Music!
Monday, March 16, 2020 at 9:40PM ***UPDATE***
Here's a tutorial, if you need some help getting going:
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Good Evening Parents and Students,
I hope you all are healthy and well, possibly even enjoying the extra family time together. As we begin our first week apart, with no clear guidelines about how to approach instruction, I’d like to undertake just one big thing this week, and that’s to sign everyone up for Smart Music.
Smart Music is a browser-based music program, with an expansive library of band, orchestra, choir, and piano sheet music and recordings for kids to read and play along with. S.M. doesn’t have everything we play, but it certainly has some. The program allows teachers to set up classes, so we can assign or suggest music and exercises. Students can make audio recordings within the program and submit these to us for feedback, or just use it for “free play”. It’s quite a fun program to play around with!
Smart Music costs thousands of dollars for school districts to implement, or $40 per student, but in this time where teachers and students are separated, the company is offering full service free of charge through the end of this school year.
The setup process is a little lengthy, but you probably have some time! It’s also absolutely worth it:
- Open or download the Google Chrome browser.
- Visit: https://admin.smartmusic.com/join
- Enter a NON-MRPKEDU.ORG email address (our email filters are picky)
- Copy/paste the correct class code (below) when prompted:
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- Wind Ensemble (8th band): UVAYG-UCYAQ
- Wind Symphony (7th band): MQT7Q-Y34J2
- Puma Band (6th band): EVMNM-XUTZF
- Chamber Strings (8th strings): YDWR4-VYGRU
- String Orchestra (7th strings): YCVGT-46NTE
- Puma Strings (6th strings): TRAQN-XHME6
- Confirm the correct class and teacher.
- Follow the rest of the prompts to create an account.
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- Make sure to correctly select your Primary Instrument!
- Check your email Inbox and Junk Mail folder for a confirmation email.
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- The email will come from team@makemusic.com
- Confirm your email address by clicking the link in the email.
When you log in for the first time, you’ll see an “Assignment” - either Half Note Rock or D Major Scale, depending upon your class. Go ahead and give it a shot! Note that this program requires a microphone of some kind, and a laptop computer is ideal. Typically, we would have some in-class time to address common technology problems and do a tutorial, but that’s not quite possible. A good resource for tracking down issues is: https://smartmusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
Our modest goal for the week is for everyone to complete the one assignment mentioned above. Beyond that, take some time to play around with the program! You can find some of the music we’ve played this year (or even last year), and get a feel for how the program works.
If you have any questions that you can’t find answers to in the help link above, feel free to shoot me an email. We’ll be in touch soon.
Stay healthy and smart, everyone!
Kurt Gray
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