When I learned in fall 2020 that my Music Tech’s dedicated computer lab with Hyperscore software was being eliminated, I contacted Hyperscore looking for a solution and became a beta tester for their new online program. And the rest is history!
by Cecilia Roudabush
How many people can say that they were granted a blessing during COVID?
In the fall of 2020, I discovered that my dedicated computer lab in Music Tech was being eliminated to prevent students in different classes from sharing keyboards once they returned to a hybrid learning model.
My two other junior high colleagues and I were panicked about the loss of Hyperscore because, despite our searches over the years, NOTHING replaced the ease and use of that program for teaching the elements of music to beginning composers! I picked up the phone and talked to the support team at Hyperscore, who told me they were preparing a beta test for a web-based version, but it wasn’t ready yet.
In the meantime, my district spent thousands of dollars on a web-based composition program that my colleagues and I reluctantly used for the 2020-21 school year. While it allowed students to write music, they were more ARRANGERS than composers. The graphic interface was not user-friendly for writing melodies, so most of my students combined and arranged prepared loops. The music was cool, but students couldn’t claim it as THEIR OWN.
The tech department was not impressed with the amount of time required to maintain the new program. Each trimester we had to delete the current student users and then assign and create new student accounts. This process was tedious, and without a dedicated tech department, I would have never survived.
Here’s the blessing: I never gave up on Hyperscore. I called again, asking if we could pilot the Beta model when it was ready. This phone call led me to June Kinoshita, Executive Director of the non-profit New Harmony Line, and their Director of Technology, Peter Torpey.
Over Zoom, I shared what my students had been doing over the years with Hyperscore. In turn, they shared the work that MIT Media Lab Director and Composer Tod Machover had been doing worldwide with Hyperscore since he’d presented that pilot workshop to my small group in Iowa City in 2003.
June and Peter were re-launching the company as a non-profit, allowing everyone to make music using Hyperscore. They asked if I would be willing to meet with the first beta testers of the new program: a group of teachers in Boston who needed ideas of how Hyperscore might work in their classrooms. We had an extraordinary meeting that led me to think that when “I grew up,” I’d love to work for New Harmony Line!
In March of 2021, I presented my vision of an Education Division in Hyperscore to June and Peter — one in which I hoped to be included when I retired in June 2021 after 32 years of teaching General and Adaptive Music in the Iowa City Community School District. Imagine my delight to be named the Director of Education, a passion I started the Monday after I retired!
Today I am running the beta-testing pilot for New Harmony Line. We have 23 pilot leaders who are elementary and secondary music and technology teachers. Included are a speech pathologist who will use Hyperscore to write an opera with her students, a fine arts center director, and a state supervisor of fine arts education.
Most pilot leaders are located in Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Texas, and California. We are also crossing the border with sites in Ontario, Canada and a school in Germany that recently signed up after their music teacher, who had written a graduate paper on Hyperscore, contacted us to find out what was happening with the program now.
Group 1, which started in September 2021 had 224 students aged 7-14 take the Interest Survey, and 61.5% said they had never written music before. 148 students have completed the Exit Survey as teachers have completed their pilot phase. Group 2 started in October 2021 with our first teacher introducing the Interest Survey with her 6th graders and 2 other teachers starting the week after.
Our speech pathologist is doing preparatory work before starting the opera compositions next month. The best part of piloting is giving feedback to our Director of Technology, who implements upgrades and new features in real-time! I’d always wanted the bar lines to be darker in the sketch windows, and Peter made it happen. What do YOU want from your composition software?
As the Director of Education, I dream about the day when Kindergartners learn about rhythm and notate the rhythm in Hyperscore. Then, in 1st grade adding a melody line, after studying melody. Create harmony in 3rd grade. 4th graders add dynamics, work with multiple rhythms and melodies to create soundscape harmonies. Finally, 5th- and 6th-graders add form and tone color, pulling all of their learning together. I believe this is the sound of joy! Imagine what that 7th/8th grade Music Tech teacher could help their students accomplish with a K-6 portfolio of composition in their background!
New Harmony Lines wants to see a family approach the Hyperscore kiosk at the airport and write a vacation piece that they email to friends and family while waiting to board their plane — better than sitting separately using their cell phones in isolation!
I’m so glad that I called the Hyperscore support line in 2020!
New Harmony Line Projects: 2001-present day
Tod Machover – Shaping Minds Musically
Shaping Minds Musically — BT Technology Journal
New Harmony Line scholarly articles 2001-2008
If you’d like to know more about Hyperscore 5 and listen to many examples of music written with the software, go to www.newharmonyline.org and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Even more importantly, if YOU would like to know more about beta testing, contact me at: cecilia.roudabush@newharmonyline.org and follow my blog on the website.
If you would like to be considered for a free classroom, school, or district donation of Hyperscore, please also let me know!
Farbood, M. (2007, January 2). Hyperscore: A New Approach to Interactive Computer-Generated Music. New Harmony Line. Retrieved October 14, 2021, from http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~mary/
Kinoshita, J., Torpey, P., & Roudabush, C. (n.d.). Projects. Https://Newharmonyline.Org. Retrieved October 14, 2021, from https://newharmonyline.org/projects/
Machover, T. (2021, September 11). Tod Machover – Shaping Minds Musically. YouTube. Retrieved October 14, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vd5KJnhHfM
Machover, T. (2004, October). Shaping Minds Musically. Https://Opera.Media.Mit.Edu/Publications. Retrieved October 14, 2021, from https://opera.media.mit.edu/publications/machover_bttech2004_shaping_minds_musically.pdf
Torpey, P. (n.d.). Hyperscore: In Depth. www.newharmonyline.org. Retrieved October 14, 2021, from https://newharmonyline.org/resources/hyperscore-in-depth/
This article was originally published by Music ConstructED on December 8, 2021.
Contributor
Cecilia Roudabush taught General and Adaptive Music K-12 in the Iowa City School District for 32 years. Her Master’s degree in Music Education specializing in Music Therapy and Behavior Disorders is from the University of Iowa. She was honored by the…
Discover more from Cecilia
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Email
Print