The classroom may look vastly different, but that is not stopping students from learning about music.

Pencils are still in use as students are swapping instruments for desks in class, but many of Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute's music classes are going on with the show.

"We are building the individual musician," Music Director Tim Taves says. 

Due to the inability to play and sing together, the teachers had to "completely reinvent" their classes.

mbci music classSwapping stands for desks, music education classrooms look different for the Christian school. (Screenshot: Zoom)

"Music is really a rich subject. There is so much to teach and learn even if you are not producing it in a performance environment," music teacher Andrew Klassen says.

The use of classroom time is also quite different. Unable to practice together, the student's teachers are making use of the time to focus on other music skills.

"In class, we work on a number of things that will make them better musicians," Taves says.

MBCI students are focussing on oral skills as part of their sharpening of skills. The teachers say they will even put the shape of soundwaves up, and students will know what it sounds like by seeing it.

"Musical expression is a really big part of students' lives," Klassen says. "It is how many of them find an outlet for expressing themselves. As a Christian school, we can use music in a huge way to represent our faith. It is part of our identity." 

Now that students are singing and playing their instruments alone at home instead of in an assembly, their teachers decided to use similar instruction methods to what they did when Manitoba schools went virtual in the spring.

Recording their individual parts at home, the teachers are combining the student's work together to create one joint piece of music. While it may take a lot of time to do, the instructors say it is worth it.

"There are a lot of silver linings... for me teaching is about building relationships with students through my discipline," Taves says. "The fact that we are diving into some things we may not would have had time for, we can spend a lot more time doing this like using technology to learn."

While music class required more work on the part of everyone, MBCI is motivated to continue learning.