4 Ways Technology can make you music lessons sing. By: David Raths Article Presentation By: Cameron Johnson

Main points There are four main points that the author David Raths talks about in his article “4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lessons Sing.” Using Tablets instead of Paper Music Helping Kids Compose Rehearsing Via Social Media Reworking Published Arrangements

Using Tablets Instead of paper music Christopher Russell director of choir at Oltman Middle School discusses this topic of the article. He says that the number one use is to replace paper music.

Using Tablets instead of paper music Benefits such as “students no longer lose their music” which is a big issue now in music programs. He can send audio recordings to his students that they can play along with as they practice.

Using tablets instead of paper music He also discusses a new app called NotateMe. This apps always teachers to take a picture of a score and convert it to digital notation. This means that teachers can scan music without software and scanning equipment. The free version allows a student to scan a single line at a time and hear what it sounds like and even edit there own music.

Helping kids compose Amy Burns an elementary school music teacher at Far Hills Country Day School. Burns said that she started using technology because she thought is could help young students do things that they couldn’t do traditionally. Burns talks about the app NoteFlight, it allows second and third graders to create melodic compositions and play on recorders.

Helping Kids Compose On top of certain apps letting the students compose she uses apps to help with assessment. The app iDoceo captures student performances. She records all of her instrumental classes and then they perform three times during the semester and at the end of the semester she lets them listen to their progress over the course of on semester.

Rehearsing Via Social media Lori Pirzer director at Oak View Middle School talks about how she didn’t have any internet in her classroom to saying “I am not sure I could teach without technology now.” She collaborates Epson BrightLink interactive projector with Smart Notebook and pairs that with apps like TonalEnergy Tuner which lets students improve multiple aspects of their sound.

Rehearsing Via Social media She also uses a program called SmartMusic, which gives feedback on their performance. They can see the correct and incorrect rhythms and pitches onscreen. This way she can say “put your finger on measure 3, circle it.” It gives her the freedom to circle and notate on the board things that are in their music.

Rehearsing Via social media Pirzer also uses the Edmodo social media platform to communicate with her students and parents. She can put out chair placements from their recent auditions. Pirzer will then create a MP3 file and post them on Edmodo so her students can listen to them on their phones or tablet and practice with the sound file.

Reworking published arrangements Dan Shultz who teaches at J.P. Case Middle School as a tool in helping students become more creative. His main point with this section is that students go through classical music but they hardly ever improvise or do composition at all.

Reworking published arrangements Shultz wants his students to become more creative and steer away from the traditional means of music and experiment. He does this in an example of he was playing a piece with his band and they didn’t like the ending so they rewrote the part, and at the concert the students performed their ending to the piece.

Citation Raths, David. "4 Ways Technology Can Make Your Music Lesson Sing."The Journal. 3 Dec. 2014. Web. 30 Jan. 2016.