This week I had the opportunity to learn about two music technologies Chromatik and SmartMusic. Below is a screenshot from the Chromatik website (https://www.chromatik.com/static/about).
What is really neat about Chromatik, a completely web based program gives you access to a lot of popular sheet music and provides the “student” tools in order to practice the song. You can record yourself using video or audio, adjust the tempo, and transpose the music to a key you are comfortable with. Chromatik offers this sheet music catalogue for various instruments, but I focused on the vocal section. As a choral educator, I think Chromatik would be most beneficial to a private voice teacher or an educator that has more opportunities to work one-on-one with a student. I can introduce the program to my high school students as an opportunity to practice, record, and self critique for the solo voice but it does not provide opportunities for a singer to develop vocal independence while another voice sings harmony.
SmartMusic is definitely a program that I plan on investigating and implementing into my high school choir classroom. I watched a podcast about SmartMusic in the choir classroom (http://www.smartmusic.com/products/educators/features-and-benefits/).
There are vocal exercises, vocal sight reading, and rhythmic sight reading examples that develop a singers musicality and music reading abilities. There are also vocal solos that provide accompaniment and opportunities for a student to sing the piece and be given instant feedback on pitch and rhythmic accuracy. This program would also be very beneficial in a private voice studio but I believe that a choral classroom could benefit from the various vocal warm-ups and sight singing exercises. I wish SmartMusic had more activities for a choir such as singing your vocal part against the soprano, alto, tenor, or bass part. The program focuses on the soloist not the ensemble member.
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