Editor’s Note: Using grant money from the Katharine Matthies Foundation, one Seymour teacher has integrated iPads into his music course at Seymour High School. The Valley Indy spent a few days with Brandt Schneider’s Music Theory class to see just how that works. Pretty well, it turns out.
Three students sit at an upright piano in the center of Brandt Schneider’s music room at Seymour High School.
The assignment: Listen to a song, and figure out the notes, the rhythm, the instruments. Write it all out in standard musical form. Perform it for the class.
One student is holding a guitar. Another strikes notes on the piano.
The third is looking up lyrics on an iPad.
Welcome to Seymour High School’s first iPad classroom.
After the district received a grant to purchase the iPads and other sound equipment for the music class this year, the students in Schneider’s Music Theory class have been using the small touch-screen tablet computers to do everything from look up information to play different instruments in a musical piece.
But at the end of the day, the iPads are only a tool, Schneider said, for the end result — learning about music.
Click play on the video to see some of the students use iPads for the assignment.
The iPads
The students flow seamlessly from physical instrument to the touch screens. They use the iPads as radios, Internet tools, guitars.
The iPads can use the Internet for access to instructional YouTube videos or educational websites like MusicTheory.net.
They can also turn into instruments, through downloadable applications that mimic piano keys, guitar strings and drum sets. In that way, the tablets expand the school’s musical instrument catalogue from a single piano to 15 pianos. Or 15 guitars. Or 15 xylophones.
Students also use the computers to find and play music, much like they do with their iPods, the smaller MP3 players.
The kicker is that students can do all three without scheduling time at one of the school’s computer labs.
“When you’re one to one, you don’t have to schedule time to learn,” Schneider said. “You just learn.”
The Class
Music Theory class is offered every couple of years at the high school. It’s made up of mostly seniors and juniors, but this year includes two underclassmen as well.
Most of the students said they have an interest in pursuing music in college and professionally. Several are in bands, or play instruments on their own time.
The course teaches them the basics of music — scales, note rhythm, reading music.
“I just have drum theory,” said junior Garrett Shackett, who plays the drums. “I thought it’d be good to broaden my horizons on other instrument theory.”
The students signed up for the class before any iPads entered the picture.
“I signed up and then I realized there would be iPads,” said freshman Miles Livolsi, the student strumming the guitar in the first anecdote. “I said ‘Oh, that’s really cool.’ But iPads or not, I came here to learn theory.”
The Assignment
The class is working on a major project, where students work in groups to transcribe the music to “That Man” by Caro Emerald.
Some days, Schneider plays the opening riffs of the lively jazz tune on the music room’s lone piano as students stroll into class.
The catchy beat repeats throughout class, when students play portions of the song as they try to pick out details about it for the assignment.
It’s a lesson in all things music theory, Schneider said, and the students are using their iPads to complete the work.
“Now they have to start thinking about form, key, being able to write it down,” Schneider said.
How It Works
Students check out the iPads at the beginning of class. Livolsi, Shackett and sophomore Julia Malota took their iPads and sat down at the only piano in the room.
Using the iPad, Shackett found the song “That Man” online and plays it aloud for the group to hear. The three count the measures in the song — one part of the assignment. Together, as they listen, they use the piano to try to find which key the song is played in, and which notes are used. Shackett takes notes throughout the process.
Click play on the video below to see the official music video for the song “That Man.”
In two other separate groups, students complete similar tasks. Some wear headphones attached to the iPad, listening to the song and counting the measures to themselves. At one point, several students are listening to the song this way, and there’s not sound in the classroom.
Schneider says the goal is to have the students learn how to play the song, and perform it using the iPads.
Added Benefits
The iPads are great tools, but they represent more than just flashy technology, Schneider said. The iPads are a way to meet students’ modern learning styles.
The students in Schneider’s class echoed that theme in their reaction to the iPads.
Brendan Machowski compared the music class with iPads to other classes in school.
“It’s not ‘Open your books to page…’” Machowski said. “It’s more of the stuff people are using now. You have so many resources at your disposal.”
The next step to the iPad program is allowing the music students to sign out the iPads to use in their other classes.
“You certainly want to use it as a tool,” Schneider told the students. “Whether it’s graphing for math, taking notes…”
Schneider hopes the tools will help engage students in school more — and help prevent students from dropping out.
“In some ways, I think the drop-out rate is a two-way street,” Schneider said. “We have to show the kids — either in equipment, people, time, something.”
