This is an offshoot from the trans-atlantic video conference classes in music theory and harmony. After analyzing the sessions Donner developed tools which would improve the usability of video conferences in music distance education. This is achieved by computer assisted solutions which are dedicated to the video conference medium.
While the regular sessions were live ear-training and harmony classes, this other line of work is a dialog between the teacher and developer. It gives the developer a chance to observe how the teacher utilizes the utility, which helps in speeding up the development cycle. The teacher gets a chance to make didactic improvement as the video documentation seems to reveal many errors to the observer.
Matti wrote down his comments and sent them in an email to the developer, who took these points into account in preparing the following version of the utility. After finishing the necessary number of rounds, the tool can again be exposed in the Trans-Atlantic session. Ultimately it will undergo rigorous testing in a number of test groups.
Matti Ruippo demonstrates use of the MIDI VC Assistant utility in a simulated harmony lesson where he compares use of a stack thirds with fourths. As Matti doesn't use a manuscript the contents of both sessions are similar, but not the same. At the end of the session he plays an example from notation created with Sibelius. The content is displayed with a web browser equipped with the Scortch plug in.
The sessions were produced with Tandberg 800 equipment at both end-points. Both recordings were made with Helix Producer and an Osprey 220 video capturing card. The video is half of the original size.