Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Music Commission launched on Wednesday the Virtual Music Academy, the first virtual academy available to students from across the Kingdom and other parts of the world.

The academy will offer beneficiaries music training programs in Arabic and Western instruments by default online through various teaching methodologies including visual broadcasting (pre-recorded video), VR and augmented reality learning.

The academy's programs will be implemented in four phases: the first phase to measure the effectiveness of the virtual education methodology used and it will be launched by the commission in September for three months. During the first phase 4 different courses will be offered to 120 trainees.

The academy targets creative musicians and professionals specializing in the future music industry.

The academy relies on virtual education through a combination of self-education and direct education, by learning from best practices of self-learning models along with the best lessons learned from direct distance education models. Also, the academy will look into the best VR and augmented reality technologies to become the first academy in the world to use this technique to teach music remotely.