While I do
sincerely believe that we, as music educators, are starting to accept the inevitable
integration of technology in the band room, many questions still remain such as;
Where do we start?
That is
precisely what I discuss in this entry.
I realize that it is August and perhaps I should be doing something
other than this whilst sitting beside a pool in the beautiful Okanagan but such
is the life of an educator! I will be generally
directing learner outcomes towards the Alberta Education Music Program of
Studies (https://education.alberta.ca/teachers/program/finearts/programs/)
but luckily we all need a starting point, a foundation to build upon. It is advisable to spend significant class
time at the start of the course dedicated to learning fundamentals of iPad and
the programs you elect to use. Despite
the popularity of loops and samples, I believe the elementary rudiments of
music theory are of the utmost importance.
Loops and samples will invariably get your class started quickly with immediate
success for your students, however, without establishing basic rudiments, it will
soon become clear that you cannot facilitate a meaningful course based on loops
and samples for an entire academic year! While it makes an excellent module, an
entire year of arranging loops, in my opinion, is missing the mark (and program
of studies!).
Providing
your students with quick, easy access to a virtual keyboard is essential. I have found “Pianist Pro” by MooCowMusic Ltd
(https://appsto.re/ca/EW7yv.i) to
be best. At first I used the keyboard in
Garageband but having students be able to access this quickly, with a practical
virtual keyboard was inefficient. What I
really like about the Pianist Pro is that the keyboard is quite large on the
screen and is available to the student immediately after launching the
program. The samples are quite good and
due to the keyboard taking up almost the entire iPad screen, students aren’t
tempted to become distracted with other virtual instruments, as was the case
when using garageband.
While
Pianist Pro is not a complete package for teaching music theory, it is simply a
tool to compliment your teaching. I have
a justified fear that at an increasingly alarming rate, music educators are placing
the “burden” of teaching theory upon programs rather than themselves. This, in
and of itself, is a topic worthy of a doctoral dissertation! But I will save
that for another time. While there are
many great theory methods out there, Pianist Pro is simply to be used to
compliment your teaching. One of the
main reasons I struggled at first with music theory was that I am a guitar
player, and all the methods were visualized on keyboards. Had I had the opportunity for a portable, accessible
keyboard to play on while learning my rudiments, I would have found success
much earlier. Beside, Esa-Pekka Salonen uses Pianist Pro and that should be
reason enough to give it a try (https://vimeo.com/112253869).
