I’ve been very busy this fall – even without Marching Band I find that I’m spending so much more time preparing lessons and units – and most of all – music. This year we’re using SmartMusic to take assessments and to help students practice. Unfortunately the SmartMusic library does not have all of the titles we’re performing, nor is it really appropriate for some of the titles. Our Symphonic Band for example, is performing Voodoo by Daniel Bukvich. This is an aleatoric piece written in open score format that requires students to take apart their instruments, perform using just their mouthpieces, trumpets get to pull out slides and use them as whistles, and they blow across mutes as if they were bottles. It’s not something that SmartMusic would be able to score. I did, however, use Finale to upload specific parts of the score that SmartMusic could assist students in practice. I also uploaded entire parts for other scores we’re performing including You Raise Me Up and Homeward Bound.

My Jazz Ensemble has an extremely weird instrumentation – so every score we perform is custom written. Finale and SmartMusic have been useful for that class as well – replacing Sibelius.

So far the student response to SmartMusic has been very positive, but not all students have it at home as of yet. For the second marking period students will be getting more SmartMusic assignments – so I’m hoping that will encourage students to purchase their own accounts.