Teaching Tech: My home teaching setup

At the beginning of the semester, I was constantly fiddling with my tech setup at home to make it better and easier to get in and focus on the teaching. Now that it’s settled, I’m pretty happy with it. This video is a really quick overview of the software and hardware I’m using at home to teach my theory and composition courses remotely over Zoom. It is not a how-to, but a brief tour and demo of all the parts.

If folks are interested, I might do a little more detailed write-up or video on individual components now that everything is pretty much settled. Thanks to my friend and former theory prof. Leigh VanHandel for asking me to make this video and for sharing it with the Music Theory Pedagogy Interest Group at SMT 2020 1 this past weekend.

Hardware

iMac (27-inch, mid-2017)

LG 24-inch 4K monitor

iPad Pro (12.9-inch, 2018)

Apple Pencil 2

Elgato Stream Deck XL

Software

Mac

Open Broadcaster Software

Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard

AirServer

Loopback

Mainstage (This is the thing that makes sound from my keyboard.)

iPad

Goodnotes

That’s the Society of Music Theory, which is exactly as cool as it sounds. ↩