With the advent of online learning management systems (LMSs) school districts and music programs across the world are beginning to take advantage of the vast educational possibilities that integrated technology promises. Many schools have implemented “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies or one-to-one policies wherein the school provides each student with laptops or tablets. Tablets or iPads (particularly the new, larger 12.9″ iPad Pro) offer many valuable opportunities within the music classroom.

Useful Applications and Software

In addition to providing quick and convenient access to online materials through the school’s designated LMS, tablets offer students and teachers access to a multitude of useful applications.

The first thing that should come to any musician or music teacher’s mind should be the plethora of free metronome, tuning, and audio recording apps available on any tablet. These provide powerful practice tools for students as well as opportunities for self-assessment.

Furthermore, there exist an extensive arsenal of applications (such as Groovy or MusicFirst) for the elementary music classroom that allow young students to experiment with sounds and even basic mixing and looping through fun and intuitive shapes and animations.

Other applications, such as Soundtrap and GarageBand, make creating and producing music simple for non-musicians and are excellent for music appreciation, technology, theory, or production classes.

Several applications exist for ear training practice, such as Auralia and Ear Training Free, which are great for all music students, especially music theory students. Other apps like Noteflight allow students to collaborate in real time on composition projects or easily take music theory notes.

iPad Pro Replacing Sheet Music

The new 12.9″ iPad Pro (and compatible Apple Pencil stylus) have proven extremely popular with musicians and composers. The size of the screen is perfect for reading full sheets of music and the exacting Apple Pencil stylus makes notating on scores or on staff paper a breeze. Best of all, playing off of sheet music on a tablet practically eliminates the problem of fumbling with difficult page turns.

If a music program switched to all electronic music distribution, teachers would no longer have to waste hours of precious planning time copying and sorting piles of individual parts. So long as students remember their tablet, there would be no more frantically raised hands in the middle of rehearsal about lost parts.

The ease of distributing and reading sheet music off a a large tablet also eases the practice of ensemble sight-reading. Teachers would no longer have to choose between the time-consuming and wasteful process of copying music for a 15-minute sight-reading session or passing out precious originals with fingers crossed that they are all returned at the end of class. Instead, they may simply send out electronic copies through their LMS and instruct students to open it on their tablet. (P.S., as far as sight-reading goes, there are also several online resources and applications for sight-reading available through tablets.)

Utilizing Tablets for Playing Assessments

After years of “down-the-line” playing assessments in rehearsal or scheduling study hall/after school assessment times, music teachers now have the option for students to easily submit video recordings. No more wasting rehearsal time or difficult scheduling in between students’ and teachers’ busy before/after school schedules.

While software (such as SmartMusic) that automatically grades a students’ playing based on pitch and rhythm accuracy does exist, many teachers still prefer to assess students’ performance themselves. With a tablet, students can easily video record themselves playing and submit the recording to the teacher. This allows students multiple opportunities to perfect their performance before submission so teachers can truly assess their best work. It also allows teachers to complete the assessments on their own time and leave comments in an electronic location easily accessible for the student. Also helpful is the easy ability for teachers using LMSs to standardize the format in which recordings are submitted, making the viewing of the videos much simpler.

Tablets also provide opportunities for virtual self assessment. Teachers can easily post videos of the ensembles’ performance or rehearsals and prompt students to assess themselves in the comment and discuss amongst each other what went well, what could be improved, and how they could improve those things.

https://medium.com/world-of-music/the-ipad-pro-is-everything-every-musician-ever-wanted-3509a2762c4e

Keys, S. (2019, January). Google Tools for the Performance Based Classroom. Clinic presented at the 81st annual Missouri Music Educators Association conference, Osage Beach, MO.