A New Twist on a Band Playing Test: Solo Trios with GarageBand

Minnetonka band students have embraced the iPad as an instructional tool and routinely have their iPads on their music stands as pictured, annotating music during practices and touching screens to turn the page.

Our freshman band teacher, Paul Rosen, recently shared a creative twist on the traditional playing test students do for his class. He rearranged a piece of music so his students could play three different parts of it for their playing test using GarageBand. Students recorded the first part, then as it played they recorded the second track and layered that recording on top of the first. They repeated this process again and ended up with a recording of a trio entirely played by one person--themselves--for their individual playing test. They then turned this GarageBand recording in to their teacher through Schoology, our Learning Management System.

Recording a playing test and turning it in through Schoology is a common, standard procedure for our Minnetonka band and orchestra students beginning in fifth grade in our 1:1 iPad program. Music teachers like Paul routinely have students submit audio and or video recordings for their playing tests. They assess the students in five categories using a rubric within Schoology (pictured): rhythm, pitch accuracy, dynamics, tempo, and articulation.

You can listen to a student’s playing test here. Paul explained to me that the students found this trio assignment to be a fun change from their regular playing tests. They stated that they felt like professional musicians. Some students had the metronome playing in their mix while others did not. His complete directions for the task are below.

Another band concert with director Paul Rosen
and students using their iPads.

Back when I was in middle and high school band learning to play the alto saxophone, I remember playing tests. I would practice a piece and then play it individually for our band director. We did this a few times a year. I remember our director would spend a number of days meeting with each student to assess us individually, while the rest of the band would have free time to do other homework or talk with our friends. But additional learning and practice in band did not happen on those days of school.

Taking class time for playing tests over many days has all but disappeared from Minnetonka music classrooms. It has also decreased for many other teacher assessments, too, such as world language speaking tests where students now can record their answers to questions for their teacher to listen to after class, rather than individually during the school day. This is yet another example of accelerated learning possible due to 1:1 iPads in Minnetonka.

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Accelerating Learning in Music Classes with Technology

Students in our schools are fortunate to be in a 1:1 iPad environment, where tablets allow technology integration to occur in all subject areas. Handwriting, annotating, scribbling notes in margins, sketching out ideas and drawing pictures are important components to learning, manipulating content, and creation of connections and new ideas. The iPad has provided us with multiple ways to do this.

For example, in our music classes students are using the iPad to enhance and accelerate their learning.  In this video footage recorded last week, middle school band students are annotating their music while their teacher, Paul Rosen, plays a song.  Students were to mark up their music as they heard errors he purposely made while playing.  They can then learn from these markings and annotations to prevent making the same errors when they played the music themselves.

Music students in band, choir, and orchestra regularly mark up their music on their iPad. They also use it in many other ways for their music studies.  Students can accessing recordings teachers have made and posted to Schoology as well as listen to recordings of the entire band/choir/orchestra with which they can play and practice along, making practice time at home more effective.  Students no longer repeatedly practice playing or singing a part incorrectly. 

The iPad is also used for assessments. Teachers have their students record themselves playing or singing a piece and submit this audio/video recording electronically to their instructor with their iPad to Schoology.  The instructor can provide each individual with specific feedback, either written, typed, or audio or video recorded, and post their rubrics in Schoology.

A teacher recently pointed out to me how much additional instructional time this creates for students.  Prior to 1:1 devices, the instructor would take days, sometimes weeks, to pull each student individually for playing/singing tests while the rest of the students had idle time or used the class as a study hour.  Now class time can be spent more productively, increasing the number of instructional days possible in the curriculum.  I have heard world language teachers speak of the same benefits and time gains when they have students record assessments outside of class.

Both music and world language teachers have also mentioned that students will often repeatedly re-record these assessments until they know they have it nearly perfect.  This was something that never was possible with the once and done performance assessments done in class for the teacher.  Repeated practice and self correction improves and increases the learning.  

There are a number of apps that students in our music program use on their iPads.  They can compose and write music with apps like Finale SongBook, Garageband, SmartMusic, and Virtuoso Piano. They can tune their instruments at home with insTuner Lite, something my son has done with his viola.  And they can use an app like Pro Metronome to work on their timing and rhythm. 

To learn more about Minnetonka’s 1:1 iPad program, check out tinyurl.com/iPadTonka, which includes more videos of our students and teachers using iPads.