Carol Gingerich is Assistant Professor of Piano at the State University of West Georgia where she teaches applied piano, pedagogy, literature, collaborative piano, and keyboard skills. She is a graduate of Columbia University Teachers College from which she received a Doctor of Education in the College Teaching of Music degree. There she studied piano with Karl Ulrich Schnabel and piano pedagogy with Robert Pace. She holds a Master of Music in Piano Accompanying and Coaching degree from Westminster Choir College and an Honours Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Western Ontario. As a scholar Dr. Gingerich's research focuses on French piano style and learning style theory, in particular Neuro-Linguistic programming. She has given presentations on these topics at the European Piano Teachers Convention (Rome, Italy) and the World Piano Pedagogy Convention, in addition to numerous teacher workshops. Her articles have been and are being published in "American Music Teacher", "Clavier", "European Piano Teachers Journal" and "Keyboard Companion". She is active as both a solo and collaborative pianist and has been a guest artist at Catholic University, Columbia University, the University of Florida and the University of Miami. She is a frequent adjudicator for piano competitions and her students have been winners of MTNA sponsored competitions.
Carol Gingerich
Department of Music
State University of West Georgia
Carrollton, GA 30118
678.839.6273
cginger@westga.edu
Part I: "You are Being Watched"
In this session, Dr. Michelle Conda of the University of Cincinnati demonstrated various uses for videotaping in the piano lab. At the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, a class piano lab of twelve keyboards is connected to a room next door, the Viewing Room, via a doorway and a two-way glass window. The class piano room has two video cameras and two ambient mikes suspended from the ceiling which feed into a MIDI TV monitor in the Viewing Room. Using MC100, all sounds from the Teacher Console and headset, and all student piano sounds are recorded. The purposes of the two rooms are multiple. Together they can be used to: videotape teaching, watch and instruct graduate student assistants without interfering with the class piano students, create videotapes for job applications, tape "problem" situations, and archive GP3 sessions. A thirteenth keyboard is located in the Viewing Room. The pedagogy professor can use its call button to privately instruct the student teacher. Additionally, it can used for a very real life problem; students who are late can take their test on it. The Viewing Room also contains a pedagogy library, and can be entered by a separate, outside door so that the student teachers do not know when the pedagogy professor has entered to observe them.
The class piano room also contains a Document Camera, manufactured by Samsung, which is essentially a computerized overhead projector. Sight reading scores can be placed on it, and DVD, VCR, laptop, and internet connections to it allow their images to be projected by an LCD projector onto the screen in the front of the room. The class piano room also contains a traditional Visualizer. All electric cords and cables in this room are connected underground to the Viewing Room, which creates an uncluttered floor space, but means that the pianos cannot be moved, and repairs would require that the floor be torn up. The technology in both rooms was funded by IT Student Technology fees, and can be purchased from Yamaha. Michelle suggested that a future improvement would be to purchase digital cameras that could zoom in and out and follow the teacher's movements. She mentioned that potential problems include the "hum" as the system feeds back, a weak input, and recording directly to DVD.
This was a most informative session. Being able to see technology demonstrated in a hands-on fashion was very useful, and Dr. CondaÕs open discussion of both strengths and weaknesses of the system made for a well-informed session with direct applications to individual teaching settings.
Part II: "Wasp Bar Code: Inventory Control"
Adam Clark, a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati, presented a step-by-step demonstration of the creation and utilization of a bar code system for the pedagogy library contained in the Viewing Room. This bar code system allows any professor to electronically monitor pedagogy materials which are not housed within their university library system. The Wasp Nest Bar Code, Business Edition, can create and print labels which contain item descriptions and location. It is able to monitor item check-in and check-out by the use of barcode scanning, and to specify loan periods with the due date automatically being set based on the checkÐout date. It can search for inventory items via keyword searches, and can locate item holder names and due dates. Ordering information follows at the end of this article.
The clear explanations and easy-to-follow format of this session made it extremely useful for individual applications to home universities. Implementation and utilization of this software could be made into a student Independent Study project. Students could use this to gain familiarity with new technology, review literature, and determine levels of difficulty for repertoire.
Ordering Information
Wasp Nest Bar Code, Business Edition - $199.00 (also called Wasp Nest CCD Barcode Kit/Suite). Includes CCD Scanner ($180.00 if bought separately), WaspLabeler v5 ($125.00 if bought separately), and WaspTrack - Inventory management software.
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