Teaching Technology

"Harried Schools Trumpet Digital Music Teacher: Technology eases pupils' boredom, directors' burden"


This article discusses the use of SmartMusic, a program that allows students to play into a computer and get instant feedback on how many notes they played correctly or incorrectly. Is this helpful for band directors? It's got to be. Is this helpful for the student? Maybe note-wise. But perhaps at the expense of other musical aspects (all of which are waaaaay more important than just right notes), including the students' mental and emotional approach to learning music. This article does address that aspect, and says that the program could never replace individual lessons with a person. My own inclination is that this could, in the long run, be more harmful in the creation of the upcoming generation of musicians than beneficial. I realize, though, that I tend to be an old stick-in-the-mud, and am refraining from giving an "authoritative" opinion...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/11/harried_schools_trumpet_digital_music_teacher/