The Florida Bandmasters Association, Banddirector.com, and MakeMusic have teamed up to provide a music learning and performance opportunity for the directors and students of Florida. The project will showcase the creative progress of a specially commissioned work by composer Kenneth Amis, and will follow subsequent band rehearsals and master classes, culminating in a student premiere performance of the work via live webcast.

The Florida Commission Project webpage offers some wonderful resources. You can see and hear the commissioned score, which the participating students have titled March of the Corn, and read about the composition process. You can also watch videos of composer Ken Amis and director Neil Jenkins rehearsing the piece with the J. P. Taravella High School Band.

On March 17, 2010, there will be a free webcast, at 7:00 PM Eastern, from the J. P. Taravella High School that will include a live, in-depth composer/band rehearsal, as well as a SmartMusic demonstration/clinic, hosted by MakeMusic's own Dave Hawley. Dave will provide an overview of SmartMusic, with an emphasis on repertoire of special interest to Florida educators. Dave will demonstrate how to access, within SmartMusic, the FMEA list of solo and concert titles as well as Florida-specific scale forms for all-state band auditions. The event will also be simulcast on the Woodwind & Brasswind site.

The concert premier of March of the Corn will occur on May 20, 2010. Additional details can be found at Banddirector.com.

Are you always looking for ways to improve your teaching methods? When I was teaching, I was constantly on the lookout for new instrument pedagogy tricks, tuning procedures, conducting techniques, rehearsal tips, etc. I was always eager to increase my knowledge with anything that would benefit my students.

Today I'd like to share with you an incredible resource — a secret ingredient — for helping your students that might not occur to you as you brainstorm additional ways to improve your teaching methods.

Drum roll, please.....

The secret ingredient is the support of the parents of your students. As educators we know that students, administrators, and parents are all part of the equation, but it's easy to focus more attention on students and administrators because we see them on a daily basis. But supportive parents can make a huge difference in your program. They encourage your students, attend your performances, help with events and fundraising, and much more. My experience was that parents will support you even more when they understand what their kids are learning in your classes. Sometimes this requires that you educate the parents as well as the students.

How does SmartMusic play a part in all of this? Well, there are several ways that I have observed first-hand.

SmartMusic helps any parent, even those without a musical background, tell the difference between an adequate and a really good performance. They can see the green and red notes and know what was played correctly and what was incorrect. It's no longer subjective and something that leaves some parents feeling left out. SmartMusic recordings are also very beneficial to parents; again, even those with no musical training are able to hear the progress between a student recording make the first week of class and the last.

All parents also recognize when leading-edge technology is being utilized to help their children, and they can see how SmartMusic helps you provide more individualized instruction for their child.

The last point I will make here might be the most important: communication. There are several ways SmartMusic helps parents know what is happening in your classes.

1. When you schedule an assignment in the SmartMusic Gradebook, you can indicate whether you want an e-mail reminder to be sent. This reminder will be sent out to all e-mail addresses that are in the student record, including parents.

2. In the Recording and Assessment Window, you have the option of a sending an e-mail that can include recordings and assessment screenshots:

After clicking the "E-mail" button, you can indicate who will receive the e-mail:

But it doesn't stop there. Parents can easily check on the progress of their child by simply visiting http://www.smartmusic.com/gradebook and then logging in with their child's log-in information:

The parent and student can now hear and see assessments of graded assignments as well as any assignments that have not been completed. In addition, your individualized comments to the student are visible:

This communication is invaluable and so easily accomplished using SmartMusic. Parents appreciate your keeping them "in the loop" which can make for an even more successful teaching experience.

SmartMusic can help parents to better understand what their children are learning and what you are teaching. What's more, I found that SmartMusic helped me foster better communication with parents, who I think we can all agree represent a vital, if not secret, ingredient to success.

Cathryn "Cathi" Leibinger is the band director at Ransom Everglades Middle School, a private school just south of Miami in Coconut Grove, Florida. MakeMusic's Dave Hawley spoke to Cathi in February 2010.

Dave: How has the SmartMusic Gradebook changed the way you teach?

