 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: C2thew
Date: 2008-03-24 07:28
some schools are installing this new program for their students to make them practice their parts. this program has alot of interesting features, however the cost is expensive, and access to the database is $100 a year and $25 for each computer with the program installed on it. making this a pretty expensive program to use.
just curious, anyone have any experience using this program? not much info on the web.
http://www.smartmusic.com/default.aspx
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2008-03-24 11:49
I am about to start a test group out of my studio into smartmusic.
And, FWIW, $100/$25 is dirt cheap if the options they offer are as good as they seem.
David Blumberg uses smartmusic in his studio and is a rep, so I would imagine he'll have many thoughts to contribute.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2008-03-24 12:25
I haven't done much rep wise as I'm too busy with everything else to call on schools to do a demo so am speaking as a user.
Its a blast to use. The old version was great with the hundreds of pieces to play with piano, but the current version has over 700 band pieces of all levels with real bands playing along with the scrolling music. The other day I had a 7th grade Sax player reading Hazo's Sevens which alternates between 7/16 and 11/16.
The jazz band works have about 100 very cool works too including tickletoe and Godwin's the jazz police.
If it cost me personally $1000 a year I would still use it.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2008-03-24 12:45
David,
How often do your students find that pieces that their schools are studying are in the archive?
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2008-03-24 13:26
All the time. Some directors are even consulting the program to pick band selections. Figure that reading through some of the parts and hearing the piece helps the director pick pieces which are quality.
Though last week there was a band piece which a student had that there were 20 other works by that composer but not that work.
I feel that it gives players a huge advantage for competitions as they hone their sightreading skills big time and it's fun too.
Then there's the piano stuff which is mostly midi (really high quality midi, not "frankenstein" midi) and has a lot of the standard rep in it.
Could be the first time that a student has ever played with a piano accomp.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: 53engine
Date: 2008-03-24 14:29
I just bought this program. In my opinion, it's dirt cheap. You get piano accompaniments for just about every piece that you could be interested in, you can change the tempo to a practice tempo and then play it back at the performance tempo, you can transpose anything into any instrument, so for example I can now play all of the Mozart flute works on the clarinet without getting a "C" clarinet. It's got about 6000 exercises, scales, chords, arpeggios, etc. that you can play at any speed, then it grade the playing and shows which notes were played at the correct timing and the other ones, it makes in red a little before or after the note on the screen. It gives you probably 75 Baroque pieces with the music for any for every instrument, Bach, Handel sonatas, Correlli, etc. with the music appearing on the screen and a marker to show you the beat. And you can record your performance, downlead it to a disk and email or whatever..
I am a serious amateur, work in other areas and play for my own enjoyment. I have always wanted to know how I would sound with an accompaniment playing, for example, the Mozart Quintet. I just made a recording or it and sent it to all of my friends and kids. The other thing is that, as many of you professionals know, when you hear yourself it makes you realize the small things that you are doing wrong, like clipping notes off, not being expressive enough, poorly started notes, poor articulation, etc. All for 100 dollars a year and 20 for the microphone. There are more features like you can cut the repeats, change whether the accompaniment follows you or you follow it, change the "size" and "reverberation characteristics of the hall".
I should go to work for them and sell this system. My wife hasn't seen me in a couple of weekends. It beats the snot out of MMO. Oh, BTW, it also has a piano playing the solo part for every piece if you want it.
And you can download it free for a time period.
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Author: pewd
Date: 2008-03-24 14:47
the $100 fee is for the first user ; only $25 for each student
e.g., i buy the $100 studio license, then my students get it at $25 a copy
this is the cost of a box of reeds ... i'd call that 'cheap', not 'expensive'.
if you're not affiliated with a school or studio with a license, then it costs $100 a copy.
you can have dozens of rehearsals with an accompanist (computer) for only $25 - compare that to the cost of a live accompanist when preparing for a contest or recital.
a wonderful training tool. i wish all my students would use it.
plus it includes a metronome, and a tuner. plus hundreds (thousands?) of exercise patterns (scales, thirds, arpeggios, etc) in all the major and minor keys. enough to keep you busy for months (years!) all on your computer screen.
i also key in student audition music into finale , which allows me to output it to smart music - another big help for the students.
