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.

Recording in the Classroom

There are a lot of reasons you may want to record in your classroom: assessment, auditions, and student portfolios are just a few of the possibilities. When I record in the classroom, I'm not looking for super high quality, CD worthy recordings. I want to use inexpensive (free is better) equipment and software. I want the process to be as simple as possible. I have done some recording in my classroom in the past. I've recorded a whole class singing so that we could evaluate the performance and figure out areas of improvement. I've recorded individuals who were interested in solos or special parts. This year, I'm hoping to record each student individually at least once in the school year. For the younger students, it will be a recording of their singing. For the older students, it may be recorder playing. Here are two of the recording tools I use in my classroom.

Audacity - This is a free software program that is available for Mac or Windows. Be sure to download and install the LAME encoder as well so that you are able to export your recordings as .mp3 files. I don't use a fancy microphone for my recordings. I've actually used a microphone that is intended for the SmartMusic program. I'm sure you can get something fairly inexpensive at your local electronics store. If you really want to get technical, unidirectional mics are for recording individuals and omnidirection mics are for recording groups. I pay little attention to that for my recordings in the classroom. Besides using Audacity for recording in the classroom, it has a bunch of other uses. I've used it to slow the tempo of an accompaniment without changing the pitch. I've used it to remove the vocal track on a split-track recording. I've used it to record voice-over dance calls with dance music for use by a sub (or in the case that I lose my voice).

Blue FiRe - This is a free app for the iPad. This worked well when I was recording students who were auditioning for a solo. After recording, the app assigns a temporary URL you can access on your computer and download the files. I just used the built-in mic from the iPad. This app is very user-friendly.

I think it would be really fun to record students each year and then share the recordings with them as they are getting ready to leave elementary school. Whether or not I can be that organized remains to be seen.

Online Recording - The Return of Recorder Karate??

Last year, I wasn't able to do Recorder Karate with my students because I had morning playground supervision every day. Prior to last year, before school was a prime time for assessing students since I don't have enough time during class to listen to every child. Without that time, I just couldn't meet the needs of my Recorder Karate students. Being unable to do Recorder Karate was disappointing to me as well as my students. I decided that I need to try to think of a remedy to this problem so we don't have the same issue next year.

Yesterday, another music teacher posted his Recorder Karate plan on the Music K-8 Mailing List. It was very well set up. The thing that really caught my eye was his Recorder Karate Testing Hotline. The teacher had it set up so that students would call his school voicemail between 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. and recorder their recorder test to his voice mail. How cool is that? I never thought of that. One problem: I am notoriously bad at checking my voice mail and the red light only blinks about once every 10 seconds, so I never see it. Hmmm. What other options might there be? So I went searching. I found two interesting things in my search this morning. One has great possibility for The Return of Recorder Karate and the other won't work for Recorder Karate, but has other possibilities for the music classroom. And both are free.

Vocaroo looks like the answer to our Recorder Karate problems. It is a simple online recording feature. Click Record. Play your Recorder Karate test. Click Stop. Listen to the recording. If it is sufficient, email it to the teacher. Super Slick...if it works. I'll try it out in the fall and see how students do with it.

The other site I found that was interesting is the audio portion of  Aviary (the site also have photo editing and design features). This looks like it might be something PC users can use in lieu of Garage Band. You can even create your own loops. I have Garage Band at school, so I don't know if I will use this site, but I found it interesting none-the-less.