For me, being able to assign SmartMusic skill tests - which we use as a pass-off system - and have them automatically post in the Gradebook makes things a whole lot easier for me, because the kids just get in the habit of logging in and seeing what they have to do.

And since I don't have to listen to students playing these tests in class, our class time together is devoted to skill development and rehearsal, not testing students individually.

It has made things go much more quickly in terms of skill development - the kids are working on what's appropriate for them. The kids are able to work at their own pace and work on a skill that is appropriate for their level.

Dave: When we think of the Gradebook we think of assessment - the red and green notes - and the recordings that come back to you. Is one of these more important than the other to you?

I think the on-line assessment - the red and green notes - and the associated score are more helpful for the kids because it allows them to know what they've done right or wrong and they consider it almost like a video game. When they see that they've got 85% they want to keep trying and trying to improve that score. My policy is that they have to get 90% or above before they submit an assignment, and I've got a couple kids who refuse to submit anything less than 100% -- so they keep practicing. It's like Guitar Hero but for band. We call it Band Hero!

For me the recording is more valuable. I tell the kids that even if they get 100% on their playing test and all the notes are green, if the slurs aren't good, or the tone quality isn't good, then I have the right to reassign and send it back to them for more work. So I value the recording on my end - they value the assessment on their end.

Dave: How often do you give assignments to your students? And typically what kind of assignments are they?

The beginning band works out of the Essential Elements book. I've highlighted maybe forty songs out of the whole book that they have to go through - in order - and at their own pace. So some kids have already finished book one and they're working on book two, and the rest are spread out in the first book.

The intermediate group does the same pass-off system, but they work out of Essential Elements, book 2. I assign scale tests that they have to pass to get points every week, and I also assign rhythm tests that are automatically generated once a week.

The beginning and intermediate band students also have practice charts which log all the tests that have been assigned, plus anything else they practice that hasn't been assigned but is still within the system, so if they practice a scale or a solo, it logs on their practice chart even though I haven't assigned it.

The advanced band has scale tests and rhythm tests once a week.

Dave: When we spoke recently you mentioned having spoken to some educators who've heard of SmartMusic, but hadn't used it yet. Do you have any sense of what we need to better communicate to these folks to encourage them to try SmartMusic?

I recently explained SmartMusic to someone who said that it sounded like the old Vivace. I explained that it is made by the same company, but that it's become a much more affordable and universal product. I think some people don't know everything that's in SmartMusic. They still see it from the older standpoint of solo accompaniment - they don't know about the accessible method books or assessable concert band assignments.

The three pieces we're doing for FBA are in SmartMusic as well so the kids can practice along with the recording, which I find very valuable - the ability to hear how it fits with everyone else. I guess that people just don't really understand everything that's in there.

I've also heard people say that "I don't know if my kids will pay for it," when I know that the kids could scrape up $30 a year if they were given a chance to see what it was. I have parents and grandparents who see it in action and who want it for themselves -- to help them learn an instrument.

Dave: Some educators are using SmartMusic but haven't made the leap to use the Gradebook as well. Sometimes there's a little gap there, a little chasm of understanding. Do you have a comment or two that might encourage others to try the Gradebook?

Being able to set up assignments in a way that the kids always have something to work on has made questions disappear. "What am I supposed to be working on?" Well, they always have something  to work on. Once you've graded their assignments you can put comments to the kids in their Gradebook. They can log in and check them, and this provides a great way for parents to see and hear what the kids are doing. The Gradebook creates an on-line portfolio. If you have a parent conference if you're doing any sort of audition process or leveling process this portfolio makes it very easy to access what the students have done - to monitor student progress - from anywhere you have Internet access.

Dave: Have you heard any specific comments from parents on this?

They all wish they'd had it when they were in school!

Last week I described how to submit SmartMusic repertoire suggestions. I've since had folks ask if there was a place where they could pass along their ideas for features or new directions with the SmartMusic program.

The answer is yes! We log and track feature requests through our online knowledge base. Please feel free to let us know what you'd like to see improved or added, or share whatever is on your mind. These suggestions are reviewed by our project management team and play an important role as they determine what will be included in future versions of SmartMusic.

