our district just picked it up for EVERY school . . . every music program, including General Music.  There are many pros and cons . . . it can require you to change the way you do everything, and the proudest teachers are not willing to compromise.  On the other hand, it is a great musical literature RESOURCE for teachers.  FOr regionals and allstate, there is already music and accompaniment available for them in Smart Music.  It is great for assessment and accountability.  The students can have a version at home and record their assignments which are sent to their teacher's email.  The student can see their accuracy on the computer as they play, including pitch and rhythm but not tone.

 

The assessment portion is what brought it to us . . . fine arts is always under the microscope and this SHOWS what the student accomplished, not just our own subjective opinion.  If you ahve more questions, please ask.  I really believe that it depends on the teacher and their program.  Personally, if I were a high school band director from 1980 I would LOVE this, but drum corp has changed everything and symphonic music and training is no longer the priority.

 

Paul Townsend

Scottsdale, AZ

My band director has been using it for years and it works very well for him.  There is a wealth of instrumental music in the Smart Music library.  He is able to use it for music he programs in his concert band program.  It is a great accessment tool for instruments, but not the voice. As I understand it, they are still trying to work out how to access the human voice.

 

They have great library for vocal solo music, but I just haven't found it useful for choral music - that part of their library is virtually nonesxistant.  I know I could input all the music myself through Finale - that's just not an area I am strong in.  I do like what it does on the instrumental side, and if they are able to upgrade their choral music library and find a way to be able to access the human voice, I would be interested in it.  Right now, I haven't found how to make it really fit in my high school choral program.

I have been working with this as part of my professional development for the year.  I chose four dedicated student volunteers.  I am hoping to use this in all my choral classes next year.  It is an excellent tool to track practice and to have students work on sight singing outside of class.  As our in-class time is very limited, I am excited to have a way for my students to become better music readers. It also provides the opportunity to assess their sightsinging without taking up valuable class time. The student volunteers have really enjoyed the opportunity to improve their skills.  You can set yourself up as a student, which makes it easier to learn how it works.

I am a middle school teacher that used it for two years with about 350 students, but won't any longer in 2012-2013. I agree with Mark Zortman's comments, and did actually spend lots of time imputting Finale files for students to practice with. There are several reasons I'm giving up on it, but here's one that hasn't been mentioned yet...

 

A big selling point of SmartMusic is its red note/green note immediate feedback feature. Sing a note correctly, it turns green. If you're late or the pitch is wrong, it turns red. Sounds great in theory, but in practice, this feature is MUCH more accurate for instruments than vocalists. It became very discouraging for my young singers to try their hardest over and over but still earn a 15%, say. Then they had to submit that "F" for me to listen to. I constantly reassured students and parents that I was assessing the recording itself - NOT SmartMusic's red note/green note ratio - but it's a big mental and emotional stumbling block to overcome. If your number one use for the program is for students to practice traditional solo literature, it has some great features. But I wouldn't recommend it otherwise for choral classroom general use. Feel free to email me directly if you'd like to chat further.

 

Miriam Altman

maltman(a)usmk12.org

Thank you for the great feedback. I am most interested in the red note/green note function to assess individual sight reading development. Glad to know that it's still got some issues.  

Tanna, I just finished a 6-month study for my masters degree examining the efficacy of using SmartMusic as a practice and assessment tool for choral students (specifically, high school students in this study). The results were very interesting and generally positive. I'd be happy to send you a copy if you want to shoot me an email. rswenson(a)ahsmail.com

 

I am still using SmartMusic for sight-reading assessments in all of my middle and high school classes.

 

Rob Swenson

American Heritage School

American Fork, UT

SmartMusic is primarily designed for band/orchestral/instrumental literature. To the best of my knowledge, their choral repertoire is virtually nonexistent, and they have not added a single new solo vocal work/collection since I was first introduced to it about 15 years ago.

 

The program has some strengths, but the company has evolved the software over the years in such a way that, in my opinion, it's clear they're more concerned with profits and their own proprietary rights than truly addressing customer's needs. I could go into great detail, but this is not the forum for that...