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About SmartMusic
The Associated Board has established a partnership with the makers of SmartMusic, an exciting new computer based accompaniment tool that listens and reacts to you as you play or sing. The program offers many benefits to teachers and students preparing for Associated Board exams and in the wider music education context.
What is SmartMusic?
SmartMusic brings you accompaniments to a wealth of repertoire for wind, brass and stringed instruments and for voice. Just connect a microphone and speakers to a Windows or Macintosh computer and SmartMusic will play the accompaniment as you, the performer, play the solo line. Unlike CD backing tracks SmartMusic's Intelligent Accompaniment listens to your performance and follows your spontaneous tempo changes. When you slow down, it slows down, when you speed up, it speeds up, enabling you to play the piece according to your own interpretation.
The SmartMusic library contains accompaniments for over 30,000 pieces across a wide range of instruments, styles and levels. Repertoire from Grade 1 standard through to Grade 8 and beyond is included. Almost 500 of the accompaniments in the library are for pieces featured in current Associated Board syllabuses and this number is growing all the time. To see which pieces on the current Associated Board syllabuses have accompaniments available in the SmartMusic library, visit www.abrsm.org/smartMusic/syllabus. Alongside piano accompaniments you will also find basso continuo and full orchestral parts, allowing you to experience an authentic accompaniment.
Whilst SmartMusic can never replace a live accompanist, it does provide a valuable tool for instrumental teachers with limited keyboard skills and for students to use at home in their practice sessions. With SmartMusic, students can begin to practise with an accompaniment at the earliest stages of learning a piece, becoming familiar with how the music works as a whole whilst being able to play the music at a speed that suits them.
Practice tools
SmartMusic has been specifically designed to provide useful resources for pupils practising at home. The program includes the following practice tools:
Tempo Control allows you to slow down the speed of the accompaniment when you are learning the piece.
With Practice Loops you can put a difficult passage into a loop, starting slowly and gradually working up to speed.
Hear Solo Part demonstrates how a rhythm, a trill or other passage in the solo part is performed.
With Record Yourself students can record a passage and then play it back to hear how they actually sound. The recording can also be emailed to a teacher and archived on a CD.
The Assessment tool can identify any wrong notes or rhythms played by the solo performer and then demonstrate the correct performance of these elements.
Transposition allows the performer to sing or play a piece in any key.
The Built-In Tuner is unique in that it can play reference notes as pupils perform, providing a guide to where the pitch should be.
The Fingering Charts allow you to click on any note to check the suggested fingering.
Developing skills
Exercises that can help teachers and their pupils prepare for a graded music exam are among the many scale, arpeggio, interval and rhythm exercises included with SmartMusic. With all these exercises and assessments the user can change the key, articulation, tempo and type of accompaniment.
Jazz and improvisation
For those teaching their pupils to improvise, SmartMusic includes a range of innovative features, in addition to the facility to practise tunes at any tempo and in any key.
Jazz Patterns shows the standard patterns for the chord changes in a tune on the screen so that pupils can practise, and become familiar with, the building blocks of a jazz tune.
Transcriptions of Piano, Bass and Drums have been provided for a number of pieces. Pupils can play along to the accompaniment, record their performance and then follow the complete notation for the rhythm section as they listen to their recording.
Jazz Exercises include scales and arpeggios covering a range of jazz progressions.
Over 100 Play By Ear Exercises have been included in SmartMusic. The exercises have been designed to help with the development of aural skills and awareness so that pupils can begin to play what they hear in their mind.
SmartMusic enjoys a special relationship with the outstanding jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and many of the jazz features described here were recorded specifically for SmartMusic by Marsalis' own rhythm section. SmartMusic also supports many jazz titles through its own Wynton Marsalis Series as well as popular titles published by Jamey Aebersold and Alfred.
Make your own with Finale 2006
If you use Finale 2006 music notation software you can create your own SmartMusic accompaniments and exercises. All the SmartMusic features will work with your own files, including Intelligent Accompaniment, Assessment, Transposition and Practice Loops.
Support from the Associated Board
The Associated Board fully supports SmartMusic, recognising that it provides an innovative and useful resource for use in and outside lessons. Not only does it give pupils a chance to play and practise their pieces with an accompaniment, but it can also provide structure and encouragement in the learning of a range of essential musical skills. For teachers it provides a valuable tool that can support and complement their own teaching strategies.
Clara Taylor, the Associated Board's Chief Examiner, sees SmartMusic as “an invaluable tool for candidates at the early stages of learning a piece”. She adds that “although the unique experience of working with a human accompanist cannot be replaced, we hope you will join us in making use of this cutting-edge technology”.
ABRSM Publishing will be producing SmartMusic files for a number of its music publications in the future, beginning with Time Pieces for Flute early in 2006.
How to get SmartMusic
MakeMusic, the manufacturer of SmartMusic, is offering a one-year SmartMusic subscription to anyone with an Associated Board Applicant Number for just £21.99 – a saving of over £50.00 on the retail price. Up to 20 of the Applicant's pupils can also take advantage of this offer. To apply for this discount, visit www.abrsm.org/smartMusic.