In the field related to music and the music industry that folks are calling XR-AR, VR, and MR are all collectively called XR. That’s your new-fangled bucket for immersive experiences. AR being Augmented Reality, VR being Virtual Reality, MR being Mixed Reality. XR is eXtended Reality, and it is a catch-all for the terms you hear — AR, VR, and MR.
They each have nuances. Augmented reality seeks to bring a connectivity between digitally generated images and your real world. It’s not about putting headsets on. It’s about bringing digital images, or holograms, into your space via either a device or supported by some technology like glasses or contact lenses, which would enable you to see what are now projected digital forms in your physical, real environment.
Virtual reality is when you are putting on a device and immersing yourself inside of an entire, enclosed virtual space. While that virtual space may include real spaces, you are entirely inside that place with goggles on and moving yourself around as an entity, usually with some controller. There are also certain technologies where you might actually be the controller yourself.
MR is Mixed Reality, and it’s a way of picking from all sorts of the various pieces of new forms of technology that are coming out and trying to blend them in any kind of way that’s beyond the traditional means. Mixed reality is a blend of real-world environment and what a performer’s doing on stage onto the various screens and devices. If they’re not formally AR or VR, you’re projecting and combining audio and trying to synthesize it all together for the MR experience.
Hence AR, VR, and MR are the world of XR, and these are influencing music education and online music education in new and interesting ways than have ever been done before.