SmartMusic
SmartMusic is an accompaniment program that allows students to play standard solo literature with a piano accompaniment. Students use the program to learn solos and have the opportunity to play with the piano part so they can learn the songs as intended. They also use the program to record their solos, critique themselves, and burn them onto CDs. The software also allows students to speed up and slow down the tempos of songs. The software also will tell students where they made mistakes. Warm-up activities are also included with this software.
At Chaska Middle School-West, students are encouraged to purchase SmartMusic to use at home. Our band students use SmartMusic to record solos with piano accompaniment. The students then use the assessment element of the software to find out how accurately they played pitches and rhythm. The recordings are then e-mailed to their parents so that further discussion on their performance can take place at home.
These recordings are also available for students to include in their electronic portfolios. The portfolio is a school-wide project in which students include work from all of their courses. These portfolios are shared at student/teacher conferences as evidence of learning that has taken place during the school year. In the spring, these portfolios are burned onto DVD so that students have a keepsake of their work.
Students also use SmartMusic to complete playing tests. Our students record their playing tests at home and e-mail them back to their instructor for assessment. The positives of this form of assessment is that students take their instruments home more often and practice their tests until they feel they have reached an appropriate level to submit for a grade.
SmartMusic exercises are also used in lessons to help students warm up, work on scales and technique exercises. We are also looking forward to the new version of SmartMusic which will include band literature and more assessment tools.
Finale
Finale is a music notation program that allows students to create their own compositions. Finale which is used by most major publishers of printed music gives students the flexibility to compose for a wide variety of instrumentation including band, orchestra, choir, jazz ensemble, chamber groups or even rock bands. Students can enter music into the software and then have it played back to them so they can make decisions instantly on what they like and don't like. Upon completion of a project, students can extract parts, transpose and even make a MIDI recording of their composition.
At Chaska Middle School-West, students are encouraged to download Finale NotePad at home. This is a simplified version of Finale that is free for students to use. In 8th grade, our band students spend 3rd quarter working on a variety of composition exercises using Finale. The first assignment requires students to write a short piece of music for their instrument. They then perform this song in their lesson for their peers. The students then get a chance to write a variety of other types of compositions including a Theme & Variation, a simplified Counterpoint exercise and an aleatoric piece. Students learn about form and theory while learning the concepts necessary to write these sorts of pieces. For many of these assignments, students are required to hand-notate their music first before entering it in Finale so that they learn how to notate correctly.
After completing these assignments, some students then go on to write an entire band, jazz ensemble or chamber group composition during 4th quarter. These pieces are then performed by the ensemble they have written for.
Garage Band
Garage Band is a multi-track recording program that allows students to create and record their own music using many vehicles. Students can choose pre-programmed loops and stack them to form their own music. They can use a MIDI keyboard to play their own music. They can also record their own voice or instrument by plugging in a microphone. All of these tracks can then be manipulated into different sounds, effects, volumes, transpositions and tempos. Once completed, students can save their music as .mp3 files and burn them onto CDs or load them onto their ipods.
N’ Bad
6th graders at CMS-West used SmartMusic last spring to record solos, practice etudes and produce music that will wind up on their electronic portfolios. 8th graders at CMS-West used Garage Band to create their own original music. The project required them to record their band instrument along with any other loops the program offered. Students could then add keyboard parts and could sing or rap as well. If the student also knew how to play another instrument such as guitar, bass guitar, etc., they could add this as well if they so chose. We finished the project by students exporting their song to i-tunes and burning it onto a CD. They then had to create a cover for their CD. Some students exported their song to their i-pods as well.
We have also used Garage Band to record our ensembles. These recordings are then posted on our website and used for other multi-media presentations.
Band In A
Box
Band In A Box is software that we use with our jazz ensembles quite often.
It allows students to type in chord progressions from their jazz music and
either play their parts along with the accompaniment that Band In A Box plays
back or allows them to practice their improvisation. Band In A Box allows
the user to loop a certain section multiple times much like a Jamey Aebersold
recording so students can practice a solo for their jazz music. You can
set the accompaniment to play in a variety of styles and tempos. You can
also adjust what instruments are playing in the rhythm section.
iMovie
iMovie is video editing software that allows students to create their own video presentations. We use iMovie for a number of projects at Chaska Middle School-West. Our 8th graders do a unit with Garage Band where they create their own song and then they have the option of creating their own music video for the song using iMovie. We also use iMovie to create a music video for one of the songs we do with Jazz Ensemble One. iMovie is also used to create videos of performances. Some of these projects are basic. For example, we might feed the video of a band concert into iMovie, make a couple of basic edits and export it. Other projects are more complex such as the Talent Show video. For that project, students use up to 8 different video angles. They then cut and paste this into one final video. Many of these projects include still photos as well.