If you'd prefer to discuss your ideas with others, I encourage you to visit the SmartMusic Forums where you'll meet a positive, helpful community of SmartMusic users as well as an active moderation team.  Recent "Future of SmartMusic" topics include:

• Whether we'll see the mini bassoon in SmartMusic,
• The use of SmartMusic in the Wenger V-Room, and
• Ideas for iPhone apps

I hope to see you there!

As part of my work as a SmartMusic Education Specialist, I attend music education conferences across the country, where I enjoy meeting all kinds of delightful people. Among them are many college students currently pursuing music education degrees. I'm always interested to learn about their familiarity with SmartMusic. Many have used SmartMusic to practice solos; they're often very familiar with the benefits of SmartMusic's Intelligent Accompaniment feature. However, it's not unusual to meet music majors whose experience with SmartMusic ends there - they simply aren't aware of the vast libraries and types of repertoire, the exercises, or the assessment and recording capabilities, let alone the Gradebook.

It only takes a brief demonstration to illustrate how helpful SmartMusic can be in their preparation to teach. It can help them learn secondary instruments in more meaningful ways, provide better awareness of literature requirements, and offer practical means to individualize and differentiate instruction to the students they will someday instruct. It's also a great way to integrate technology into their curriculum. Today I'd like to share a few ideas of how colleges can integrate SmartMusic into their music teacher preparation curriculum (methods classes).

I always suggest that teachers try out SmartMusic on a secondary instrument (as well as their major instrument). This gives them the perspective of a student and it quickly becomes apparent how SmartMusic can help students develop basic performance skills including fingerings, technique, tuning, and tone. This same approach can be used with music education majors in methods classes.

Teachers of college methods classes can require education majors to perform method book lines, scales, exercises, solos, and sight-reading, all with accompaniment from SmartMusic. The assessment and recording features will help them evaluate themselves. Using the Gradebook, the instructor can provide appropriate feedback and keep track of each individual student.

With all the literature that is in SmartMusic, teacher preparation can be taken to a new level! Would-be teachers can easily study and play beginner- to advanced-level music. Learning fingerings for instruments becomes more meaningful when played in the context of the accompaniments in SmartMusic. Methods class teachers now have a way to better get across their ideas of teaching each instrument. They can easily point out and play any of the numerous parts by using SmartMusic. Imagine a clarinet instructor using a SMARTBoard or whiteboard, pointing out a "run" in the Holst Suite in Eb, circling and making notes of what is "tricky," showing the class a solution (perhaps using alternate fingerings), and then playing it with SmartMusic!

SmartMusic offers great benefits to percussion education as well. Percussion methods teachers now have a wealth of material to demonstrate how percussion instruments need to be performed within an ensemble. Learning the proper techniques for triangle now takes on a whole new meaning when you can hear it in context. Understanding the proper length of a cymbal crash based on how the music is being played and not just what the notation says is a valuable lesson for a percussionist. Now the instructor can easily show and demonstrate this concept. Students can hear and evaluate themselves playing the instrument with the music using the recording feature.

As part of my teacher preparation, I remember having to evaluate method books to see how different concepts were approached. SmartMusic currently includes 26 different method books. This is a tremendous resource that can be used in methods classes. For example, the classes can easily compare how the various band methods approach the clarinet going over the break or how the string books introduce shifting, as the methods are just a click away.

By using SmartMusic in college teacher preparation classes, future teachers have practical experience and more knowledge to answer the following questions that often arise in job interviews:

• How do you plan to individualize and differentiate your instruction with all of your students?
• How are you going to document student progress?
• How are you going to communicate effectively with parents regarding the progress of their child?
• How do you plan to use technology in meaningful ways in your classes?

Those applicants familiar with SmartMusic and the Gradebook will be able to talk at length about practical solutions they can offer for each challenge and it can start with college methods classes.

