New keyboarding and guitar labs at St. Patrick School ...

St. Patrick School in Waukon has a pair of new labs for its music department, including a keyboarding lab and a guitar lab. The keyboarding lab consists of 16 MIDI keyboards which are hooked up to computers using MIDI-USB cables. The computers have headphones as well as two keyboarding programs for those who are beginners or those who are more advanced players. Each program has interactive, guided lessons that introduce students to the keyboard and playing their first songs. Each new concept is introduced gradually and there are also video tutorials and audio tracks to help the students master each song.

After a new concept has been introduced, there is an accompanying song which the students are able to play and get graded on. Because the piano's keys are being processed through the software itself, students are able to get instant feedback on how well they played each song. Concepts such as correct rhythm, notes, hands, etc. are all able to be calculated and converted into a score. The benefit of being able to see empirical data on how well a student is playing the piano is enormous, according to St. Patrick School music teacher Tim Lund. "Students become intrinsically motivated to do better on each song, and I also am able to have a percentage score that can be recorded in the gradebook," Lund said. "When I have done keyboarding in the past - without the aid of the computer software - it was very difficult to keep students on task. New songs and lessons would be demonstrated to the class and when there was an understanding of what was to be worked on, the students would take their lesson books and practice each song privately. Without a teacher there to give one-on-one guidance and feedback, students quickly would begin to just 'explore' the various sounds the keyboard made. Although the computer-aided learning can't compete with a one-on-one lesson with a teacher, it is a huge improvement over the traditional model."
In addition to the keyboarding lab, St. Patrick School has also purchased a classroom set of guitars (pictured at right) which students in grades third through sixth will use during the spring semester of the school year. The guitar lab was made possible by the generous support and donations of parents/grandparents and members of St. Patrick parish. Submitted photos.