Karen Schlabaugh is Associate Professor of Music at Bethel
College in North Newton, Kansas. She holds degrees from Oberlin College,
Ithaca College, and a doctorate in piano performance from the University
of Iowa. Her current teaching assignments include piano, music theory
courses, and supervising and teaching in a cooperative piano pedagogy
program. Dr. Schlabaugh performs frequently as a soloist, accompanist
and chamber musician, and in past years has appeared in duo-piano
recitals on college campuses in Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. She
has formerly served on the faculties of Tabor College and Skidmore
College, and has held summer appointments on the faculty of Blue Lake
Fine Arts Camp and as an accompanist at Suzuki Institutes in Wisconsin
and New York. Dr. Schlabaugh is a frequent adjudicator and clinician at
piano festivals and contests, and is an active member of the Kansas
Music Teachers Association.
Karen Schlabaugh
Bethel College
300 E. 27th Street
North Newton, KS 67117
316.283.6593
kschlab@bethelks.edu
Introduction
The Nature of the Lab
Technology and the Group Piano Curriculum
The Future of Technology in the Lab
What would your music department do with rather substantial sums of money received from an unexpected estate gift? This was indeed the question that my music colleagues and I at Bethel College needed to answer about five years ago, and the article that follows details to some extent the opportunities and excitement related to music technology that has developed as a result in the intervening years.
Bethel College is a small liberal arts college of about 620 students located in North Newton, Kansas, a short distance from Wichita. The college is church affiliated and has a strong academic and music tradition. Offerings in the department include a music major and minor, courses in piano pedagogy taught cooperatively with another area college, certification in music education, and there is very active involvement in ensembles and lessons from majors and non-majors alike. As the music faculty contemplated both opportunities made possible by the monetary gift and needs in various curricular areas, our discussion turned almost inevitably to music technology and a new digital keyboard lab. The pianos in the lab were inadequate and outdated, and we favored an integrated technology system that would flexibly serve a number of courses, not one in which the functions of computer software and keyboards were separated.
The new keyboards were purchased and installed by the beginning of the 1994 fall semester, with computers and the remaining equipment arriving about a month later. The following information gives the specifications of the lab. There are nine Yamaha Clavinova keyboards, eight 76-key models for students and one 88-key model for the teacher. Five Macintosh computers with CD-Rom capability and five Roland sound modules create a unified MIDI system with five of the keyboards, with printing capacity from any of the computers. Software was chosen for both flexibility of use and ease of learning. These programs are currently installed in the lab: Encore (for notation), Master Tracks Pro (for sequencing), Band-in-a-Box (for laying out harmonic and rhythmic tracks for jazz and many other styles), Practica Musica (a comprehensive theory program including notation and aural drills as well as note-playing keyboard drills useful for group piano students), and aural skills programs correlated with the music theory textbook.
The lab serves a number of course offerings equally well because of the variety of software and the presence of both computers and keyboards. All levels of music theory regularly make use of aural skills and notational programs in the assignments given. Group piano students use not only the keyboards but the sequencing program and Practica Musica. Piano pedagogy students use the lab to learn about group teaching techniques and the advantages of technology in teaching. In addition, students often do independent composition projects or even orchestration in the lab. In the fall of 1996, the department instituted a one-hour music technology course, taken in conjunction with the first semester of music theory, and designed to acquaint students with the software and capabilities of the lab.
Technology and the Group Piano Curriculum
The installation of the technology lab coincided with my full-time appointment to Bethel College. Part of my new assignment was group piano - two sections for music majors preparing for the piano proficiency exam. My previous position had not included teaching group piano, so I was excited about developing a curricular plan that would take full advantage of the new lab's potential. After observing numerous technology demonstrations and sessions at conferences and workshops, I was convinced that technology was meaningful in a group setting only when it became a tool for improving the individual student's level of playing. Too often the sessions I had observed included only a view of what the hardware and software could do, not how it could be used in an actual teaching situation. My primary goal, then, was to develop assignments (often individualized) in which I could see a direct relationship between a technology assignment and improvement in playing skills.
Prior to discussing the types of assignments I created, a brief description of Bethel's piano proficiency exam is necessary. The exam is a comprehensive one, involving basic keyboard skills such as scales and cadence patterns, sight-reading of several types of keyboard textures, repertoire performance, playing by ear, and improvisation. Students enroll in the class until the exam is completed, rather than for a specified number of semesters.
