SmartMusic

In music education, there are plenty of software’s that have been upgraded and SmartMusic is one of them. This is a software that must music educators use in their school to improve the students performance and their practices. It is an upgrade because like teachers who are there to help the students to play right and teach the students the right way. SmartMusic also guides the students with their practices so that they are doing the right thing. For example, this software’s has fast feedback that the students can find out if they made a mistake. As they play the note, if the screen shows red marks on the note, then they will know that they made a mistake; and if it’s a green mark and they played correctly. This software not only helps the students but also helps the teachers to see the improvements that the student has made through their practices.

            Interestingly, teachers and parents can look up the students or their child improvements because as long as they have the software, they can log in and see the result of their assessment. As the students practice they can have fun recording themselves in which can lead up to sharing with their friends and families their talent.

            The set up of the software is well organized and is easily handled for students to play on. And also, help them achieve their goals using this SmartMusic software. On this software, there are metronome, tuner, fingering chart or other fingering chart that make a connection to the next, accompaniment part and their solo parts, assessment score, change of different loop/tempo. All these symbols are easily tractable. There is no confusion for them to use in this software.

            I remember, my High School used SmartMusic. I didn’t use it much because I didn’t know much about it, but my friends who used it, they told me it helped them improve their performance and their practices.

Technology and Pedagogy

This lesson is particularly used for K-3 elementary students. First, it starts off with students watching a short clip on YouTube so that they could listen and see which character plays what instrument. The students can imagine the instruments in their mind while they listen to the sound of the instrument. This way, the students can be inspired and possibly challenged to start to learn the instrument that they were interested in. It seems that there was no gaps between the curriculum goals and teaching strategies. One of the curriculum goals for this lesson was for the students to understand the music elements such as rhythms, tempo, tones of the music and instrumentations. In this lesson, there were a few sections that used technology, which were arranged pretty well because as you see in my spreadsheet, the teaching strategies, and the standards were well connected with the use of technology. In this lesson, technology was used in class by watching the video clip on YouTube and listening to songs on iTunes. Using YouTube and iTunes is very helpful tool in music class because it involves listening. These resources are available and easy to access for anyone who is interested. Using technology in a classroom helps motivate the students. For instance, other technology such as smart-board, projectors, and other music apps can support the teaching strategies and the standards goals by having students to engage in the activities that the lesson has provided. Since this lesson is about rhythms, using music apps can help students to create their own beats, tempo, and rhythms as they improvise their own music as they use the instruments that they are given.

 

Piano

In music instrument, technology has developed. Today, technology has grown to improve the sound-post in better shape and make the instrument for everyone to connect with. Most importantly the instrument marker are developing new ideas to allowed buyers and players to maintain their knowledge of music and enjoyments. In the string family, the history of piano started way back that carried different names and developed to the piano we know today.

Piano wasn’t originally called piano, it was called pianoforte. The first creator of the pianoforte was Bartolomeo Cristofori, he created dynamics for the piano. Then as time grew, more advance technology developed and the inventors of keyboard instrument, were able to built a pianoforte. Which allowed to control of a different dynamics. Then other inventors created something useful like: the pedals, more notes/ octaves that were added to expand the keyboard instrument into another level. Like today, we hold the perfect grand piano that has all the combination that was added. There are so much different materials that have covered the keyboard instrument to have a higher standard of perfection. This all happened from the help of inventor’s creativity ideas and technology.

After Cristofori died, there was no pupil of him, but many artist, other instrument makers were interested what he has created. Gottfried Silbermann, he took over Cristofori place and continuously invented and built more pianos, later on. He then continuously researched the ‘damping the pedals.’ In which another technology has advanced as the time went by. ‘Damping pedals’ usually means sustaining the notes that is played to have holding sounds, but the unique thing about this is that, instead of the pedal working, this was created for player hands to stop. This shows that technology is still growing in music instruments, since it has improved a lot through time and also, many performers love the sound of the music that the makers has provided for them to continue.

Through technology and through people’s amazing knowledge, ones person’s work was completed because they both had the same idea which was to invent something to make a better instrument: piano. Even today, technology is still growing in musical instruments such as piano. There are electronic piano call piano keyboard, where musician can carry around and perform.

YouTube

            Music teachers use computers often in their classroom to maintain the students motivation. Popular media, such as YouTube seems to use a lot in music class because it contains movies, music and other recordings for students to watch and listen. It is also useful for the students to interact with their classmates in a class discussion.

            Almost most of my music classes used YouTube as a listening tool, or for the students to understand the lyric from watching the video clips. If most students are a visual learner; watching the video clips will help them better. Using this website can save time by creating a playlist, that way the teacher is organizing the order of the songs that the students needs to listen and watch.

YouTube is an educational tool for learners to learn something that they are interest in. For example, I found it easy to learn and entertain myself in learning the guitar as I listened and watched the clip. First, it was fascinating that I can do it. Its great that there was someone I can imitate to play the instrument just by watching the clip. And I can pause and go back to re-watch what I’ve watched and apply it slowly through my practice. Because this website is popular, there are more version of video clips to watch and compare or learn more about the guitar.

Since YouTube is well known where everyone uses it; it is great tool to use. Because YouTube has a lot of interesting video clips, watching them can inspire the students in various ways. For instance, when they get into group discussions as the student interact with their classmates; they can share their critical thoughts of their opinion. In which then using those thoughts they can apply that knowledge through their experiences.