Last night at the Franklin School Board Committee of The Whole meeting I had the pleasure of being able to listen to a presentation by students from the Forest Park Middle School Music Department. They introduced to us, Technology Integration through a program called SmartMusic. The Music Department received this program through a Grant from The Franklin Educational Foundation.
SmartMusic is an interactive music practice system that includes accompaniments, exercises, and recording/burning functionality for students to archive and listen to their own work. Designed for woodwinds, brass, strings, and vocals, the system includes accompaniments for some 30,000 compositions and provides feedback on student performance as they play along. The system also allows educators to guide student practice and provides tools for assignments and grading.
Music Teacher, Cheryl Miracle, introduced us to six Jazz students, Axel Xiong, Sam Rivedal, Christine Stein, Bianca Kue, Julia Bustle, and Lauren Mather.
Axel manned the program first, and set it up with the piece Evensong (Lehman). He performed a vocal, with a microphone that was plugged directly into the program, singing as the program showed the notes on the screen. He was allowed to change the tempo of the song as he went along and did a very nice job. This was light years away from the days when we stood there with the teacher pounding away on the piano for us as we sang.
Sam, toted his tuba to the front, explaining that he had to sit on a large book because the tuba is so large. And it was! He plugged into the program and played Offenbach’s Marines Hymn, flawlessly. He actually played twice. The first time he played unaccompanied because the program was being set up. You could tell his excitement about this program, because when he was hooked up and playing while being accompanied by music and a beat from the program, his whole demeanor changed and it brought him up a level from good to excellent.
Next Christine, Bianca, Julia and Lauren played to You’re a Grand Old Flag (Cohan). Christine plugged in her flute while the other girls played along with their saxophones. The program shows, while the student is playing, red and green notes so the student can see if they are making mistakes and try to improve. We were not seeing any red notes on these practiced pieces.
Bianca also played You’re a Grand Old Flag on her Tenor Sax, also with no mistakes and Julia did a performance of Yankee Doodle (Cohan) on the Alto Sax.
Since these practiced performances were done so well, Ms. Miracle wanted to show us what would happen when a student was just learning a piece, so Lauren plugged in and played the Can-Can (Offenbach). She did have red notes pop up during her performance. The program will give the student how many notes were incorrect and a percentage rate.
I have to say, music class has come long way with technology, and we were told this isn’t even up-to-date technology. These students can use this program at home to practice, send information to their teachers, performances can be burned to CD. Music can be composed and transposed. You are allowed to see how your single instrument will sound with a backup band. It’s great!
My youngest child was at FPMS 1994-96 and there was nothing technologically available when he was in band. While he learned music and appreciation for the art, I think he would have appreciated it so much more with a program like this. These students are very fortunate to have the SmartMusic program available to them. I hope they are able to keep updating the programs in the future.
The parents of Axel, Sam, Christine, Bianca, Julia and Lauren should be very proud of the fine job they did performing at the meeting last night. They are outstanding music students and an asset to Forest Park Middle School and the City of Franklin. Cheryl Miracle is doing a nice job with the music program and the technology available to her.
