SmartMusic is an interactive, computer-based practice program for woodwind, brass, string and vocal musicians. SmartMusic is an interactive, computer-based practice program for woodwind, brass, string and vocal musicians.
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SmartMusic is the complete music practice system
that makes practicing music fun

SmartMusic Studio is an interactive, computer-based practice program for woodwind, brass, string and vocal musicians.

Everything singers and instrumentalists need to practice efficiently

From first year beginner to professional musician SmartMusic makes playing, learning and teaching music more efficient, productive, and enjoyable.

  • Intelligent Accompaniment® accompanies you while you practice so it can improve your musical performance in less time by making practicing more fun.
  • Popular Beginning Band Methods with on-screen assessment
  • Rhythm exercises - simple and compound rhythms from beginning to advanced with on-screen assessment.
  • Create your own accompaniments in Finale 2005 and Finale 2006 and see the notation in SmartMusic while you practice. Even create exercises or excerpts for assessment in SmartMusic.
  • MAC and Windows version in same box


NEW - SmartMusic 9.0 - teach jazz improvisation, learn to play by ear, and more!


Teacher Resources:
SmartMusic "A Guide for Teacher and Student"
Using SmartMusic with UK National Curricula.
"Getting The Most From SmartMusic"
Guide to best practices created by teachers for teachers.


"Why is SmartMusic accompaniment so important?"
Wynton Marsalis explains >>
"Accompaniment makes practicing fun so that you want to practice longer and more often. It also makes practicing more productive so that you get better, faster. Only when you practice with accompaniment can you work on things like being in tune, keeping good time and learning to listen."

"Accompaniment makes practicing fun so that you want to practice longer and more often. It also makes practicing more productive so that you get better, faster. Only when you practice with accompaniment can you work on things like being in tune, keeping good time and learning to listen."

Explore SmartMusic on Video with: Wynton Marsalis
Musician, composer, band leader, Pulitzer Prize and Grammy winner.


"What's Intelligent Accompaniment®?"
Wynton Marsalis explains >>
"SmartMusic is revolutionizing music education. It actually listens as you sing or play, and follows your spontaneous tempo changes as you interpret the music. When you slow down, it slows down. When you speed up, it speeds up. It will even wait for you as you hold a note!

You feel like you're playing with a good human accompanist. Thus SmartMusic encourages you to play with expression, to communicate what's inside of you, and to project your personality into the music." "SmartMusic is revolutionizing music education. It actually listens as you sing or play, and follows your spontaneous tempo changes as you interpret the music. When you slow down, it slows down. When you speed up, it speeds up. It will even wait for you as you hold a note!

You feel like you're playing with a good human accompanist. Thus SmartMusic encourages you to play with expression, to communicate what's inside of you, and to project your personality into the music."


The SmartMusic advantage

You'll never practice alone
SmartMusic Studio accompanies you while you practice so it can improve your musical performance in less time by making practicing more efficient and fun.

Accompaniment improves performance
A recent Kent State University study shows that significant improvement in the ability to perform solo repertoire comes from working with accompaniment. And the transition to playing with an accompanist is a lot easier from SmartMusic Studio than from practicing alone.

It not only accompanies you, it follows you
Our exclusive Intelligent Accompaniment® can actually follow your spontaneous tempo changes like a good human accompanist, so you're free to express yourself. Or, if you're learning a piece, you can turn off Intelligent Accompaniment and follow the music's original tempo or the tempo of your choice.

Practice on your schedule
Make practicing a joy, instead of a job.
SmartMusic Studio is always available when you need it.
The accompaniment always plays the part exactly as you want it played.

 

 

Nurture important practice habits:

  • Learning to Listen >> Students who practice alone can perfect bad habits. Pitch, blend and balance are all casualties of students who do not listen as they sing or play.
    Indeed, listening as you rehearse and perform is a skill that must be encouraged and nurtured.

    The best way to develop this critical skill is to have accompaniment as often as possible when practicing. This way listening develops naturally and becomes second-nature.

  • Understanding the music >> You need accompaniment to respond to the complete musical composition, to contribute to the musical dialog.

    Also, only with accompaniment can you grasp the musical form and structure of a work. More importantly, you need accompaniment to sense and develop the drama and emotion of the music.

  • Practicing thing slowly >> Practicing difficult passages faster than you can sing or play them perfectly only means that you are practicing them imperfectly. Your body will remember how you performed a passage, so it is important that you practice it at a tempo you can handle confidently.

    SmartMusic encourages this discipline and lets you work passages up one notch at a time: Your body remembers accurate performances and allows you to develop technique in a consistent and reliable fashion.

  • Recording yourself: Fast-track improvements >> While performing, students do not hear how they perform nearly as well as when they listen to a recording of themselves. This is because their inner ear is not as evolved as their outer ear. The immediate feedback loop from recordings dramatically accelerates learning and improvement.

