The third presentation in the Winter Piano Seminar was from Ray Partridge on ‘Teaching in the Digital Age’.
I am NOT brilliant with computers, and for me, this seminar either went over my head, or I currently use similar notation programs.
What do we use computers and technology for in our teaching studios? To record our students? To assist with homework assignments? To assist with accompanying? To notate music?
Ray had a laptop connected to the projector screen and various boxes and gadgets hooked up. He showed us an “Audio Interface” which you plug your microphone into (and he said make sure you have a decent microphone if you want to record a decent sound).
He also had an MP3 player which you can plug a microphone into and record directly.
Ray talked about the USB (a Universal Serial Bus – a device small enough to carry around on a keychain). Most students these days would have their own USB as they are now used instead of CDs, and have certainly taken the place of disks we used to put in the hard drive.
He also mentioned two other gizmos he had there: An “R05” which can also record your students playing so you can listen to it later or email it to them, whatever you want to do. Retails for about $395. Also a CD2I which is a ‘box’ type device with lots of flashing lights that you can record directly on to, no need for a microphone and apparently records with clarity for $1,000. Hooks straight up to your computer.
Ray then showed us through one of the notation programs (Finale, I think. I was too busy comparing it in my head to Sibelius, which I use). The use of a small piano keyboard linked up to your computer is handy for these notation programs (as is your ‘normal’ typing keyboard). Ray demonstrated that much time and effort can be saved by using this notation software, especially as you can assign homework for your students and email it to them, have them set it as their ringtone for next time you see them.
Another program Ray showed us was called ‘Band-in-a-box’. It seems quite clever, in that it can figure out the entire chord progression of a song for you in a matter of seconds. You can also set what genre you would like (ie Latin American: Samba, Rhumba etc) and it will do an entire accompaniment for you. Received lots of “oohing” and “aahing”. I can’t do the program justice on here, but if you check out http://www.band-in-a-box.com it is explained a little better.
I was inspired enough to come home and inform my husband that I was asking Santa for an MP3 player for Christmas. 😀
