My school ensembles have been using SmartMusic for the past several months. The students and I are both learning how to use SmartMusic simultaneously, and while the students have an overwhelmingly positive attitude about this new tool, as I do myself, there have been some small problems and glitches. I like SmartMusic, I think it’s has the potential to be a great tool, but so far it has not been easy going. It hasn’t been horrible, but not smooth sailing either.

Here was my rollout plan:

• Marking Period 1 – September-November – intro SmartMusic in the classroom and to parents; start using it with students; send home info for student subscriptions – create classes and grade books, use it in class for student assessments.
• Marking Period 2 – November-January – intro to more student homework assignments – bi-weekly rhythm assignments and one or two assignments for repertoire.
• Marking Period 3 – February-March – push for complete enrollment at home, increase to weekly assignments if feasible.
• Marking period 4 – April-June – full integration – reflect on process and plan for incoming freshman rollout for immediate use in September.

The Good

The students seem to like SmartMusic – it makes practicing fun and it’s a great too, I’m still not sure, however, how to best implement this new tool. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

• Assessments – for the first marking period quarterly I used SmartMusic for part of the performance exam. Students had to complete several exercises including sight reading examples.
• Recordings – I’m trying to choose repertoire that’s available on SmartMusic. The recordings are excellent and a valuable resource.
• Rhythms – for the second marking period I started assigning bi-weekly rhythm exercises. I allowed SmartMusic to “auto-schedule” them – an easy way to go – but in the future I’ll probably pick and choose the exact exercises I want so that they align with our repertoire and are better aligned to the rhythmic figures I need them to learn.
• Scales – scale tests are easy to assign, and no longer take time out from our rehearsals.

The Bad

There are a few issues I’m starting to find as we use SmartMusic:

• SmartMusc is too expensive – the $40 subscription is too expensive for many of our families. I definitely need to focus fundraising efforts so we can purchase accounts for every student. I think it would be much easier to start using this if I knew that every kid had this at home.
• SmartMusic is Classroom oriented – I cannot have students create and submit their own assessments which is a big problem and one of my biggest pet peeves about SmartMusic. With 20-30 students in a class, all performing at different levels, I’d like students to be able to use SmartMusic for their own personal practice at their own level. Unfortunately SmartMusic does not work this way. The only way SmartMusic will put a grade into my grade book is if I assign it myself. I’d really like for students to be able to create their own lessons and exercises and submit them to me – creating a more personalized digital portfolio of their work. ( I have some ideas about this I’ll address in future posts!)
• Repertoire – While SmartMusic has extensive repertoire for Concert Band and Big Band, it is lack-luster as far as small combo music, Jazz improv resources, and vocal music. Chamber Music? What’s Chamber music? SmartMusic has NONE. Which is very upsetting as I could very easily see a small chamber group utilizing SmartMusic in a practice room together, but SmartMusic has no chamber music for any instrument combination at all.
• Guitar & Percussion – The percussion and guitar parts for the charts are not always supported for assessment or the “my part” option where students can hear their part performed – this was especially a problem for the sight reading exercises – no parts for guitarist.

The Tools and The Future

Now that I’ve got my foundation for SmartMusic down, I’m going to start blogging about how I’m using it in my classes each week. I’m also going to start looking for other resources and directors who may be blogging and sharing their experiences with the software. It really is a valuable tool, but it’s still just a tool – only useful if you understand how and when to use it.