- Paul Dods
Dallas, Texas
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Author: redwine
Date: 2008-03-24 15:58
Hello,
I think Smart Music is incredible. I use it to practice sonatas and concerti which I will perform and it greatly reduces the "learning curve", reducing the amount of rehearsal with a pianist. If I had this when I was a young student, I would have practiced a lot more! In addition to the uses that I enjoy, there are many more features which I have not even explored geared toward young students.
(Disclosure: I am a clinician for Smart Music, but, as with all other products I endorse, I only endorse those products which are extremely good)
Ben Redwine, DMA
owner, RJ Music Group
Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America
Selmer Paris artist
www.rjmusicgroup.com
www.redwinejazz.com
www.reedwizard.com
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Author: DrH2O
Date: 2008-03-24 16:08
You can also import music files from CD's and Itunes (after burning them to a CD). I do that for my community band music because only a few of the pieces are in the Smartmusic library. You obviously don't see the scrolling music and you have to find a recording that matches your sheet music, but you can change the tempo and the pitch as needed and have the advantage of playing with a full band as many times and as slowly as you need to.
It has helped me tremendously - especially since my band prepares over 50 pieces during "rehearsal season" in preparation for weekly concerts during the summer. With this program I can have as many extra rehearsals as I need!
Anne
Clarinet addict
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Author: Tara
Date: 2008-03-24 22:34
Last fall a rep for smartmusic (I forget his name, but he's the guy with the flute who is always at the booth at Midwest) did a presentation for all of the instrumental music staff in my district. We were very impressed with all of it. We hope to utilize it in the future- we want to get a projector and laptop so that a whole class of students could follow along at the same time. One of my colleagues handed out demo CDs to his students so they could practice the Holst 1st Suite along with it. The kids enjoyed it, and many of them found their solo accompaniments on there as well.
I think it could be a tremendous tool. I hope to implement it at the middle school when I can get some necessary equipment. As far as the price, I know our district was looking into some sort of district license (???) that would give each instructor a subscription and possibly a cheaper student rate... I could be wrong on that, but I think there was some kind of deal there...
Tara
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Author: ASBassCl1
Date: 2008-03-25 01:24
I used the program once to record a solo for my music theory class. It was rather frustrating and anything but "smart" music. I suppose it can be a good tool and a fun way for some to practice, but it doesn't follow your rubato at all and starts and stops at random points. My friend also didn't have any luck with the program, it's pretty stubborn. I'd only use it if you're desperate to record a solo and need an accompaniment.
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Author: Brenda ★2017
Date: 2008-03-25 01:29
If it didn't follow your "rubato" at all and also stops instead of hearing your next note and continuing, then probably it's not "hearing" you. Either the microphone isn't working properly or the setting in the program hasn't been set to a high enough sensitivity. It's probably a good idea to phone the support number and talk with someone about it.
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Author: Chauncey
Date: 2008-03-25 03:05
I always customize it manually - SmartMusic never follows me properly. What's worse is that the accompaniment is prone to slow or speed itself up/down every once in a while. It's kinda like Windows - Once you get past all of the stupid stuff that happens, tweak it a little here and there, and just get used to it, it's a nice, mature piece of software that is very reliable*.
It depends on the piece of music being played, too: The second movement of Weber's second concerto is a disaster to play with (the recitative particularly), but Pierne's Canzonetta works like a charm.
*Vista/Windows ME/ActiveSync/Windows Firewall/any non-critical Windows Updates/Microsoft Bob not included.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2008-03-25 11:50
Another thing to do is make sure that memory hungry programs aren't active. RealPlayer is a big, big memory hog so if you see it in your task manager you have to close it or SmartMusic won't work properly as it is using a lot of memory also.
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Author: Tony Beck
Date: 2008-03-25 13:52
I'm very impressed with it, except for some minor problems.