Among many other improvements, SmartMusic 2010 speeds up the file retrieval process and makes files easier to manage. Today SmartMusic grabs content à la carte - as you pick each piece, rather than requiring you to slowly download one very large (+800MB) block of files as it did in the past. In addition to saving you disk space this also offers three additional benefits:

1. In most cases all parts are downloaded - switch from flute to oboe and it just loads the new part. In past versions, you'd be sitting at another download screen while SmartMusic dutifully grabbed the next part for you.
2. Downloaded files are stored locally. It works similarly to iTunes: If you look at the left navigation bar in Find Music, the "On This Computer" section lists all of your downloaded solos, method books, and band pieces. The list has a cool "as you type" search box, too, to quickly pare down the list to help you find something fast.

The third benefit is the whole point of today's post. You can create a playlist of pretty much anything you want, then export it and open that same playlist on another computer, meanwhile SmartMusic will immediately start downloading all of those titles in the background!

Here's an example:

Open up the Solo section in Find Music, then indicate English Horn - click a title, then "Download for Later," and click the next title. Go through all of the English Horn solos in this fashion. Watch the little "Downloads…" indicator in the lower left, and when it's done, jump into the "Solos" section on this computer and create a playlist of these files. Under Playlists, right-click your new list of English Horn solos and choose Export. You now have a file that you can put on any computer that runs SmartMusic 2010 where you only have to double-click the file and SmartMusic will launch and begin downloading all of the content in that playlist.

My example is a little extreme - most folks can benefit from this by making a playlist of a few pieces they're currently working on. I'm sure you'll come up with some more creative uses of this feature - please share them with us here by posting a comment.

Have suggestions on improving playlists? We track feature requests through our online knowledge base at http://smartmusic.custhelp.com/app.

PS: Bob Grifa covers some of these changes in more detail here.

The SmartMusic Gradebook always offers you full access to every assignment your students have submitted; simply click on the Gradebook tab in SmartMusic 2010. You can even access this info from a computer that doesn't have SmartMusic installed by visiting http://www.smartmusic.com/gradebook. Of course your students (and their parents) similarly have 24/7 access to their submitted assignments. However, you may wish to periodically save off a subset or sampling of each student's work; in other words, a portfolio. This week I'll share some tips on how you can use the SmartMusic Gradebook to easily save specific recordings and assessments to create a student portfolio.

To make this all work, you will need to create a system of organization. I'd suggest starting by creating a folder for each group you teach, and indicate the year. For example, if you teach both a beginning and an intermediate band your two folders might be named "Beginning Band 2010-2011" and "Intermediate Band 2010-2011."

Inside each folder I'd suggest creating separate folders for each of your students, "Bobby Johnson," "Suzy Garcia," and so on. Within each student folder you might also create another folder including the year, like "Suzy Garcia 2010-2011."  Now when you receive student assessments or recordings you wish to save, you have an organized place to keep them.

Now let's look in the Gradebook:

Click on any green speaker icon (I've circled one above) to access the Assignment Review window:

In the Assignment Review window in Gradebook (above), look in the upper right hand corner for the Portfolio button (which I've again circled in red). After this button is pressed, you can select between the screen shot of the student's assessment or the recording:

Clicking on either icon gives you the opportunity to name and save each file as well as determine where the file is saved. Here you'd navigate to the individual student folder you created above, and you'd want to assign an appropriate name like: "First Solo 9-21-2010," "Articulation Evaluation Number 4," or "Mozart Flute Concerto No. 1 in G." It's up to you how detailed you want to get with this.

That's it. You have saved a student's work in his/her portfolio.

You could also type up any comments in a word processing application and save them in this same folder, or include a screen shot of this Assignment Review window.

Here's how:

Windows users: Press the Print Screen (PrtScn) button on your computer's keyboard, then open up Paint and type Ctrl-v to paste the screen shot into Paint. You can then get to Paint's File menu and choose "Save As..."

Mac users: Press Command+Shift+4. The cursor will turn into a cross-hair. Outline the window by dragging and then release. You now have a picture of the Recording and Assessment window. Rename the file as "My" Comments (substitute "My" with your name) and put it in the student's folder for the assignment.

