Emerging Technologies for
the Music Classroom
by James Frankel
Over
this past summer, I had the opportunity to attend and present a session at the
Second Annual National Symposium for Music Instruction Technology at the Center
for Music Research at Florida State University. While certainly not the largest symposium I have ever
attended (16 sessions over two days) it was by far one of the most
valuable. There
was a great variety of technology and research showcased by presenters from
around the country, and what made this symposium so valuable was that each of
the presenters focused on the application of the technolgy in the music
classroom. The following is a quick look at some of the most exciting
technology that is quickly emerging in music classrooms across the country
today.
An Interactive Website for
the Music Classroom
If you havenÕt
already, you must sign up with notationstation.com to get your free interactive music lesson webpage. The PC platform has been up since May,
and the Mac version was just opened in July. This amazing website allows teachers to post music theory
assignments of all types using the free MusicTime software that you can
download when you register as a member.
Students can then log on at school or at home and complete the
assignment that you give them. The
site even keeps track of student progress. Uploading your content to the site is quite easy. You simply construct your assignment
using the MusicTime software, and then, through a comprehensive guide which the
site provides, upload it to your site.
Teachers can have a different page for each of their classes, so you can
customize the exercises for each class.
If you are looking for a relevant and easy application of the internet
in your classroom, I strongly recommend starting with this one.
Building Your Own
Interactive Website for the Music Classroom
For those of you who are a little more techno-literate and
interested in creating your own interactive assessment using the power of the
internet, check out CourseBuilder, an
add-on to MacromediaÕs powerful web authoring software Dreamweaver. Programming
assessment activities using only ordinary HTML language, and even the more easy
to use programming software titles like Adobe PageMill or MicrosoftÕs FrontPage takes quite a bit of time for even the most experienced
web programmers. With the release
of CourseBuilder, Macromedia has made
creating assessment activities quite easy. The software allows the user to choose from a number of
different types of question formats.
Multiple-choice and true/false questions are very easy to create, and
the software gives many options for feedback. Along with the traditional types of questions, the software
also allows students to enter written responses to questions, and a wonderful
feature called drag-and-drop, which allows the students to click on an item, be
it a picture or text item, and drag it to the proper location. There is also a timer function which
forces the students to respond in a short period of time. Another powerful
feature of the software is record-keeping which allows the teacher to keep
track of student progress.
The
software itself, which requires that you also have Dreamweaver, is a
bit pricey (approx. $400). If you
would like to preview the software before you buy it, try logging on to www.macromedia.com/software/coursebuilder/trial/
which will allow you to download a 30-day trial version of the software for
free.
Online Music Lessons
I
must admit that at first I was a bit skeptical of the online music lesson
concept, but after seeing it first hand, IÕm a believer. There are a number of websites that are
currently up an running that allow teachers (piano teachers only at this point
in time) to give ÒliveÓ online piano lessons to students anywhere in the
world. Perhaps the most
established of these sites is onlineconservatory.com. This site
has approximately 20 piano teachers who give piano lessons over the internet
using a MIDI keyboard, a web cam, and video-conferencing software. The
online lesson that I observed at the symposium ran smoothly, and I was quite
suprised with the Òreal-timeÓ feel of the lesson. The teacher, in Florida, was teaching a sixteen-year-old in
Oklahoma. The student had been
working on a prepared etude, and played it live over the internet. On the teacherÕs monitor there was a
live video feed of the student at the keyboard and more importantly, a graphic
representation of a piano keyboard.
When the student played a middle C in Oklahoma, the middle C on the
keyboard graphic in Florida lit up simultaneously and the MIDI keyboard hooked
up to the computer also played a middle C. When the student pressed the sustain pedal, the sustain
pedal on the screen lit up, and the MIDI keyboard also responded. The student played through the etude,
and the entire piece could be seen and heard, everything including student
posture and hand position. Quite impressive.
The
site is still free at this point, and payment is arranged via credit card. The student and the teacher set up their
own payment fee and schedule. The
student pays with a credit card, and the teacherÕs credit card is
credited. Imagine, a zero balance!
Using Your Computer as an
Accompanist
While
certainly not a replacement for your accompanist, especially in a performance
situation, SmartMusic from Coda
Software is an extremely valuable tool for students when practicing. With over 1,200 compositions available
for vocalists and instrumentalists to choose from, SmartMusic is an intelligent accompanist that actually follows the
soloist.
Have
you ever prepared a solo piece for months and then when you finally get
together with your accompanist the week before a performance, the piece sounded
completely different? Or perhaps
your interpretation would have been different if you had heard what the piano
played during your rests. Although
it would be wonderful to have an accompanist play with you from the very first
day you sit down to learn the solo, itÕs a luxury most cannot afford.
What
SmartMusic does is quite simple. It allows you to choose the piece you
would like to perform, and then, with a microphone that comes with the
software, you sing or play along with the MIDI generated accompaniment. What makes this software ÒintelligentÓ
is itÕs ability to recognize when you are slowing down, or speeding up. It is able to do this because the
microphone acts as a pitch-to-MIDI converter, which then signals to the
computer when a change in tempo occurs.
The software also allows the user to focus on a difficult passage. By using the loop feature, combined
with the adjustable tempo, a student can spend as much time as they need on a
given passage, without any complaints from the accompanist.
This
software has been around for some time now, but in the past, one needed to
purchase the Vivace system, which is a
piece of hardware that acts as the pitch-to-MIDI converter. This system was quite expensive. Now all one needs to buy is SmartMusic
($79 - $119) and of course each
composition is sold separately (@ $10).
When compared with the expense of hundreds of hours of accompanist fees,
it more than pays for itself.
Technolgy in the Orff
Schulwerk Approach
Former Tempo contributor Marilyn Davidson presented a
wonderful session on how to incorporate technology in to the Orff Schulwerk
approach. In the Share the
Music series from McGraw-Hill, which Ms.
Davidson is the coordinating author of, there is a new Music with MIDI series. This wonderful supplemental series of
lessons for Grades 1 through 6 combines the Orff Schulwerk philosophy of music
education with the power of technology.
Although
there are now MIDI Orff instruments, which are almost as expensive as
traditional Orff instruments, the Music with MIDI stays away from them and focuses more on student created Orff
orchestrations. For example, using
the song Frere Jacques, the students
would sing along with the MIDI generated full accompaniment supplied on the
MIDI sequencer. They would follow
that by singing the pentatonic scale in F, and realize that B flat is not in
the pentatonic scale. Students
would then select the melody track and the Ònew melodyÓ track on the sequencer
by clicking on the SOLO option.
Students would listen carefully to how the Ònew melodyÓ relates to the
original. Students would then turn
off the Ònew melodyÓ and create their own melody. Students choose which instrument they would like to play
their melody. After composing
their melody, they would play it along with the full orchestration and discuss
how it fits in the overall piece.
Along
with the MIDI sequencing aspect of the lessons, a teacher can also use some
other commercially available tutorial software titles like MusicAce 2, MIDIsaurus, and MusicTime
Lessons. A great deal of thought has gone into the creation of this
technology based curriculum, and I strongly urge you to get a sample copy, and
look through it for yourself.
Next summer, look for the Third Annual National Symposium for Music Instruction Technology at Auburn University in Alabama. If you are at all inetersted in how technology can help you teach music, itÕs worth the trip.