Smart Music is a huge resource hog. The first computer I ran it on was an older 600 MHz Dell running XP. Even with all the other background programs turned off, that machine got drug to its knees. I had to turn off the accompaniment and most of the other bells and whistles so that my daughter could get her assignments turned in. The teacher had to grade them though, since Smart Music won't put in a grade unless everything is turned on. I called the tech line about this, and they said that there is no version available for older/slower machines.
I helped another kid in my daughter's band get his computer set up, since it is too slow for Smart Music. Not everybody has the latest up-to-date system.
The other problem is the repertoire updates. These files are gigantic. I'm on a dialup and they take many hours to come in. There needs to be some way that these files can be broken up and downloaded in digestible chunks.
The practice room needs to be quiet. We practice in the sunroom. The AC, overhead fan and any radios in the kitchen must be turned off, or Smart Music finds a lot of notes we didn't play.
Another minor weirdness is that sometimes it won't give a full measure beat in. For instance, it will do three beats in 4/4, or two 3/4.
Finally, I've never found a place on the website to post bugs and issues. Occasionally, we'll get a survey, but they only allow you to answer their questions. There's no place to put comments. So, here are my comments. I hope someone from Smart Music checks the BB once in a while.
The most important thing Smart Music needs to do is to make a bare bones version for disadvantaged users. There are a lot of families out there with old computers that work just fine for surfing the net and writing assignments, but can’t run Smart Music.
After updating to a 3.8 GHz PC, with lots of memory, and a reasonably efficient operating system (NOT Vista), I'm very impressed with Smart Music. It has every piece that my daughter's band plays, and everything for her regional band tryouts as well. It also has most of the pieces we've played in the community band. It's fun to use as well.
There was a review of Smart Music on NPR a couple months ago. They may still have it up as an MP-3.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2008-03-25 14:23
There is a forum on their site.
Also, vista isn't supported which at this point isn't good.
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Author: 53engine
Date: 2008-03-25 14:43
I agree that the particular piece you are playing makes a difference. For example, it works great on Mozart K581-Allegro and things like the von Weber Duo Concertante 3rd. movement because there is almost non stop action, but take a piece like the Rossini Them and Variations and it keeps stopping and waiting for the right starting chord or pressing the bar. I have the foot pedal but haven't begun using it yet.
I did find that on the Mozart Allegro, beginning of the second part, right after the first clarinet passage, it stopped, but I kept going and for some reason after about 4 beats, it caught up with me in the right place. It actually did this twice. I had set the Intellignet Accompaniment for full"accompaniment follows soloist" though. One of the coolest features is the "reverb" feature where you can choose "the size hall or room" that you are "playing" in and then set to wetter or dryer, meaning more or less reverb.
The thing that I found also very useful though is the recording aspect. It picks up absolutely every sound so if you change positions, it changes the depth of the clarinet cound. It also picks up every note that is not started cleanly and every ending note that is clipped off in anticipation of the next phrase, I was able to correct a lot of this stuff, but I didn't even know I was doing some of it. One of my biggest problems with my playing is that it isn't really polished(I am a serious amateur). I can play the notes, even the right timing but the piece, in it's entirety, needs to sound more unified and polished. This is helping me achieve that.
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Author: Chauncey
Date: 2008-03-25 19:27
^Agreed; the reason I use SmartMusic is to perfect things like tuning and all of the wonderful little things that a metronome/tuner doesn't quite offer.
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Author: C2thew
Date: 2008-03-26 06:41
sounds like a sweeter program then the version i currently have: 6.0 released back in 1994. junk with basic accompaniments, although i do believe the interface is still relatively the same as the modern version.
do you know when the npr announcement was released? i'd like to hear what npr said about it.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2008-03-26 11:45
C2thew! The only program in history that has not been radically advanced within three years (much less 13!!) is MIDI.
The version you're using is (technologically) ancient!
James
PS...I suspect you'll love the newer up-to-date version ![[rotate]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley25.gif) !
Gnothi Seauton
Post Edited (2008-03-26 11:46)
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Author: C2thew
Date: 2008-03-27 01:58
no kidding. i installed it, looked at the accompaniment soundtracks, then promptly closed the program after playing a few of those so called midi tracks. it was like listening to a gameboy all over again.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau
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The Clarinet Pages
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