Customisable Drills for Skills

We were fortunate in our last lecture to have a discussion with one of the developers/owner of Rising Software who developed Musition and Auralia. These are music skills programs designed with an enormous level of exercises to practice and drill your music skills.

Auralia is targeted to help your aural ear training and sight singing skills, from rhythmic dictation to the user testing their interval and sight singing skills.

Musition is focused on the musicianship or theory side of music skills. Testing how many beats in a bar, how to tap along to a beat or general instrumental questions.

One of the great things about the skills testing is instant feedback. You can see immediately how you went, and if you were not correct, what the correct answer was so you know how to improve the next time. This important for any learning to have such quick and relevant feedback.

I’ve been able to see this program in action at Northern Beaches Christian School. Here the music teachers also take advantage of the ability to tailor practice drills to the right level of skill for each year group. It is also tailored to different musical topics throughout the term if looking at different instruments or musical genres.

The downloadable program, mobile app or new in-browser cloud based system means that students can access it in more ways and complete practice in and outside of the classroom, pending what they need.

One of the new features is the “customisable project” area that allows a teacher to program in specific repertoire for their students to focus on. Such as if they were performing the musical Wicked at school, rhythms, melodies, intervals and other musical questions can be specifically related back to the project. Talk about contextual learning!