For more than 10 years, Duolingo has been helping folks to learn a new language with ad-supported mini lessons designed to be fun and engaging. Now the company is taking its gamified model to music education.
The Duolingo language learning platform is available online or through an app and is free to use (with ads) or through a monthly subscription. Its animated characters will help learners to navigate more than 40 languages, where they are challenged to translation exercises, quizzes and stories and are rewarded with game points for success.
Duolingo's upcoming Music package is expected to launch with more than 200 "fun and familiar tunes" in its learning library across hundreds of lessons and interactive exercises "that empower learning though doing."
Students will be taught to read notes, play simple songs and dive into music theory via short game-like lessons. It's not clear at this stage whether the modules will be aimed at beginners only or designed to take learners through intermediate and beyond.
The screenshots revealed so far show that learning will follow the new unit-based path structure implemented last year where animated characters will guide learners through such things as note-matching and "fill in the blanks" exercises, similar points and rewards systems will be in place and leader boards will also add a competitive feel.
"Our mission is to develop the best education and make it universally available. Now, everyone with an interest in music can learn the fundamentals at no cost, all in Duolingo’s playful, motivating format," said the company's Director of Engineering, New Subjects, Vanessa Jameson.
Duolingo began its new multi-subject journey by adding an elementary math package for youngsters and brain-training exercise for adults last year. More detailed information on the new music curriculum will be revealed at the Duocon conference on October 11.
Source: Duolingo
