website
mDecks.com. You can also touch any of the chord names and hear them, allowing you to create and experiment. Another feature allows you to record and playback your own harmonic sequences. This app allows countless opportunities for instruction, demonstration and also hands on learning and experimentation.”
The Orchestra for iPad is an innovative perspective for listening, viewing, and studying all aspects of… the Orchestra! The cost is $13.99. If you teach a music appreciation course, general music class, music theory course, a strings or orchestral program, this app is definitely worth the purchase price. Andrew Rhoads, the discoverer of this great app and MAT student writes, “This app allows for the user to experience some of the great orchestral scores in different ways. The full playback mode, which features a full score as
well as a condensed score, allows the user to follow as the Philharmonia Orchestra plays the piece. Within the playback mode, the user can look at a BeatMap of the different instrument sections as well as watch videos of certain sections play. If the user is not fluent in reading music, there is an option to switch the notes of the score to graphics that notate the score in a way that the user can see the contour of the lines being shown in the score. There are also options to listen to commentary from the conductor as well as other orchestra members about the piece that is being played. This app also allows the user to dig deeper into the instruments and sections of the Philharmonia Orchestra with 360º displays of their instruments as well as commentaries and videos of the orchestra members talking about and playing their respective instruments. It also features interactive samples of those instruments where the user can play notes on a keyboard on the bottom of the screen. In my opinion, this app can be used to teach any level of music education about orchestras and orchestral music because the teacher can use this app to show what instruments look and sound like as well as to do score studying and analysis with pieces like Beethoven's 5th, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, and Stravinksky's The Firebird.”
Songify by SMULE is an app available for all iDevices as well as Android. Cost is $2.99. This app has limitless possibilities for creating songs, making interdisciplinary connections, and unlocking some original content by users of all ages and in many different music education classrooms. Francis Carpino says,
40 May/June 2013
“This app takes regular speech, breaks it up into phrases, and autotunes it to the melody of the track.” Search this app on YouTube to check out some very funny and creative uses of Songify.
Finally an award winning app, A Jazzy Day – Swinging with the Big Band is a very creative and informative app for young audiences learning about jazz. It is made by The Melody Brook and costs $4.99. Victoria Zajac writes, “It's an interactive app for children ages 5-8 where they can either read an interactive book by themselves or have it read aloud to them on how a big band is formed. It goes over every instrument found in a big band and how it is set up. Children can tap on the screen and hear each instrument being played separately.“
This app is
especially cool in a general music classroom where a smart board is available so that students can come up to the board and interact with the app and all that students can experiment with while learning about jazz.
These are just a few picks from our first round of App of the
Week for Spring 2013. I will continue to archive the great apps my students are collecting to share in future PMEA journal issues. What I love about this component of our course is that there truly is something for everyone in terms of all that is out there for every genre of music education.
This article is reprinted from the PMEA News with permission of the author.
Elizabeth Sokolowski is division head of music education at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA.
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