Vocaloid is the popular singing voice synthesizer that is perhaps best known as the software that provides the voice for the well-known virtual pop star Hatsune Miku. Although this powerful voice synthesizer has primarily been used to create fun pop songs, recently, a Japanese company began using Vocaloid as part of a study program intended to help students master some of the trickier ideas and concepts that are covered in junior high.
Released in April of 2016, the first installment of the “MUSIC STUDY PROJECT Remember with Vocalo” (“bokaro de oboeru“) series consists of two books, one that covers junior high level history and one that covers junior high level science. Each volume (sold seperately) comes with 10 Vocaloid songs with lyrics specifically designed to help junior high school students learn some of the more important points in history and science. Also, purchasing one of these study guides grants you access to the online music videos for each ot hese songs. These videos are also designed to facilitate learning.
The two latest installments of this interesting series of study guides focus on English vocabulary and math respectively. They were released late last month (Feb 24) and much like the first two volumes, each of these guides comes with 10 educational Vocaloid songs.
The English vocabulary edition claims to contain about 1300 English words and phrases. Meanwhile, the math version claims to cover three years worth of the trickiest parts of junior high school math.
If you’d like to get an idea of what this study program is like, then check out some of the videos below. The first is a video for a song called “Happy Synthesizer.” It is one of the 10 songs used in the English vocabulary edition.
A video of “Ippatsu Sokuto Kai Girl” (“Gets it Right in One Try Immediate Answer Solution Girl”), a song from the math edition can be found below.
A compilation of samples from all 20 songs used in the English and math versions can be found below.
Finally, if you would like to check out the songs used in the history and science editions, then watch the video below. This video also features a compilation of short samples of the 20 songs used in the first two editions of these books.
These books can be purchased in bookstores all across Japan. However, you can also order them from Amazon Japan for 1728 yen (US$15.17) each. Links are provided below.
Music Study Project English Vocabulary
Music Study Project Math
Music Study Project Science
Music Study Project History
Source: ICT Kyoiku News