    SmartMusic makes it immediate and only one click away.
    With SmartMusic it is just as easy to record one measure to show a student how late his or her entrance is as it is to record an entire concerto for a college or all-state audition. Furthermore, SmartMusic allows you to save recordings to CD and even email them to teachers for a grade or to friends and family for a smile.

    Recordings last and document each student's progress through the years.

  

SmartMusic Intelligent Accompaniments
Take a musical journey through over 30,000 titles

Quality sounds: Because SmartMusic Studio uses instrument sounds specifically crafted by professional musicians and played through its own proprietary software synthesizer, the sound quality of accompaniments does not depend on your PC's soundcard MIDI generator. Therefore the results are amazingly convincing! Forget standard multimedia or General MIDI sounds, and get to a new level with SmartMusic Studio!

Enjoy practicing with professional accompaniments featuring authentic Basso Continuo, Full Orchestra, Piano, Jazz Trios and even Pop/Rock bands! Our incredibly wide selection includes the most comprehensive list of contest and recital titles, classical pieces, movie themes, songs from musical theater, plus Jazz, Pop, Rock, Country, Religious and Holiday favorites.

Easy to access repertoire
SmartMusic Studio, the accompaniments and over 50,000 exercises with accompaniment are all on a single SmartMusic CD-ROM for easy installation. No downloading required and no ongoing Internet connection necessary.

Always-growing catalogue
All new titles we add during your subscription term are yours to enjoy at no additional charge. You can search our expanding catalog for the newest additions. For beginning, advanced and college students, hobbyists and professionals you'll find it in SmartMusic.


Notation is displayed on-screen for exercises, Band Methods, and String Methods. Sheet music is not included for solos or collections.

SmartMusic for Strings has arrived!

New Repertoire ... with more coming soon!
  • Essential Elements 2000 for Strings Book 1
  • New String Explorer Book 1
  • On-screen assessment for Violin and Viola now available in Essential Elements and String Explorer
  • New Suzuki Volumes 1-6 for violin, Volumes 1-5 for viola, Volumes 1-4 for cello and Volumes 1-3 for Double Bass. More volumes coming soon.
  • Over 50,000 skill-building Exercises - practice scales, intervals, arpeggios and twisters in any key and tempo with multiple accompaniments
  • Over a hundred jazz titles enable students to practice improvisation in any key or tempo

Now string players can benefit from SmartMusic too!

  • Motivates students to practive and keep them playing
  • Supports advanced repertoire with patented Intelligent Accompaniment that listens to students play and follows their spontaneous tempo changes - students are free to express themselves, to project their personality into the music
  • Provides practice tools such as practice loops, tuner and metronome
  • Allows students to slow down passages and practice them properly
  • Select "Play Solo Line" and students hear how they should interpret a passage
  • Records students with one click so that they receive instant feedback - they can even e-mail a recording of their work to their teacher or parent!
  • Save student recordings on CD so that they have a permanent of their progress
  • Make your own SmartMusic accompaniments for Strings with Finale notation software (requires Finale 2003 or newer and a SmartMusic subscription)

SmartMusic and All That Jazz
Now improvisation can be practiced efficiently!

Practice At Any Tempo

  • Slow down tunes with difficult chord changes
  • Gradually increase tempo as the changes are mastered

Practice Every Tune in Any Key

  • Work at blues in all twelve keys, or at least try F#
  • Take Charlie Parker tunes and play them on tenor but in his alto key

Select Instrumentation

  • Turn off the piano and learn to play with just the bass providing your harmonic guide
  • If you play piano, bass or drums, turn off that instrument and sit in with the pros



Record Yourself

  • If you think you swing, record yourself with one click and see if it's true
  • Use recordings to document your progress
 

Use Practice Loops

  • Put turn-arounds and tricky chord changes into practice loops
  • Slow down the tempo and work up the changes to the desired speed

 

Step-by-Step Guide
For music educators

Get your students started down the right path with SmartMusic Studio. Teach them the basics of technique, listening skills, and musicianship and give them the joy and self-confidence that comes from making music.

Preview accompaniments from a library of over 30,000 titles
Access to hundreds of accompaniments helps students preview and select appropriate pieces for study, contest or recital performance.

Practice with accompaniments that follow spontaneous tempo changes
Ritardandos. . . accelerandos. . . rubato. . . the patented Intelligent Accompaniment® technology listens and adjusts to students' individual performances. First students can methodically practice the technical aspects of a piece, and then explore the interpretation when they are ready. This higher order learning is difficult when practicing alone, especially without accompaniment.

Record practice sessions for immediate feedback
Students can immediately review and analyze their performance. Plus a recording can be e-mailed to teachers for additional feedback.

