Many music educators have the common misconception that they must have a multistation music-technology lab to teach effectively with computers. Some believe that teaching in a one-computer music classroom is too limiting, and that for the technology to be effective, one must have a one-student-per-computer situation. The costs associated with obtaining such a lab often deter them from proceeding further. That is unfortunate, because all you need to get started is a computer, a MIDI keyboard, a MIDI interface, an audio interface or sound card, speakers, and software — although adding a few peripherals, such as a projector, can help.

While teaching in a lab can be a wonderful experience, teaching with one station can also be very rewarding for the students and the teacher. Many educators who currently teach in music-technology labs began with one computer, as I did. As the students, parents, and school administrators see the technology's potential, hopefully they will make a commitment to expand that aspect of the program. But until then, you can accomplish a lot with one computer.

FIG. 1: Having the students surround a single computer monitor is usually unsatisfactory, because many students will have a hard time seeing the screen. A better solution, if your computer supports it, is to use two large video monitors, placed at angles at the front of the classroom.

Before we get into the methods of teaching in a one-computer classroom, let's agree that the technology should be used as a tool to enhance instruction rather than becoming the focal point of the instruction. In other words, don't teach the technology; teach with the technology.

GET THE COMPUTER OFF YOUR DESK
Before we look at ways to incorporate a computer into your instructional strategies, let's discuss three ways to use one music workstation in front of a class.

The first way is the least expensive and, generally, the least desirable: having the students surround a single computer monitor. This is normally a classroom-management nightmare, especially with a large class. Computer monitors are rarely big enough to be seen by all your students simultaneously, a factor that can cause them to become frustrated and then lose attention. If you have a small group of students, such as an instrumental-lesson group, this option might be suitable.

If, however, the class isn't very large, you might be able to make this a workable option by using two large video monitors placed at angles at the front of the classroom (see Fig. 1). Many modern computers can drive two video monitors simultaneously, and two well-placed 19-inch monitors can cover a small to midsize class. If you can't borrow a second monitor, try to budget for one. Decent 19-inch LCD (flat-screen) monitors cost about $500 to $600 each; they are light and take up relatively little table space, so you can set them up in a couple of minutes. Prices jump significantly when you get into monitors that are 20 inches and larger.

A second option is to hook up your computer to a television. If your television is large, this option can be better than using a video monitor. The television should be placed at the front of the classroom, where all students can see it. This makes classroom management much easier. The biggest advantage of this plan is that it is financially advantageous, because you probably already have access to a television.

To make this work, you need a VGA-to-component RGB (TV) adapter, which is commonly available from sources like Radio Shack and cost in the $100 range. Alternatively, many computers come with S-Video outputs that can be connected directly to a compatible television with a single cable.

Unfortunately, the image quality of a standard television is inferior to that of most computer monitors. Large images and text show up relatively well on a television, while smaller images and text are compromised. High-Definition Television (HDTV) solves this problem, but HDTV sets are still expensive, and few schools have them as of this writing.

The third option is by far the best: connect the computer to an LCD projector (see Fig. 2). The advantage of using an LCD projector is that the image size is much larger than a television's. When they first became available, LCD projectors were extremely expensive ($3,000 to $5,000). Today, quality LCD projectors cost anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000. The two most important features to consider are the number of lumens (how bright the bulb is) and the resolution (the higher the number, the better). Replacement bulbs can cost as much as $400 and usually last about 18 months.

It is not necessary to have a dedicated LCD projector for your classroom, as most schools already use LCD projectors for staff-development workshops. Ask the technology coordinator for your district how you can sign one out. If your department is able to purchase an LCD projector, I strongly recommend getting a ceiling-mount kit. It takes a little effort to install the ceiling mount, but it is convenient to always have the projector ready to go.

Regardless of which option you choose, you will need to amplify the computer's sound. There is no way that your students will be able to hear the built-in computer speakers. You can purchase a set of computer speakers (starting at $40), but their sound quality can be less than stellar. You can also hook up the computer to the auxiliary inputs of your stereo, but your best option is to use a pair of small, powered, studio-monitor speakers. The budget models are quite affordable, and the sound quality will be far superior to the other options. Some powered speakers can get quite loud and can easily cover the average classroom. For more information on small studio monitors, see Electronic Musician magazine's Web site, in the monitor-speaker section, at www.emusician.com/speakers.

