Does the holiday break give you a chance to catch up on your reading, too? I just discovered SmartMusic references in two articles in the October issue of Teaching Music Magazine.

The cover story, “Focus on Repertoire: Finding Your Musical Oasis,” offers tips to finding the right repertoire. In it, Matt Frost, band director at Ferguson Middle School in Beaver Creek, Ohio, describes how he found SmartMusic to be “extremely valuable for selecting literature. By using the Impact gradebook feature, I can easily listen to entire recordings sorted by difficulty. Once I find a piece I like I can go into the software and look at each individual part.”

There’s also a very inspirational article titled “Blind Ambition” about the Ohio State School for the Blind’s marching band performing in the upcoming Tournament of Roses Parade. 

How cool is that?

In the piece, the OSSB’s band director, Carol Agler, explains how most of her students learn primarily by ear, and credits SmartMusic as playing a part in their success: “None of this would have happened without [SmartMusic].  Instead of me trying to teach 11 parts I can give the kids the music using SmartMusic, and those who get it quickly can just sail, and then help the others.”

There are also articles on rehearsal preparation and time management for music teachers. While both topics represent perfect opportunities to describe additional benefits of SmartMusic, I understand that would have been a little too much: They would have had to change the name of the magazine to Teaching SmartMusic!

Seriously, it’s an excellent issue – check it out if you haven’t already.