Again, a portfolio contains a sampling of a student's work so you don't have to go through this process for every single recording - just those you deem appropriate. Next year you can copy this year's portfolio into the folders of your continuing students so you have quick access to both years' work - and so on. Imagine if this process is started in middle school and continued through high school!

SmartMusic and the Gradebook can definately help you document each student's individual progress. I hope this helps you get started.

While SmartMusic's ability to accompany your students — and assess them — is extremely powerful, there is a limit to this power: Software can't go beyond the intersection of microphones and math. That's where you come in.

Measuring the accuracy of your students' rhythm and pitch is SmartMusic's strong suit. On the other hand, tone, phrasing, and precise intonation are currently beyond its grasp.

In my experience, tone is subjective. I've played with a dark, vibrato-less tone in some concert bands and brass quintets, to grisly loud in screamer lead trumpet bands. Either sound would be wildly inappropriate in the other context. While we might agree on some basics, even with a baseline a computer is in a poor position to make this judgment.

Phrasing is similarly difficult for a computer to rate. I think most people consider phrasing part of their interpretation as it is rarely bound into the score. Phrasing is dependent on context, too — you might pause and breathe differently when playing a 3rd clarinet part in a large group than in a one-on-one session.

While SmartMusic clearly knows the difference between C and C#, and its pitch recognition seems to improve with every new version, the ability to detect a few cents worth of intonation variation — on every 16th note that whizzes by — remains elusive.

What is the solution for these "shortcomings?"

You.

By checking "Recording Required" when you give assignments from the SmartMusic Gradebook you get the opportunity to listen, review, and assess those things the software can't comprehend.

Tone, phrasing, and intonation are not the only limits to SmartMusic, either. Despite all the things SmartMusic has heard over the years, it can't talk about them. It will never share stories of studying the saxophone with Eugene Rousseau, or of adding antifreeze to valve oil while marching in Minnesota in December.

It's important to not overlook the most important component of the complete SmartMusic system — your experience!

Teachers often ask about SmartMusic and individualized instruction: "If all students get the same assignment, won't those who progress at different rates be penalized?" Fortunately, the SmartMusic Gradebook lets any assignment be modified to meet the needs of each student in your class. Today we'll look at some ways this can be accomplished.

Let's say you'd like to assign a line from a method book. Here are the available settings:

You can choose which parameters are required, and you can change the settings for any parameter you've marked as "Required." For example, you might disable the Tempo requirement and have the Solo Line on: 

This would allow the student to play the piece at any tempo they choose, but the solo line would have to be on for the assignment to be submitted. Clearly there are many different options that could be chosen here.

Now that you see how easy it is to change settings, how can the assignment be sent to specific students?

On the bottom of the assignment window, you are given the option to schedule an assignment to an entire class or individual students:

Clicking on Selected Students allows you to determine which students will receive each assignment. You can even select students from other classes:

Other ways you can individualize an assignment may be less obvious. In the Schedule Assignment window, the Grading Options allow you to distribute the points for a SmartMusic Assessment and Recording as you see fit. For example, you could use the same assignment for the entire class but change the point values so that the recording is worth more than the assessment. (Because you provide the score for each student's recording after listening to each recording, you can ensure that those who did their personal best, for example, receive the maximum points.) Also, by using the Scheduling Options, an assignment can have a different due date scheduled for selected students.

The fact that students can be enrolled in more than one class can also be very helpful. Just as a student in Concert Band could also be enrolled in Jazz Band, you could have a flute class made up of the flutes from the Concert Band. To take it a step further, you could even have a class of ONE student!

Finally, you can even create your own Grading Scale as I have done here:

Music teachers have always tried to find good ways to track student progress. The SmartMusic Gradebook made it possible for me. I am sure that you will discover many other ways to use the Gradebook to individualize and differentiate your instruction.

Are you passionate about SmartMusic? Would you like to help shape the next version of the award-winning music learning software?

We're looking for students and teachers who are current SmartMusic subscribers, who'd be interested in providing feedback and input on new developments. If you're interested, please send an email to smartmusicbeta@makemusic.com and we'll send you more details.