Teaching ALL the National Standards: an iPad App Roundup

A year ago, I attended a conference keynoted by Bennett Reimer, the author of 3 editions of “A Philosophy of Music Education.”  If you are a music educator trained in the last 30 years, chances are pretty good that you read this book as part of your undergraduate study.  In his address, Bennett spoke about the nine National Standards for Music Education:

1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
5. Reading and notating music.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

Bennet made the assertion, backed up by formal polls of music educators (and an informal poll of the conference attendees), that most performance class (choir, band, orchestra) music teachers are focused almost exclusively on standards 1 or 2 and 5.  The other standards are ‘left behind’ in favor of preparing music for the next concert.  Despite my music education degrees and years of experience, I had to acknowledge that I certainly devote the vast majority of my classroom time to standards 1 and 5.

One of my goals for the iPMEP is to make the other standards a more prominent part of my classroom instruction, using the iPad’s technology to facilitate them in an interesting and relevant way.  So now, I am searching for apps to best help make these goals more achievable.

Let’s go through the standards, and see what kinds of apps might be best for making them part of my classroom instruction.  Because most music teachers do them most and (hopefully) best, I’ll skip #1 and #2.

3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.

Because they’re related, I’ll group number 3 and 4 together.  For composition, an obvious choice is a loop-based music creation tool, akin to Apple’s Garageband, available for Macintosh computers, but not yet for the iPad.  I’ve had the chance to play with one loop-based recorder on an iPad, Pianist Pro.  This app uses a piano keyboard, with several piano-organ sounds, and a simple drum machine.  Students can record one part (such as a bass line) and then multi-track several more parts while listening to what has been recorded.  Students could easily record a 4-part chorale or be given the pattern for a simple blues bass line, and then improvise a solo using the included pentatonic scale mode.

Pianist Pro Play and Record Mode

Pianist Pro Pentatonic Mode

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until we see a glut of music composition software for the iPad.  Pianist Pro might be great for kids after some experience with the piano, but for an introductory composition experience, I’d like to see more graphical, drag-and-drop composition software.

5. Reading and notating music.

The App store already has quite a few apps which address this goal, although none I’ve seen that follow a step-by-step approach needed for comprehensive theory and eartraining.  A new entry is Mozart HD,  an app designed for helping users to read in the 12 major and minor keys.

Mozart HD

Another music theory program that has a good track record on the iPhone/iPod Touch is Nota HD, now for the iPad.  Nota offers piano training, as well as quizzing on basic theory.  The  developers of Nota seem to be dilligent in upgrading the software frequently, and may be responsive to educators who wish to use the software in their classrooms.

Nota HD

6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.

Here’s another place I think the iPad could really shine as an instructional tool.  An obvious use of the iPod software built into the iPad as a way for students to listen to recordings, and keeping a diary in a text editor like Pages.  Students could use headphones for a more enveloping experience of the music they’re evaluating, which could be served from a teacher computer’s iTunes library.

In addition to analyzing existing recordings, I’d like to use the iPad to allow students to analyze their own performances, visually evaluating their pitch accuracy.  Using software such as Pitch Primer to record their own voices (using an iPhone headphone/mic headset) while singing with the choir, and then going back and listening to their own voices while studying the pitch information shown on the screen could provide valuable, concrete feedback about the pitch aspect of their performance.

Pitch Primer

8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

On these last two points, the web capability of the iPad is most useful.  Apps such as Brighthouse Labs’ “History of Music Study Guide” (I can’t find a direct link, so fire up iTunes to see this app) offers information on history, art, and culture, although it may be more useful as a college student’s companion to NAWM than to the average middle school music student.  Resources such as Wikipedia can be browsed with various apps rather than via Safari, which helps constrain searches to only the information available there, rather than the whole, wild web.

Okay, now here’s your chance.  These are only a few of the apps that are available, and there’s no way I could possibly review or catalog them all.  What apps have you used?  Do you have a favorite piano app or theory app?  Have you read news about the major music textbook or software publishers preparing iPad software for music education instruction?  I could really use some help from like-minded music educators out there… So post away, and thanks!