Technology in the Music Classroom

As developments in mobile computing fuel our current technology boom, more and more educators are turning to tchnology to enhance their classrooms and instructional methods. Unfortunately there is an equal, if not greater, number of teachers who do not incorporate current technology and methods in their classrooms, and choose instead to try and quash the use of mobile computing devices in their classrooms. In 2011 roughly 50% of high school students had a smartphone and just over 20% had a tablet; these devices, if properly incorporated into the classroom, could greatly enhance students' classroom experience.

In the context of the music classroom this issue is somewhat problematic, as these devices can be distractors and contribute to breaks in the flow of a rehearsal. It is up to each instructor to determine how he or she might best incorporate technology in their classroom, if at all. I will give just a few examples of useful applications as well as situations in which I have personally benefitted from having technology at my disposal in a rehearsal.

A year or so ago I was in a rehearsal for the USU Symphonic Band (the non-auditioned wind ensemble that I played in to keep my band scholarship) rehearsing David Del Tredici's Acrostic Song from "Alice". I didn't understand the form or title of the piece, and found it boring as a result. The title did, however, pique my curiosity, so I decided to look it up on my smartphone. As a result I learned that an acrostic poem is a poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word or phrase. This piece is based on the acrostic poem that Lewis Carrol wrote at the end of "Through the Looking Glass" that spells the name Alice Pleasance Liddell. It made the form of the piece make sense, and I enjoyed playing it much more after that.

I also had the opportunity to play trombone for the university's production of Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte" a singspiel (opera with spoken dialoge instead of recitative) in German. I was not familiar with the intricacies of the storyline, so I turned to my smartphone for a synopsis and translations. It really enriched the experience. (My Kindle also saved me during the first act, which I barely played in)

As I mentioned before, music classrooms can also be enriched through the use of supplemental apps or programs. Here are a few apps of which I am fond:

Notion: Notion is an iPad score editor. At $15.00 it is still less expensive than the $350.00 student license for Finale, even if it is a relatively expensive iPad app. The stock instrument package will allow students to score for full orchestra and wind section, and can be expanded via in-app purchase. This is the only way to get a large percussion pallette, but the app is still solid. The note input is done through a virtual piano keyboard, which is one of my favorite parts of the app, along with remarkably good playback sound samples. Notion would give students the opportunity to complete, listen to, and export and e-mail composition assignments. This is certainly an app I would use in my classroom, especially if I work at a school that has an iSchool program.

Notability: Notability is a general note-taking app for iPad, however it has a couple of features that would make it a valuable tool in a music classroom. One of he most useful features is the abilit to import PDFs from Dropbox or a few other cloud services. This would allow students to download files from a class account, much like Canvas. Once imported PDFs, or even notes typed in the program can be annotated or highlighted, and those can be exported and e-mailed as a PDF. Using this I could assign score analyses, students could highlight, annotate, and draw on PDFs of score excerpts from major works, then export their work as a PDF and e-mail me the result.