FIG. 2: An LCD projector such as this Hewlett-Packard SB21 digital unit (which costs just under $1,500) allows the whole class to easily see whatever is on the computer monitor.

THE DIGITAL BLACKBOARD
Once you have prepared your computer system, it's time to think about ways to incorporate it into your music curriculum. Microsoft's PowerPoint is an excellent place to start. PowerPoint allows you to combine text, pictures, graphics, audio files, movies, and links to relevant Web sites in a cohesive, visually appealing presentation.

I like to think of this powerful tool for presenting instructional material as a digital blackboard that never needs erasing. Although creating Power-Point presentations can be labor intensive, once finished, they can be used again and again. That certainly beats writing, erasing, and rewriting your points on a conventional blackboard, especially when you have classes back to back.

I use PowerPoint to introduce each instructional unit of my curriculum. For example, in my eighth-grade general-music classes, I teach the history of Western music. At the beginning of each unit, I give an in-depth PowerPoint presentation that outlines the characteristics, historical events, and important musical concepts that relate to that period (see Web example 1). In my experience, the students prefer this type of presentation to more traditional note-taking methods.

MEET YOUR NEW ACCOMPANIST
When I taught chorus at the elementary level, I found it difficult to play piano and conduct 80 students at the same time. Although many choral pieces now come with CD accompaniments, the computer offers a superior solution by acting as a well-prepared accompanist.

By recording the accompaniments into a sequencing program during the first few days of school, I could make my own accompaniments and save some money in the process. (A notation program such as Sibelius Software's Sibelius or MakeMusic's Finale might also serve this purpose.) Since I recorded MIDI tracks, rather than audio tracks, I had control over the tempo when recording the songs, so I could slow the recording down enough to capture a decent performance the first time through, and then could raise the tempo for playback without otherwise affecting the sound of the piece. Later, I could add bass, string, and drum parts to make the accompaniments a little more interesting.

By having my own accompanist at every rehearsal — one that didn't make mistakes — I could focus more on conducting and thereby improve the performance of my chorus.

RECORDING YOUR SUCCESS
Another use for a single computer is to archive your students' performances. It is important to note that there are specific restrictions to recording copyrighted works, so I would advise that you research exactly what is legal at www.menc.org. You also might want to get a copy of Jay Althouse's self-published book Copyright: the Complete Guide for Music Educators (distributed by Alfred Publishing, 1997; www.alfred.com; $10.95).

One of the best teaching techniques is to have the students listen to their own performances. This method not only makes the process of critique come alive, but it is a great tool for teaching intonation, phrasing, breathing, and musicality. Try recording each instrumental or vocal music student at different points in the school year (first lesson, right before the winter and spring concerts, and so on) so that you have a sonic representation of each student's progress. I suggest that you save these recordings so that you and your students can reflect on their overall progress over the years.

TEACHING MUSIC THEORY
If you would otherwise teach a subject using lectures and blackboard examples, you can probably teach it in a one-computer classroom using instructional software on CD-ROM.

FIG. 3: The tuning feature in Sibelius Software’s Auralia ear-training program is very useful for teaching intonation.

Music theory and ear training are topics that work well in this context. Although programs such as Alfred's Essentials of Music Theory and Interactive Musician, Sibelius's Auralia and Musition, and Ars Nova's Practica Musica can be extremely effective when used at individual or networked workstations, you can also get a lot out of them when you have just a single copy and one computer. With most such software, after each concept is introduced, the program asks questions that evaluate the students' understanding. You can show the presentation, and when the program asks questions, you can call on a student to answer them. Students can also come up to the computer individually to input the answers.

For example, Auralia is a great program for developing ear training. I use its tuning feature in my instrumental-music lessons to teach intonation (see Fig. 3). Students hear two pitches and must determine how to tune the second pitch so that it matches the first. You can do similar things with any of the software programs I've mentioned. The important thing is to use these tools in the classroom with as many students as possible.

CLASS COMPOSITIONS
One of the most exciting uses of technology in the music classroom is using notation and sequencing software to teach students how to compose. That might have been a difficult undertaking before technology, but we now have powerful tools at our disposal

Certainly it would be great to teach composition in a lab where individuals or team of students can work on separate computers. But with one computer, you and your students can get a lot done and have plenty of fun in the process by taking a group approach to composition. When I taught at the elementary-school level, creating class compositions was one of my favorite lessons.

