A Diva Records Everything

          This week’s lecture was about the use of technology in assisting music practice and performance. As both student and teacher, I have found technology to be amazingly helpful in several situations. As a high school student, our teacher would record each voice part for the pieces we were learning at the time on to a program on the computers in the practice rooms. During lunch or study halls, we could practice with the recordings to practice and solidify our own voice part. This allowed for our time in voice lessons to be spent on actually learning vocal techniques, rather than just trying to learn the music.

            Another technology I’ve found useful as a high school student, a college student, and as a teacher is that of being able to record. As a high school student, our teacher would have someone (usually another teacher) videotape our concerts. The following week, we would watch the recording and critique our performance. This was especially helpful leading up to NYSSMA competitions, as we could pinpoint what was working and what wasn’t, and fine-tune it for the competition performance. As a college student, I was required to record all of my voice lessons (I used a little handheld voice recorder) for the same reasons.

            A couple of years ago, I had a long-term substitute teaching position for grades 5-12. This included several general music classes and two choirs, middle school choir and high school choir. It was in a tiny school district in upstate New York and it was a K-12 school. There was no money in the budget for an accompanist (just like in many school districts around here), so it was up to me to provide accompaniment and direct the choirs simultaneously. However, technology came to my rescue: I was able to find accompaniment tracks that went along with the pieces we were learning. When we were first learning a song, I would be at the piano, playing parts. But when we got past that and the parts were more secure, I could put on the accompaniment track. This was extremely helpful because it allowed me to concentrate only on what the choir was doing, not on what I was playing. It’s easier to focus on four voice parts when you’re not trying to figure out what the next chord is!

            Today, I’m sure technology is much more advanced, and there are probably apps and programs that can do whatever you want them to do. But the simpler technology of a decade ago was extremely helpful and beneficial to my music classrooms, both as a student and as a teacher.