Develop technique with 50,000 skill building exercises
The music and accompaniments for thousands of scales, intervals, arpeggios and finger twisters are built into SmartMusic Studio. Use them to build facility in all keys and articulations. Slow down!

Adjust tempo to fit student abilities
Faulty technique develops when students practice at tempos that are too fast. SmartMusic allows students to start slowly and increase the tempo at their own pace.

Improve intonation with the Chromatic tuner
The SmartMusic system uses a chromatic tuner to visually show how to adjust the pitch plus it plays the correct pitch while the student is tuning. SmartMusic trains the student to hear the accurate pitch.

Isolate difficult passages with Practice loops
SmartMusic's unique practice loop lets students isolate and repeat difficult measures. Start slowly and build speed, focusing on the areas that need the most work. SmartMusic is the model for efficient learning.

Access solo line and accompaniment independently
Listen to just the solo line, just the accompaniment or hear them both together. SmartMusic allows the flexibility to meet each student's needs.

Keep perfect time with a sophisticated Metronome
A built-in metronome click can be used with any accompaniment or a full-featured metronome can function independently. Set it for any simple, complex or compound time signature.

Transpose into any key
Jazz students in particular use this unique SmartMusic feature to practice tunes and progressions in multiple keys. Instrumentalists can read any vocal title - as is - and the accompaniment transposition will occur if selected.

Learn more about the music
Included with SmartMusic are composer and composition notes that give students background information specific to each selection. A musical terms dictionary is also included.

Performance Curriculum
For the music program with:

Private Lessons
SmartMusic at home and school, affords daily study of solo repertoire and technique-building exercises.
  • Individualize the selection of solos and exercises for each student. Concepts taught at school are instantly reinforced with home practice. Preview and select hundreds of solos based on student's input, encouraging exploration. Easy access to solo accompaniments encourages students to prepare solos year-round. Record practice sessions at school for analysis and chair placements.
  • Recorded practice sessions at home can be are e-mailed to you for comments - or to family and friends for fun.
Group Lessons and/or Sectional Rehearsals
With SmartMusic at home and school, you can have daily study of solo repertoire and technique-building exercises.
  • Assign the same solo and exercises to every student. Concepts taught at school are instantly reinforced with home practice. Other solos are previewed and selected based on student's input, encouraging exploration. Easy access to solo accompaniments encourages students to perform solos year-round. Record practice sessions at school for analysis and chair placements.
  • Recorded practice sessions at home can be are e-mailed to teachers for comments - or to family and friends for fun.
Rehearsals
With SmartMusic at home and school, prepare solo repertoire for contest more efficiently.
  • Select contest pieces for each student. Make technique-building assignments. Students learn much of the essential technique on their own, receiving much input for interpretation. Recorded practice sessions at home encourage self-assessment and are e-mailed to teachers for comments and evaluation.
  • Chair placements and auditions are recorded at home; e-mailed to teacher.

SmartMusic Studio Demo Videos
Wynton MARSALIS tells you all about SmartMusic
18 videos to discover SmartMusic

"SmartMusic makes practicing fun and invites you into the emotion of music making".
Wynton Marsalis, musician, composer, band leader, Pulitzer Prize and Grammy winner.

Simply select your connection speed from the links next to the video thumbnail:

  • Choose "modem" if you are connected through a telephone line (56k required)
  • Choose "high-speed" if you are connected through cable, T1 or DSL.

You will need either QuickTime 6 or Windows media player to watch the videos.

During periods of high network traffic you may experience short delays before and/or during video playback. Please restart the video to fix this problem. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Make practicing fun
Everybody's got to practice… SmartMusic makes it fun!
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Students need accompaniment when they practice
Playing with accompaniments help students get better, faster.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

What is Intelligent Accompaniment?
SmartMusic listens to you and follows your spontaneous tempo changes.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Intelligent Accompaniment example
Listen to SmartMusic follow Cynthia's singing.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Complete music practice system
Metronome, warm-ups, fingering charts… everything students need for productive practice time.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Record yourself and make a CD!
Hearing yourself is the fastest way to learn and - once you sound good enough - you can email the recording to friends.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Assessment and instruction
SmartMusic uses colour graphics to show you what you did wrong and how to do it right. Grades can be emailed to your teacher.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Tuner gets you in tune
The built-in tuner lets you see and hear where the pitch should be performed.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Transpose any title into any key
Vocalists can match the music to their range and jazz students can practice blues in every key.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Practice loops help you master difficult passages
Take a tough measure and slow it down, then build up speed gradually.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Fingering charts, music terms dictionary and more
Click on a note to see its fingering, look up a composer's bio or study information about the piece you are practicing
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Customise the accompaniments
SmartMusic allows you to save customised accompaniments for each one of your students.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Over 20,000 accompaniments in a variety of genres
Select from classical, jazz, music theatre, pop, rock, holiday… or make your own!
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Learn to improvise jazz
SmartMusic has unique features that help all students learn to have fun improvising.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Hear Wynton jam with SmartMusic
Practicing the blues.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Accompaniments to over 50,000 exercises
Its fun to play scales, arpeggios and other technical studies with SmartMusic's jazz, rock, reggae and other accompaniments.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Hear Wynton play Hindemith with SmartMusic
Sonatas and concertos come to life with SmartMusic as your accompanist.
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

