As with the post on artistic resources, a musician does not have access to the plethora of instruments, recording tools or practice space that a school’s music department can provide. To manage music instruction and opportunities for learning during the time schools are closed (and maybe beyond), below are listed a few sites that might help the home-bound musician or developing composer.

A virtual piano

Virtual Musical Instruments is exactly what the title suggests. The site offers a virtual guitar, piano, drums, pan flute, bongos and guitar tuner. You can chose and instrument and “play” notes and chords by using your keyboard or touch screen. While not recording room quality, it is enough to demonstrate and hear the differences between notes, chords and progressions. It looks to be a quick and virtual way to hear what “sounds good” and what notes would work together. It may even be enough to start your next great song.

In more a gamified approach, Chrome Music Lab offers a variety of hands on experiments to teach the concepts of everything from pitch to rhythm. Coupled with their Songmaker site, Google is offering methods of composing music on nothing but a browser.

For those operating on a more theory-etical level, Musictheory.net provides free lessons, exercises and tools to learn about and practice music theory. There would appear to be a great variety and depth that this site would appeal to a range of musician, from the dabbler to the dedicated.

Chord calculator from musictheory.net

The Khan Academy provides their services for the area of music as well as near every other subject. They provide all sorts of information for students to get their fix on the basics of playing, orchestral instruments and elements, and even a series of videos about famous pieces of music and their composers, including why they are important and connections to be made.