Music software in the US middle and high school classrooms
Just wondering, what pieces of music software are being used in the middle and high schools across the USA? If you are reading this post in America, perhaps you could let me know. Over here in the UK, the use of music software in secondary schools (11 – 18) is dominated by Cubase and Sibelius with other sequencing/notation packages have a smaller share of use. Is it the same in the USA? Does Finale have a greater use over there? What about other sequencing software? Do let me know. A comparative study would be interesting at some point. Would anyone would like to collaborate with me on this?
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Kati
22 Dec 09 at 9:25 pm
I’ve visited a fair few music classrooms in the US, and in middle school you see a lot of GarageBand, Acid, Super Duper Music Looper, and the like. You don’t see much Finale or Sibelius in K-8. (Though we are trying to change that!)
In high schools, there’s more Finale and Sibelius, but there’s also SmartMusic (especially for schools with band and orchestra programs), and also sequencers, typically not Cubase, but perhaps Logic or Sonar.
If you do happen across any research that would provide some statistically significant results rather than my anecdotal evidence, I would love to hear about it.
Daniel Spreadbury
23 Dec 09 at 4:48 pm
I teach at an international school and use acid express and sibelius.
I’ve been so disappointed with the features of acid, and would love to have macs at our school so we could use garage band instead. Can anyone recommend a freeware program for midi sequencing for windows that has more features than acid?
Emma
14 Jan 10 at 8:32 am
I have seen mostly performance based software packages rather than creative packages. Mainly the teachers say they just don’t know the software (e.g., GarageBand, Finale, Acid, etc.) all that well, and with programs like SmartMusic, the assessment/evaluation is done by the computer.
I don’t want to sound like this is ALL music teachers in the US, but i’m finding more and more that are less concerned with engaging learners in creating music (i.e., via a constructionist framework).
Mike
29 Jan 10 at 2:50 am
Thanks Mike. If it is not too much trouble, could you let me know which ‘performance based’ software packages are used in your area? Thanks.
Jonathan
29 Jan 10 at 9:32 am
Smart Music is the prevalent one.
Mike
29 Jan 10 at 6:57 pm