As our children move into middle and high school and take specialized classes, it’s more common for homework assignments to move beyond our parental comfort zones of expertise. That was the case tonight with my 7th grade son, who is taking an introductory piano course all year at his public magnet school, Classen SAS of Oklahoma City Public Schools. His assignment tonight was writing down the notes of different five finger scale sequences. He got stuck on D sharp minor. I took some vocal music classes in high school and one year of VERY basic piano my senior year in college, so this was certainly outside my areas of academic and fine arts expertise. Google searches didn’t yield webpages which helped, and neither did searches for YouTube videos. That’s when I turned to my iPad and the iTunes App Store. Is there an app that can help with piano scale fingering sequences? Absolutely. It is a $4 app called Music Tool Universal.
A free light version is also available, but time was short before bedtime and I figured we could spring for the $4 app. Of the other options available, it was the highest rated with the most ratings.
I am so glad we went with the Music Tool app. We were able to select the minor scale, choose the keys we needed, and have the app play those scales as well as show (at the top of the screen) the individual notes which comprise the scale.
Tonight, my iPad helped me provide my son with academic and fine arts assistance far beyond my own limited abilities… Thanks to the Music Tools app. I’m overjoyed that when it comes to musical scales, “Yes – There’s an app for that!”
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Remember to follow Wesley Fryer on Twitter (@wfryer), Facebook and Google+. Also "like" Wesley's Facebook pages for "Speed of Creativity Learning" and his eBook, "Playing with Media." Don't miss Wesley's latest technology integration project, "Mapping Media to the Common Core / Curriculum."
On this day..
- A Vision for Interactive Writing, Student Publishing, and Digital Portfolios in the Classroom - 2013
- Where to Start with Technology Integration in Oklahoma? - 2012
- We've Only Just Begun (to share our voices with media in Yukon Schools) - 2012
- Creative Commons and Flickr - 2010
- Emotion and text-based communication - 2010
- Any interactive website is poison - 2010
- Poll Results: How much would you / your school pay for PollEverywhere? - 2010
- The Night Before Valentine's Day - 2010
- New WordPress design thanks to Lightword - 2010
- Film on the Fly: Get your Cell Phones Ready for Movie Making! - 2009
