Smartmusic Review
SmartMusic, a product of MakeMusic based out of Boulder, CO, is a music teacher's catch-all. A fully online application, SmartMusic is a practice aid, assessment tool, and curricular aid designed to be accessible for all students.
SmartMusic as a Practice Aid
SmartMusic functions primarily as an interactive method book and sheet music reader with built in tools to enhance a student's practice. Currently boasting over 95 method books and thousands of solo and ensemble titles with full accompaniment, SmartMusic enables students to receive immediate feedback detailing pitch and rhythm errors with a performance score. Further, directors and students are able to make written comments to each other. Students also have a tuner, metronome, and loop function available to ensure proper and deliberate practice.
SmartMusic as Assessment Tool
Educators are able to listen to their students' practice recordings from anywhere they can access the internet. With a built in gradebook functionality and customizable rubrics, it is very easy for educator's to both give clear grade breakdowns for students and to demonstrate growth and accurate recordkeeping to administrators and parents. Accountability is a breeze, as SmartMusic also keeps track of student practice down to the second. And organization is made simple by the ability to organize assessments into units!
Curriculum and Accessibility
SmartMusic allows for classroom use in order to reinforce curriculum by enabling educators to create their own compositions within the platform. Using MusicXML format, the default music notation file format, educators can create their own exercises and export them to almost any major music notation program. Educators can also use this feature in real time in their lessons, especially in conjunction with SmartMusic's Sight Reading Builder. This feature allows educators to generate an infinite supply of sightreading material for their students.
Accessibility-wise, SmartMusic ensures that its service may be used on a variety of devices and using a variety of different web browsers. All musical examples use professional samples to ensure students are getting the highest quality models. And SmartMusic even includes a colorblind mode!
All of these features leads one to wonder: how much does this cost?
Pricing
SmartMusic's main objective is to accessible and affordable to all students. As thus, it offers a variety of packages, including a free version of its platform.
Just the basic package, starting at $4 per student, gives you access to the library of method books that have been optimized for SmartMusic, which for many educators working in Grades 4-6 is more than enough. Step it up to $12 per student, and you have access to all of SmartMusic's features, including all solo and ensembles titles and discovery functions.
Training
Teacher training is available in the form of webinars and actual in-person instruction. Recorded webinars are available on the SmartMusic website for free (hosted via YouTube)! Actual in-person sessions are most costly, however, coming in at $2000 per 25 trainees. Scheduling a webinar for your team specifically is less costly, but still comes in at $200 per webinar. There is also a regularly updated blog available on the SmartMusic website to explore topics related to pedagogy and rehearsal, both with and without SmartMusic.
Overall, SmartMusic is a valuable teaching tool. At such an affordable price, I could easily see this being used by instrumental directors to help students prepare for concerts, private instructors helping students prepare for competition, or choral directors assessing student ability to sight-sing without having to place students on the spot in class!
All info from: smartmusic.com
SmartMusic as a Practice Aid
SmartMusic functions primarily as an interactive method book and sheet music reader with built in tools to enhance a student's practice. Currently boasting over 95 method books and thousands of solo and ensemble titles with full accompaniment, SmartMusic enables students to receive immediate feedback detailing pitch and rhythm errors with a performance score. Further, directors and students are able to make written comments to each other. Students also have a tuner, metronome, and loop function available to ensure proper and deliberate practice.
Educators are able to listen to their students' practice recordings from anywhere they can access the internet. With a built in gradebook functionality and customizable rubrics, it is very easy for educator's to both give clear grade breakdowns for students and to demonstrate growth and accurate recordkeeping to administrators and parents. Accountability is a breeze, as SmartMusic also keeps track of student practice down to the second. And organization is made simple by the ability to organize assessments into units!
SmartMusic allows for classroom use in order to reinforce curriculum by enabling educators to create their own compositions within the platform. Using MusicXML format, the default music notation file format, educators can create their own exercises and export them to almost any major music notation program. Educators can also use this feature in real time in their lessons, especially in conjunction with SmartMusic's Sight Reading Builder. This feature allows educators to generate an infinite supply of sightreading material for their students.
Accessibility-wise, SmartMusic ensures that its service may be used on a variety of devices and using a variety of different web browsers. All musical examples use professional samples to ensure students are getting the highest quality models. And SmartMusic even includes a colorblind mode!
All of these features leads one to wonder: how much does this cost?
SmartMusic's main objective is to accessible and affordable to all students. As thus, it offers a variety of packages, including a free version of its platform.
Training
Teacher training is available in the form of webinars and actual in-person instruction. Recorded webinars are available on the SmartMusic website for free (hosted via YouTube)! Actual in-person sessions are most costly, however, coming in at $2000 per 25 trainees. Scheduling a webinar for your team specifically is less costly, but still comes in at $200 per webinar. There is also a regularly updated blog available on the SmartMusic website to explore topics related to pedagogy and rehearsal, both with and without SmartMusic.
Overall, SmartMusic is a valuable teaching tool. At such an affordable price, I could easily see this being used by instrumental directors to help students prepare for concerts, private instructors helping students prepare for competition, or choral directors assessing student ability to sight-sing without having to place students on the spot in class!
All info from: smartmusic.com
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