 6 sessions to around 10 participants working with up to 20 Fèisean- community-based Gaelic arts tuition festivals- to offer online learning opportunities using new technology for individuals, groupwork sessions and an exploration of a collaborative live performance.
Fèisean nan Gaidheal supports local Fèisean which offer regular traditional music tuition in 47 areas across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. With its additional music and Gaelic language teaching in schools, the organisation is active in over 300 Scottish communities.
Much of this is in remote rural areas where access to suitable tutors is limited and the costs of travel – financial, practical and environmental – prohibitive. AMPLIFY is an opportunity to explore a technological solution aimed at bringing people together in an AI-driven digital environment so that limited funds are used to support artists and young people’s learning, rather than travel.
Our goal
- Research how to remove barriers for people in rural communities unable to access regular traditional music tuition;
- Devise and pilot interventions to overcome the problems of rurality in cultural education, maintaining social cohesion in rural communities, expanding cultural diversity and addressing the higher carbon use generated currently by people having to travel to access cultural activities;
- Experiment with the bringing together of artists from a number of locations who will prepare for live performance, promoting collaboration without the financial and carbon costs of this kind of work experienced currently while preparing for in-person experiences;
- Curate a performance, bringing together musicians in a remote location with those in the Highlands of Scotland at the annual Blas Festival, enabling collaboration with artists in other countries and creating synergies between audiences and artists from different countries which share elements of the Scottish Gaelic culture Fèisean nan Gàidheal promotes;
- Inform future activities and planning taking account of the learning enabled by AMPLIFY.
Challenges
During the pandemic, Fèisean nan Gàidheal turned to existing video-conference platforms, such as Zoom, to continue its work and sustain social connections between young people. This proved the viability and value of remote learning to the Fèisean, but also revealed its limitations. Some of these (e.g. unreliable access to high-speed internet in remote rural areas) are general but others, especially latency, time-lag or noise-cancellation (useful for conference call but horrible for music) are intrinsic to the practice of music. The resolution of these problems is not yet in sight, but it is possible to make incremental improvements, both in the technology itself and how musicians use it to serve their needs. This is what AMPLIFY’s Scotland pilot aims to achieve in answering the research question: How can digital technology enable musicians in remote locations to learn and create together in real-time?
The technological solution
AMPLIFY PORTABLE will provide an easy-to-use, low-cost digital tool to enable professional and nonprofessional musicians (especially young people), to learn, rehearse and perform together from different locations.
It will connect, for example, a group of pibroch or fiddle students in a school on the island of South Uist, with a tutor in Fort William or Glasgow, or musicians in Scotland with peers in Ireland or Cape Breton (Canada, where Gaelic culture has been strong since the 19th century).
The AMPLIFY tool will be as easy to use as Zoom or Skype, but better in quality and functionality (AI-driven audio and video mixing, guaranteeing the audio quality needed for musical experiences). It will seamlessly accommodate people sharing one room or alone, using the same or different devices, and manage sound accordingly. It will provide new possibilities for collaboration through functionalities such as recording and reviewing, so participants are able to listen back, discuss and improve. It will also provide tutors with the tools they need to run a group session, such as having the sound from various sources synced and allow them to focus on one musician’s playing during a group lesson. Our goal is to support playing together, so we will aim for the lowest possible latency, but this is not wholly under our control, since it depends on the underlying network. In situations when latency is too high, we will research alternative methods and musical practices to ensure a satisfying collaborative experience (such as recording and playing alongside).
Fèis: A celebration of Gaelic culture, where generations connect through music, song, and drama—nurturing creativity, preserving heritage, and inspiring futures in the arts and beyond.
