There are plenty of accompaniment software in the market. The two feature software that will be discussed is SmartMusic and Chromatik.. Chromatik is a free web bases accompaniment software. The website is made up of a small team of workers that create free sheet music for the user to practice. The user has the option to select the instrument for the sheet music the user wants to practice. Chromatik also provides accompaniment music via YouTube URL to play as the user practices the instrument. Chromatik is also available on Apple, Android, and Amazon products. On a tablet the user is able to record and share practice sessions with other users and receive feedback.
SmartMusic is an accompaniment software that allows users to practice assigned composition. Music educators are able to assigned music for students to practice. The students are able to practice the musical pieces at home and receive feedback. Students are able to see where they made mistakes. Teachers are able to get an accurate time of when students practice a particular composition at home. SmartMusic is available Window and Apple computers and the iPad.
What both software are to do well is the enabling the user to share and receive feedback from others. Chromatik allows the user to share recordings with not just an educator but also classmates or other peers. SmartMusic was more design for the teacher student perspective. The educator assigns a piece of music the student practice the music piece and the teacher makes a comment on how well or poor the student performed. What SmartMusic does as far as sharing practice session with instructors is not a bad thing; it a wonderful feature of the software. However, an educator could possibly use Chromatik to encourage students to do peer review of practice session as well.
The accompaniments for Chromatik are good but at the mercy of users on YouTube. If the original video is deleted or the URL does not work the user will not have accompaniment music for the particular song. The sheet music Chromatik uses good but limited. Chromatik has music for a good selection of instruments. However, because there are a small amount of people making arrangement music there will be a limit to the number of songs available. Teachers using SmartMusic have 60 methods books, 600 sight-reading music, 4000 ensemble titles, and18,000 solo titles to choose from. The accompaniment was done by professional musicians ready to be use on the software. Teachers are also able to import music from Finale to their students on SmartMusic.
The matter of choose of what software to use maybe an economic one. Chromatik is a free software where as SmartMusic has a year subscription. If funding is not an issue and students have a PC or iPad at home SmartMusic should be the logical choice. If funding is problematic then Chromatik is a good alternative.
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