The first series of programs I looked at are music theory and ear training programs, many of which are free and available on the internet. I will answer a series of questions about each program, essentially what the features are, what I like or didn't like, how user friendly it is, and how and if I'd use it in my classroom (each on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest or best). For those of you who are looking for this sort of thing, it will hopefully provide a good starting point for your own experimentation.
(Instead of posting one giant post, I will break up each of these and post one or two every day or so)
The first site I looked at was www.good-ear.com, a free online ear training website. I would give it a learning curve of 9 (simple, clean), and an 8 for use as an instructors tool (needs pre-instruction).
The exercises include: intervals for the beginner (simple, major/minor, etc.), more advanced intervals (ascending/descending, both diatonic and chromatic), chords (major/minor/inversions), scales (modes, pentatonic, minor, etc.), cadences (full progressions, and bass only), jazz chords, note location (based on solfeggio), and perfect pitch (pitch memory).
Strengths: There is a variety of exercises that focus on developing students' ability to recognize things by ear. There are also options that include slowing down the tempo, changing the volume, or changing the instrument, which helps keeps the exercises fresh. The student also has the opportunity to replay the exercises any number of times. There are different levels that either limit the exercises so that students can focus on basics, or can include the whole range of notes, scales, intervals etc. for the more advanced students.
Improvements: Each section could be prefaced with a lesson, or at least a description of the exercise or instruction (it is sort of like jump in head first, oh and good luck with that!). It would be hard to assign this as homework to be graded, because there would be no way of submitting the assignment other than a screen shot of the number of exercises that were right. This also does not specify which exercises the student completed, or how well he did on a particular exercise. It simply keeps track of the total number of exercises completed. The lessons do get a big monotonous (dare I say boring?), especially after clicking "try next one!" several times. It is very plain, no flashy stuff here! Also, there are no rhythm exercises.
How to implement: It would be possible to use in an ensemble class, perhaps as a warm-up exercise, or a general lesson in theory and aural theory. In concert band it could be a great way to break up rehearsing every copule of weeks and teach the fundamentals and develop the musicians' ear training and theory knowledge (outside of rehearsing). I would definitely use different exercises in conjunction with teaching certain concepts. An example of using this program in jazz band would be to use the scale exercises and have the students "figure out" the scale on their instrument (such as half-whole diminished). This could be used in conjunction with lessons on improvisation. Over time, they should be able to play all scales from memory and hopefully able to incorporate the theory into practice (half-whole diminished over a ii-V-I for example). I would not let most students loose without some instruction. Overall it is a good "drill" program, particularly for theory or general music students.
Recommend? Yes. I would use this program several times in secondary music theory, general music, and jazz classes especially as labs and possibly homework assignments. It could be used in ensemble settings as group warm-up exercises, as well as general musicianship training.
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