JoyTunes Recorder Express Game

Obviously this blog has been dormant for a while. Last year I was teaching two technology classes in addition to my music classes. It was a lot more work than I expected! It was fun, but the extra teaching responsibilities ate up my blogging time. This year, I am not teaching tech because it doesn't fit in my schedule. So....I'm back. Thanks to fellow blogger Christopher Russell of the Tech in Music Ed Blog, I've also discovered Blogsy for posting to the blog from a mobile device. That is making blogging so much easier!

This summer I've been thinking about new ways to incorporate technology into my lessons. I've been using SmartMusic with my recorder players. They have the Recorder Express book I love. I'm not really wanting to pay for the SmartMusic subscription this year though. I found another tech source that utilizes Recorder Express. It's an online game where kids play their recorder to activate the game. Here a short intro video about it.

Students create an account and have access to the first nine pages for free. After that they can purchase additional pages. The entire Recorder Express Game can also be purchased at West Music or other music stores for $14.99.

The really cool part about this is that students can connect their accounts to your account and you can get reports about how much time students have been practicing while playing the game. I plan to award special badges in Edmodo for students who play the game outside of the school day. I'll post more about other ways I'm using Edmodo in another post.

If you want to create a free teacher account to see more about the Recorder Express game, you can go to the JoyTunes website. Using this link will help my students gain access to additional music in the game.

 

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SmartMusic in the Elementary General Music Classroom

SmartMusic, in case you don't know, is an interactive music software that is primarily used by band students (although I understand that the newest update includes sight singing exercises too). The student plays the music on the screen and receives immediate feed back about correct pitches and rhythms because those notes turn green. The ones that turn red were either the incorrect pitch or rhythm. It's really a fascinating program and very motivating to students.

I used SmartMusic in my classroom several years ago and then I stopped for several years. The reason I stopped was that I was creating all my own assessments and I simply didn't have the time to be doing it. Now SmartMusic has added assessments for soprano recorder. The assessments available are from a good recorder method called Recorder Express by Artie Almeida.

I like to use the program as a whole group activity. I project it onto the whiteboard and turn off the assessment feature. There is a cursor that tracks each beat so the kids stay together in the music. Since I am not needing to point to the music, I am able to watch students and help with hand position, fingerings, etc.

If you haven't seen SmartMusic in action, there are quite a few videos on You Tube. Here is a brief video of what the students see when we are using it as a whole-group activity (the sound quality isn't that great because of the combination of the laptop speakers and the video capture).

If time permits, I will also allow a couple of students try it with the assessment portion turned on. In my previous post, I discussed recording options. This is a nice way to record individuals playing recorder.

SmartMusic is fairly expensive. However, I don't need the gradebook function that our band director needs, so I just use the practice room/student edition which costs $36 per year. Students can also subscribe at home so that they can practice and make their own recordings.