First, choose a theme for the piece (nature, emotions, historical events, and so on) by brainstorming with the students. Once the theme has been chosen, the students can begin creating melodies that relate to the chosen theme. By having students think critically and cooperatively, the composition process becomes exciting for the students. Call up individual students whose ideas were selected to input the melodies into the computer.

Here's the icing on the cake: once the piece has been completed, save it as a Standard MIDI File and post it on your department Web site, along with a description of the lesson, so that your students can share their experience with their parents.

CREATING TEACHING MATERIALS
The days of copying musical examples and physically pasting them onto a test sheet are over. Numerous programs, including Sibelius and Finale allow music teachers to easily create music worksheets and tests. Sibelius has a wonderful add-on program called Notes (formerly Teaching Tools) that has customizable, ready-to-use teacher and student worksheets. Experienced users can easily create their own worksheets using only Sibelius. Finale has a wonderful feature called the Exercise Wizard that is part of the standard application and allows teachers to create custom exercises. Both applications also allow the user to export graphics into a word-processing program. MusicMaid, a Macintosh-only shareware application ($25), creates great music worksheets for students. This program has been around for years and is now available for free at various online sources, including MP3machine (www.mp3machine.com/software/MusicMaid).

Using notation software in the music classroom gives teachers the ability to create their own musical exercises, arrangements, and compositions. I strongly recommend reading Scott Watson's article “11 Innovative Uses for Notation Software,” in the Winter 2003 issue of MET, for more ideas on how you can incorporate notation software into your teaching.

THE MUSIC DEPARTMENT WEB SITE
While it may sound like a daunting task, creating a music-department Web site is an excellent way to disseminate information about your music program and showcase exemplary student work. There are a number of methods for creating a site, including using Web-publishing software programs such as Macromedia's Dreamweaver, Adobe's GoLive, and Microsoft's FrontPage. These programs are easy to use, and it is likely that some of your students are already experts. You can also save Microsoft Word or AppleWorks documents as Web pages.

Once you've chosen the method for creating your Web site, you can include content such as lesson schedules, rehearsal and performance schedules, audition information, students handbooks, and other text-based information. Using notation software, you can create online musical exercises for your students. You can also include audio files of student performances and compositions. As noted earlier, be sure to investigate possible copyright issues first.

The Vermont MIDI Project's Web site (www.vtmidi.org) is one of the best sites I have ever seen for showcasing student work. If you'd like to see an amazing instrumental music department Web site, check out www.ebernet.com/nvot. It is the work of one of New Jersey's most respected music educators, Curt Ebersole, who is the director of instrumental music at the Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan. The site epitomizes what a music-department Web site can be. For more information and ideas, see “Web Sitings: Creating Music Program Sites” in the September-October 2004 issue of MET.

If you feel that creating a Web site is above your current technology comfort level, recruit one of your students to do it for you. They'll love doing it, and they'll do a great job.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Hopefully, some of the teaching ideas in this article will help you to make the most of your computer. Better yet, I hope to inspire you to get that computer off of your desk and in front of your students. Teaching music with technology is a great pedagogical method for making content come alive for students. Their response will inspire you to use technology more often. It could even inspire your administration to make an investment in technology for your program, and that you might have the experience of teaching in a multistation music technology lab. That's what happened to me.

James Frankel is an instrumental-music teacher at the Franklin Avenue Middle School in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. He also serves as an adjunct faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University, and at Montclair State University. He is the author of Teaching Classroom Music in the Keyboard Lab (SoundTree, 2003).

Electronic Newsletters
I highly recommend that you create a monthly newsletter for your music program schedules (see Web example A). Newsletters keep parents, teachers, and administration informed of what you are doing, and we all need positive PR. Most word-processing software programs come with a template for creating newsletters, making the process as easy as plugging information into a template.

If you work in a district where most parents have email and Web access, you can even bypass the printing process and create an email newsletter or a Web-based newsletter. An email newsletter does not have to include a lot of formatting. Such newsletters usually contain only a few introductory lines for each topic, as well as a hyperlink to your department's page on the school Web site, where the rest of the news items reside, complete with pictures and formatted text. You can often create entire Web pages in word processors such as Microsoft Word, so you still can do most of the job with one program. You don't need paper copies with email newsletters, and if you already have an email account, sending your email is free.