Revolutionising music education
SmartMusic is helping students get better faster… practicing can be fun!
Watch the video - Slow connections Watch the video - Fast connections

New Repertoire for all instruments with notation included on-screen:

  • New music from Wynton Marsalis featuring titles from his new CD, The Magic Hour, plus hits from Blood on the Fields and other best-selling CS.
  • 3 Handel sonatas
  • Popular selections from West Side Story, My Fair Lady and Porgy & Bess including favorites like "Summertime", "Maria", "With a Little Bit Of Luck" and "I Feel Pretty".

Features:

  • Teach improvisation with SmartMusic – see improvisation patterns and practice at any tempo and key, learn to read chord changes, and explore new music from Wynton Marsalis.
  • Practice transcriptions of piano, bass and drums with on-screen transcriptions of Wynton’s rhythm section
  • Over 100 jazz exercises for all instruments with assessment
  • Learn to play by ear with call and response exercises that are assessed and graded.
  • String assessment added for exercises, cello and double bass methods, and pizzicato method songs
  • Improved search mechanism to find titles.
  • Improved playback sounds for accompaniments including piano, basso-continuo, double bass, and percussion.
  • New instruments supported in exercises and notation displayed on-screen – soprano recorder, alto recorder, clarinet in A and trumpet in C
  • Compatible with files created in Finale 2006* — Notation displayed on-screen for files created in Finale 2005 or 2006. Also - Make your own exercises or excerpts and assess your student’s performance in SmartMusic (assessment currently available for brass,  woodwind, and string musicians)
  • Wait for Note Markers displayed as blue note head in notation on-screen (for SmartMusic titles and Finale created accompaniments with notation displayed on-screen)
  • Practice loops added to assessment exercises created in Finale–Now you can loop difficult sections at a slower tempo for accompaniments created in Finale. When you are satisfied with your progress, you can turn off the practice loop and assess your performance
  • Practice tuning intervals by activating a tuner drone from the keyboard
  • Improved woodwind and brass assessment in methods and exercises
  • Assessment added for electric bass in beginning band methods

Updated System Requirements: SmartMusic 9.0 requires a minimum of a Pentium III class 800Mhz processor for Windows or an 867Mhz G4 processor for Macintosh.

Macintosh OS 9 Users: SmartMusic 9.0 supports Macintosh OS X, but you can continue to use SmartMusic 8.3 on Macintosh OS 9. Please contact sales 0870 873 8731 if you need a SmartMusic 8.3 CD-ROM.

Current Subscribers:

  • Click here to order an update CD. Update CD is free, shipping is £2.95 UK
  • Click here if you prefer to download the SmartMusic update (due to the size of the download, this is not recommeded for dial-up connections).

Buy SmartMusic? - Click here to order SmartMusic

*A SmartMusic subscription is required to use files created in Finale.

 

System Requirements

Windows

  • Pentium III 800 MHz Pentium or higher processor
  • 256 MB RAM
  • Windows® 98SE/ME/2000/XP
  • CD-ROM drive
  • 400 MB free disk space
  • DirectX 9 compatible soundcard with full duplex support
  • One available USB or serial port for the foot pedal (optional)
  • Other Windows® computers may work depending on software and hardware configurations
  • Monitor resolution must be 800x600 or greater

Macintosh

  • 867Mhz G4 or higher processor
  • 256 MB RAM minimum, 256MB RAM recommended
  • Mac OS 10.2.8 or higher
  • CD-ROM drive
  • 400 MB free disk space
  • Microphone port or adapter*
  • Additional USB port for the foot pedal (optional)
  • Other Macintosh® computers may work depending on software and hardware configurations
  • Monitor resolution must be 800x600 or greater

Need SmartMusic for Macintosh® OS 9? SmartMusic 8.5 supports Macintosh OS X and Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP, but you can continue to use SmartMusic 8.3 on Macintosh OS 9. Please contact Customer Support at 888-874-2144 if you need a SmartMusic 8.3 CD-ROM.

Internet access is required for a few minutes to activate your account. SmartMusic can be used offline the rest of the time.

* SmartMusic requires a working microphone. Some Macintosh computers do not have an audio line-in or microphone jack, but do support USB audio interface devices that work with the SmartMusic microphone, such as the Griffin iMic Audio Adapter.

 

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