In my experience, the excitement of technology came in the educational application, when as an instructor I searched for and created ways for the students to enjoy an interactive learning environment. My goal in general was to make some type of technology assignment about every two weeks. Most of the assignments involved the use of the Master Tracks Pro sequencing program, with occasional work using the Practica Musica drills. The examples that follow concentrate on the areas of repertoire, sight-reading and improvisation, and ensemble work, showing samples of the assignments using the sequencing program only.
Numerous assignments that students find interesting and challenging relate to work with repertoire. Early in the first semester of the class, I found it useful to ask students to illustrate for me one way in which they had used sequencing as a practice tool in one of their repertoire pieces. We would already have discussed possibilities in class, but I also wanted the students to customize ideas in such a way that helped them to learn how to analyze each piece in order to study it most effectively. Students in the group setting typically have limited experience with practice techniques. Thus, an assignment of this type often helps them to think about their practice in more creative ways. A second assignment relating to a more polished repertoire piece always elicited interesting class discussion. I asked the students to record their pieces using the sequencer, adding that they could record more than once if they wished, but that they should not edit the final version that was saved. Next they were to listen to their final version and write a short description of what they heard, including comments on strong points in the performance, things that needed improvement, and finally what they had learned by listening to their performance. I promised them that I would listen to their recorded example first, then read their comments, and lastly discuss my thoughts with them about what I had heard. The entire experience was always an illuminating one for them, accompanied by comments such as, "I didn't realize that my left-hand chords were so overpowering in that phrase," or "If the tempo is just a bit more steady in this section, my piece will sound really good!" Performance of these pieces almost always improved after this assignment.
Many students in the class find sight-reading to be the most challenging skill to develop. Simple ideas such as using the metronome on the sequencing program can encourage students to overcome hesitations or too many starts and stops in sight-reading. Our students are required to read two non-adjacent lines from a choral score for the exam, and for the students who experienced difficulty in doing this, I assigned a simple score and asked them to record two of the parts using the metronome. They could then read the other two parts, knowing that they had to maintain the steady tempo of the recording. Mistakes in part playing are less important to begin with than looking ahead and keeping a steady tempo. This assignment is easily adapted to other types of music as well, especially if the student has difficulty in reading one particular clef. Students are also required to do several improvisations for the exam, demonstrating their ability, for instance, to play several phrases that could serve as examples for movement activities in an elementary school classroom. Developing improvisational skills can be an intimidating process for students if they possess limited keyboard background. I normally asked the students to work out the harmonic and rhythmic feel for each phrase of the improvisation first. If the student is, however, attempting to illustrate skipping and needs to master an appropriate rhythmic and harmonic pattern in the left hand as well as create a simple right-hand melody, frustration often follows! Instead, I asked the students to record the accompaniment pattern and then to simply practice their melodic improvisation. In this way they are not distracted by the accompaniment, have a consistent harmonic pattern in use, and automatically are forced to develop rhythmic continuity in the melody. Much less frustration and better improvisation skills on the next assignment were the result.
Finally, ensemble work and sequencing create a natural partnership. Obviously, many times we enjoyed playing ensemble pieces in the lab using the resources of the sound modules, but I also wanted students to improve their individual listening skills in ensemble work. I regularly assigned duets to the students, asking them to record one of the parts (using the sound modules for varied orchestration if they wished) and then playing the second part live for the class on one of our performance days. One of the most popular assignments involved taking either an existing ensemble piece or solo piano piece and orchestrating it, complete with percussion, with the help of the sequencer and sound module. Some real masterpieces resulted, and I know that students practiced the parts diligently when making their recordings. Again, improved playing skills through better practicing remained one of my primary goals.
The Future of Technology in the Lab
What has happened in music technology at Bethel during the last few years? Another gift has provided us with the Vivace system, a computerized accompaniment that actually follows the soloist. Vocal students have found the system especially useful in their practicing. At present, further networking of the campus is being completed, and our music lab should be online by the start of the new school year. The music department is excited about new educational potential brought about by the Internet.
As for our initial choice of an integrated lab with both keyboards and computers, we are more than ever convinced that it was the right choice for our school. Creative student work and better musical skills for future performers and teachers convince us every semester that technology in education is an investment in student potential.
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