You might even be able to create the newsletter as a PDF document, using a program such as Adobe Acrobat. Since anyone with a computer and Web access can download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader for Mac and Windows, you can email entire formatted PDF newsletters without having a Web site.

PDF is the default file format for Mac OS X, so Macintosh computers running that operating system can create simple PDF files without requiring special software; you just select Print (Command + P) and choose Save as PDF. Microsoft Word X and Word 2004 for Mac OS X allow you to create the entire newsletter in a simple template, and save the results as a PDF file that you can email to everyone — free! There are a few tricks to learn, especially if you are creating PDF files for printing (as against for the Web and email), but it's a practical project. And of course, you can still use the master file to print newsletters for mailing.

Classroom Management
One of the many benefits of technology in the music classroom is that you can spend less time on the mundane tasks associated with teaching and more time creating innovative teaching strategies. Many computer programs are specifically geared for classroom-management tasks such as keeping a lesson-plan book (imagine the power of cut-and-paste), keeping accurate student records, creating calendars, and maintaining student portfolios.

Companies such as ADL Software, Chancery, ESI, and Counterpoint MTC have some wonderful products that allow teachers to efficiently complete a variety of classroom-management tasks in a fraction of the time when using more traditional methods. Keeping student portfolios, complete with recordings of their individual performances, is relatively easy as well.

There are also several programs written specifically for music educators that not only do all of the above functions but allow you to track choir robes, band instruments, permission slips, parent contacts, repertoire, and more. Examples include Music Manager Software's Master Music Manager 5 and RCI Software's Music Library.

Many of these functions can be easily replicated using a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel, or better yet, a database program like FileMaker Pro. Databases are far better than spreadsheets for tracking this sort of information because they allow you to search more easily for the information you want, attach Web links and files (such as student photos and audio and MIDI files of student performances) to student records, and much more. FileMaker Pro is popular because it is very easy to use yet has many features, and it is available for Macintosh and Windows, but you can do similar things with other database programs, such as Microsoft Access for Windows.

Creating rotating instrumental-lesson schedules used to be an arduous task. With a simple spreadsheet like Microsoft's Excel, creating rotating-lesson schedules is as easy as creating enough rows and columns to accommodate the schedule for the year, typing in the appropriate dates, creating the first full rotation of lessons, and the cutting and pasting the information for the rest of the year (see Web example B). You can also utilize a simple spreadsheet formula so that it is only necessary to type in the first line of lessons; the formula then rotates the lessons. Each year it takes only 20 minutes to create my schedule, whereas it used to take a few hours.

Product Contacts
ADL Software email adlsoftware@hotmail.com; Web www.adlsoftware.homestead.com/teacher.html

Alfred Publishing tel. (818) 891-5999; Web www.alfred.com

Ars Nova Software tel. (800) 445-4866 or (425) 889-0927; email info@ars-nova.com; Web www.ars-nova.com

Chancery tel. (800) 999-9931; email info@chancery.com; Web www.chancery.com/index.html

Counterpoint MTC email sales@esaams.com; Web www.esaams.com or www.cmtc.co.uk

Educational Systems International (ESI) tel. (800) 422-4686; Web www.esiclassrooms.com/classroommanagementsoftware.html

FileMaker tel. (800) 325-2747; Web www.filemaker.com

MakeMusic tel. (800) 843-2066 or (952) 937-9611; email finalesales@makemusic.com; Web www.makemusic.com

MENC: The National Association for Music Education tel. (800) 336-3768 or (703) 860-4000; Web www.menc.org

Microsoft tel. (206) 454-2030; Web www.microsoft.com

MP3machine Web www.mp3machine.com

Music Manager Software tel. (800) 282-9220 or (336) 282-9220; email sales@musicmanager.com; Web www.musicmanager.com

Riden Consulting/RCI Software tel. (480) 968-0407; email riden@riden.com; Web www.riden.com

Sibelius Software tel. (925) 280-0600; email infoUSA@sibelius.com; Web www.sibelius.com

Vermont MIDI Project Web www.vtmidi.org