Blog Post #2

Topic: Summarize and reflect on what you've learned this week.

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            When I incorporate the national standards for music, creating, performing and responding, into my curricular framework, I find a great imbalance between the three. Performance often takes a lead role in the curricular trinity followed eventually by "responding" and finally by "creating" which usually comes in at a distant third. There seem to be two issues that contribute to this imbalance that explain, if not excuse, this creative shortcoming in music instruction. Teachers often site both a lack of knowledge and experience and often time constraints that are not conducive to the study of improvisation. Much like Bauer (2014) detailed in the preface of his book, I found myself engrossed in improvisational activities at home with a cassette recorder many years before I would be applying the skill I had obtained on my own in an actual stage band. With the availability of recording software on every smart phone and seemingly endless apps that allow for not only recording multiple tracks but layering and mixing compositions, the availability for music students to explore improvisation in a fun, quality manner is simply a quick download away. Following are some of the applications I found particularly handy that were explored during this week in MUE6696.

 http://www.irealpro.com/

            iReal Pro is a great smartphone (iOS and Android) and Mac OS application that creates seemingly endless backgrounds for students to practice with to improve their improvisation skills. The accompanying tracks sound like a real band and have chordal exercise tracks to various genres of music as well as the ability to upload seemingly endless favorite songs from various sources on the Internet including Facebook. Literally, you can Google favorite song titles with the addition of iReal Pro in the search bar and pull up the accompanying track so that you can improvise the melody on any instrument you choose. The functionality of the app allows students to progress through the seven levels of the Kratus sequential model of improvisation on their own devices, on their own time, and at their own pace. It also allows for the implementation of the creating music activity types as outlined by William Bauer (2014, pg. 69 - 70). The most beneficial aspect of this app is the ability for students to engage in free improvisation (Bauer, 2014, pg. 69), which is the most basic building block of the improvisation learning process. The downside however, is that it is a paid app, but does offer unlimited future updates and an ever-growing library of songs to choose from. 

www.noteflight.com www.musescore.com

            For years, Finale and Sibelius have been regarded as the primary applications for music notation. Each is accompanied by a hefty price tag making them inaccessible to a great number of music classrooms. That is, until the entrance of MuseScore and Noteflight, both free music notation alternatives. MuseScore is the closest in form and function to both Sibelius and Finale and must be downloaded onto a computer. It offers drag and drop functionality as well as multiple methods for note entry (MIDI keyboards, computer keyboard, point-and-click). The technology is simple to understand and has logical transfer from other applications especially if you are used to using Finale or Sibelius. Noteflight is possibly the most attractive option because of its availability on any device with a modern web browser. However, as you can read in my previous blog post (http://amberdette.blogspot.com/2017/05/noteflight-project.html), I found it to be a bit tedious to learn and it took a while to get acquainted with the interface, perhaps because I was using it without a tutorial in sight, but nonetheless it was tedious. The ability to use it on a number of devices along with its highly interactive nature would be a great tool to use with students for notation projects.

            After all is said and done, the final goal of utilizing technology is to bridge the gap between musical understandings, where textbooks and exercises may fall short, for variety of diverse learners. The seemingly innumerable mobile apps and computer programs available to date can help us provide interactive and engaging resources for our students that can indeed bridge gaps in musical learning. This week's readings, exercises and exploration of applications have shown numerous ways to raise the creating portion of the three national music standards up to a position of greater impact within our music education curriculum all without breaking the budget or being inaccessible to our students. 


Reference

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

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