The Importance of Using a Tuner: Finding Your Perfect Pitch
The Importance of Using a Tuner: Finding Your Perfect Pitch
Music is a beautiful language, but like any language, it relies on clear communication. Just like people speaking the same language can do so with different accents to their voice so too can musicians play the same note but with slight changes in the way it sounds. The pitch may be a bit high or a bit low, and over the centuries musicians have come up with ways to analyze these differences so that multiple musicians can better "play in tune." Just as proper grammar and pronunciation are essential for understanding spoken words, playing in tune is paramount for creating harmonious music. This is where the tuner comes in. For the beginner (or even the more advanced musician) it can be a vital tool for developing accuracy of pitch.
Low Cost MusicTechnology Options For The Music Education Classroom
Low Cost MusicTechnology Options For The Music Education Classroom
Finding ways to stretch your budget in a music classroom is always important and even more so when trying to purchase high tech electronics, software, and other materials. This article provides an updated list of dozens of different low cost or free alternatives to expensive music education products. It includes such categories as music notation software, drill design software, special needs hardware, and many more.
The Star Spangled Banner- Free Sheet Music For Band Inst.
The Star Spangled Banner- Free Sheet Music For Band Inst.
This document contains sheet music for all common instruments to play The Star Spangled Banner, also known as the sheet music to the National Anthem of the United States of America. You can view the sheet music online or download the individual parts arranged for all common concert band instruments. If you do not see your instrument listed please scroll to the bottom of the page and try one of the the other instruments. Most musicians will be able to find at least one instrumental part that matches their range and preferred key signature. If you are seeking a simple piano version of the song please select from the voice, trumpet, or alto saxophone versions.
Using Plickers as an Assessment Tool in the Music Education Classroom
Using Plickers as an Assessment Tool in the Music Education Classroom
Music, band, choir, and orchestra classrooms can be huge and assessing the knowledge and retention of individual students in such a large class can be daunting. Plickers are one of several solutions that can be adapted to work in large groups, making the act of assessing a student’s understanding a little easier and a whole lot faster.
Is Marching Band A Sport? Pros, Cons, and a Reality Check
Is Marching Band A Sport? Pros, Cons, and a Reality Check
In recent years the question of whether or not marching band is a sport has been brought up time and time again for various reasons and by various groups. On one side you have the YES crowd who says that marching band is competitive, physically demanding, and every bit as much a team event as any traditional sporting event. On the other side of the coin are those who say no, that marching band is NOT a sport and it is a musical pursuit that happens to involve coordinated movements. Both sides are right, but to make a final decision we need to look deeper into the facts. Read on to find out what they are!
Portable Digital Audio Recorder Buying Guide With Reviews
Portable Digital Audio Recorder Buying Guide With Reviews
Scroll down to view the comparison chart of over a dozen different portable digital audio recorders.
Buying a portable digital audio recorder is a major decision. The balance between price, features, and quality is a fine line that has many different options to choose from. There are dozens of different models of portable digital audio recorders, some of which have drastically different sets of features yet sell for roughly the same price. This easy to read head to head comparison chart and guide to many of the more popular portable digital audio recorders is intended to help potential buyers more easily see these differences and make an educated buying decision.
The number of apps, software, and gadgets available for use in the music classroom continues to grow each year but finding things that can actually be beneficial to your classes grows more and more difficult as well. We spoke with Dr. Christopher Russell, Director of Choirs at Oltman Middle School in St. Paul Park, Minnesota to get his must-have list of apps.
SmartMusic has come a long way since its humble (and occasionally buggy) beginnings so many years ago. The newest version of SmartMusic Studio (SmartMusic 2010) is an exponential leap forward in convenience, not just from the early versions, but even from the more recent version 10.2. MakeMusic has finally taken many of the requests of teachers and fixed most of the major annoyances that once made SmartMusic a labor of love to use. SmartMusic 2010 is far more user friendly and some of the improvements they have made to the user interface are game changers in terms of convenience and ease of use for classroom based music teachers.
The Best New Features of SmartMusic 2010 The first thing a user of previous SmartMusic versions will notice is the improved SmartMusic 2010 user interface. When starting SmartMusic the user is taken to a search menu where you can select from various types of music or simply type in the title or composer of the song you are looking for. Instead of the search being done locally, the new version of SmartMusic does its search over the Internet, communicating directly with the SmartMusic servers so that as soon as new music is added it will be available for a subscriber to use. When a title is selected the user can read notes on the composer or on the composition before they begin the download. Downloading songs such as concert band arrangements is vastly improved in SmartMusic 2010, as a user can choose to open a single part or have the system download the entire selection (with all of the various instrumental parts) in the background. One click gets the entire set of instruments rather than having to select each one individually.
Also a great improvement in this area is the downloading of method books themselves. Most of the time downloads are conducted in the background, but say for example you want to open a new lesson book to try a few lines. In the past you had to wait for the entire book to download before you could use any of it. Now you are able to open a lesson book and begin playing almost immediately. The book downloads the needed files chronologically, so you can play line 1 while line 2-200 is downloading in the background. Downloading files in general also seems to be vastly improved in terms of speed and reliability.Â
The only down sides to these new improvements is the fact that 2010 now essentially requires an always on Internet connection, even on computers that are kept in practice rooms. While this is more and more common, older buildings still have problems running wires or doing Wi-Fi access to allow these SmartMusic machines to connect to the server. The improvements however greatly outweigh the inconvenience of having to find a way to get dedicated Internet access to the individual student workstations.
Improved Playlists and Tools Also greatly improved in SmartMusic 2010 is the playlist feature. Creating multiple playlists of songs or even individual lines from lesson books is made very easy. Click the plus sign to add a new list, then right click any song in the library to add it to that list. Other nice features include a built in recording device inside the metronome window to allow a student to record their practice even when not using an actual SmartMusic song. The Recently Played tab in the interface brings up a complete listing of everything you have played over the last several sessions, and even includes individual line numbers from lesson books making it easy to hop around from song to song without having to do searches or navigate the menus.
SmartMusic Grade Book Improvements For those that use SmartMusic to give assignments the entry of new assignments into the grade book is greatly simplified, and they have removed the need for a teacher to confirm a student's enrollment before they can access their assignments. One thing that still is lacking that I do wish they would add is a way for students without email addresses to use the system, or for teachers to set up a class roster to have the students take their playing tests at school without having to sign up for an account at all.
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