S M A R T   M U S I C   &   M A R C H I N G   B A N D

 

May 8, 2008

 

To the Parents of our 8^th Grade Band students who will be in Marching Band next year:

 

As this school year comes quickly to a close, I wanted to take a moment to let you know about an exciting development for your band student for next year. We will be using a new educational tool for the West Band called Smart Music. This is a fun, easy to use program to assist students as they practice at home. We will be using Smart Music this summer to help students practice their marching band music and get ready for Band Camp!

 

Smart Music contains over 50,000 exercises and etudes aimed at helping band students develop greater technical facility. It also has an impressive library of professional bands playing concert and jazz band music. Each of these pieces has individual parts which students can view on screen, play along with, and record themselves as an mp3 file. Smart Music will evaluate their recording for correct notes and rhythms and give a score. If students are satisfied with their score, they can email it to me. if not, they can continue to practice until they are. When students send me their computer-generated score and mp3, I can then listen to their recording and make additional recommendations to them about their tone quality, dynamics, and other expressive qualities not assessed by the computer. During the summer, students will be sending me recordings of them playing the marching band music so I can give them pointers and help them get more comfortable with the music.

 

One of the many benefits of this program is that it allows me to hear students play their instruments individually in their comfort zone: at home. Students can also isolate short phrases or even specific beats of the music, slow down the tempo, and loop it, repeating this short segment over and over until they can play it accurately. They can also click on any note and the fingering for that note appears in a diagram for easy reference. Students can listen to just their part or the entire ensemble, making it clear how their part fits in with the rest of the band. Smart Music also has a built in tuner and metronome as well. You can learn more from their website: www.smartmusic.com.

 

The cost for the one year subscription and microphone is built in to the band fee that is paid to the Boosters, so no money is due at this time. Our goal is to distribute the program CDs and microphones to the kids by the last day of school. We will also have Band Buddies (high school band members) paired with new students to help with Smart Music and all things BAND!

 

Thanks for supporting your child's love of band and passion for music! Please let me know if you have any questions about Smart Music.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ben Pyatt

Email:bpyatt@pkwy.k12.mo.us        Office: (314) 415-7576