Random access: do your students take their teacher home?

American Music Teacher, April-May, 2004 by George F. Litterst

In some cases, it is helpful to be able to set other practice tempos not offered on a CD. The Superscope PSD230 Portable Variable-Speed & Pitch CD Player (www.superscopetechnologies.com) will nicely and conveniently provide these features for around $450. For even less money, require a computer-savvy student to purchase and use the $39.95 software program Amazing Slow Downer (www.ronimusic.com), which will 'allow you to change independently the tempo or pitch of any CD recording. All you need is decent speakers connected to your computer and to practice in the same place as the computer.

MIDI Playback Devices

MIDI accompaniments are a useful alternative to CD accompaniments. Although MIDI files depend on a MIDI tone generator for playback (available in computers, MIDI keyboards and stand-alone MIDI players), almost any MIDI playback device will provide tempo-changing features.

MIDI accompaniments are available for the Suzuki violin series (and will be coming soon for other Suzuki strings) and most major piano methods. By searching on the Internet, you can find various MIDI accompaniments, and other related items, for singers and other instrumentalists. For example, go to Google.com and search for these words: "MIDI and accompaniment and oboe."

Many MIDI files on the Internet are free; others are commercial. In general, commercial MIDI files are not expensive. To use MIDI files, your student needs a MIDI playback device. Most computers will work just fine. Windows Media Player and Apple's iTunes both will play MIDI files. To change the tempo, set up practice loops or see the various MIDI tracks in music notation; it usually is better to use a music program that provides these features. An example would be Roland's VMT-1 Visual Music Tutor for Windows (www.rolandus.com). There are many other choices, too.

Many students actually have a MIDI keyboard with a floppy disk drive at home. In these cases, students can copy standard MIDI files to a floppy disk and pop them into the keyboard. Most keyboards provide a variety of playback controls.

A MIDI option for singers and instrumentalists that requires just a computer and microphone is MakeMusic!'s SmartMusic program (www.makemusic.com). Although it only works with music files available from the company, there is a huge library available for use on a subscription basis.

MIDI Keyboards

During the last ten years, hundreds of thousands of MIDI keyboards have been sold in this country. It should not be surprising to find some of your students actually have one at home. Depending on the keyboard's features, it may or may not be suitable for actual piano practice, but it may be useful for MIDI playback (if it has a General MIDI soundset) or for interacting with computer software.

If the keyboard is up to the standards of piano practice, your student may benefit from using it to make MIDI recordings of his or her practice and then using the keyboard's playback feature as a performance evaluation tool. The student may even be able to e-mail you a MIDI recording for your comment. (MIDI recordings are very small and easily sent as e-mail attachments.)