SmartMusic Eliminating Teachers?

A newer development in music education that is starting to be incorporated into performance-based classes is a program called SmartMusic.  SmartMusic is a program that helps a student practice.  It will listen to you play your part and tell you everything you did correctly, and everything you did incorrectly.  It can also play accompaniment for whatever piece you're playing so you know what it sounds like and can give you grades based on how well you played whichever excerpt you were assigned from your teacher.  A link to their website: http://www.smartmusic.com/

Recently, there was a discussion about SmartMusic and how it could possibly be "eliminating" teachers.  A friend of mine was setting up teaching private French horn lessons to a student.  However, the mother contacted him and said they did not need him any longer because they discovered SmartMusic and were just going to use that instead.  However, is the experience the student will get from just using SmartMusic going to be as wholesome as getting lessons from a real life teacher?

I would say no.  While SmartMusic is a great tool to use for practicing and helping a student learn the music, it cannot fully replace what a teacher does.  SmartMusic can tell you the wrong notes you are playing and what fingers you should be pressing down for that note.  It can even tell you how long you should play that note for.  However, it cannot tell you HOW to play that note, let alone how to play it well.  It cannot explain how your embouchure should look or how fast your air should be moving or what position your hands should be in to play that note.  A teacher explains and models how to do that.   It cannot explain how to make music out of the sound coming out of your horn.  That is something that is inside of you - inside of humans that cannot be taught by a machine.  Performing music is such so physical and such a human experience that it's teaching cannot be replaced by a machine.  A real life teacher is necessary in order to succeed.

I would not eliminate SmartMusic all together.  I think it's a great tool to enhance the students' learning. We decided for my friend that he should have argued the points above and suggested using SmartMusic in conjunction with the private lessons, since the mother was so keen on it in the first place.  This would be a good way to organize assignments, and if grades were asked for, a good way to attain those as well.  Because music is very subjective in terms of grading, SmartMusic helps to set a solid system of assignments and grading that would make the administration happy.  However, there are kinks with the grading in the program that need to be worked out by a real teacher as well.

Overall, SmartMusic should simply assist the teachers, not eliminate them all together.

Interactivity #4

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvyGdl5peVRzdDFONkpCcDlkenU4YXFWeFVhY25tbEE&usp=sharing


I chose this particular lesson because it seemed to be a lesson that I felt my students would be able to relate to and easily learn from.  It also seemed to be something where they could bring their personal lives into the classroom through music they listen to.  I thought it was also already well thought-out and did not need very many changes to the plan.
One of the gaps I noticed between the Standards and the technologies used was the use of notation.  The original lesson plan did not use notation at all when determining the style of a piece.  However, Standard 1.1.5.B.1 states that musical notation will be used to identify the elements of music as well as aural prompts.  I felt that those needed to be included in this lesson plan in order to accomplish this standard and I therefore added a projector displaying notation of the listening examples during the class.  I believe this will not only give students an aural distinction in styles of music, but a visual example as well.  I think this will help the various types of learners I will have in the classroom.
The other detachment I saw was a lack of a group discussion about the musical elements.  I believe this will help the students think more critically about their reasons for picking those elements and why they believe they make the styles different.