Music Tool Suite (which we simply call “The Suite“) is a collection of digital tools created to support music learning in studio music instructions and in music classrooms. Two tools have already been developed: iSCORE and DREAM. The Notemaker App and Cadenza are currently under development.

All of the tools in The Suite are developed through a partnership between Queen’s University, Concordia University, and The Royal Conservatory. We have secured funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, under the Partnership Grants program, to conduct research on the effectiveness of the digital tools in The Suite, and to share those findings with the academic community, musicians and teachers, and the general public. Our work is also supported by a Leadership Opportunity Grant from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. The funding period is from 2011–2017.

iSCORE

iSCORE is a web-based practice and communication tool. It is designed to help motivate students to take responsibility for their practising and overall music learning and music creation. iSCORE makes it easier for students to set goals, create new work, edit and share their work and respond to feedback from teachers, peers and parents. It also makes it easier for teachers to communicate with their students and help their students become independent learners. It includes a text annotation tool and links to recording and notation software.

Here’s a video describing iSCORE—> iSCORE Video in English and iSCORE Video in French

For a full description of all of the features, there is a manual called Making Music with iSCORE: Support Materials for Teachers, which is available from Amazon.

iSCORE is available without charge, and accounts are available through Canada’s Royal Conservatory. To help with this process, we have created two flow charts, one to help students and the other to assist teachers. Download the student information and teacher information.

DREAM

DREAM stands for Digital Resource Exchange About Music. DREAM is an online and mobile device tool that was designed to encourage teachers to learn about digital resources related to music education and to studio instruction in particular. DREAM also enables music teachers to evaluate the resources, to read about other teachers’ views of the resources, and to add resources of their own to the DREAM repository. DREAM resources are organized into six broad categories: (a) music repertoire, (b) ear/sight, (c) creating/composition, (d) history/theory, (e) practising, and (f) professional resources. All of the resources are searchable by title and key words, and users can also filter the resources by instrument, ability level, or platform (e.g., used on computer, tablet, or smartphone). DREAM recommends resources to users based on their prior choices.

NOTEMAKER & CADENZA

The Notemaker App features the annotation tool that is embedded in iSCORE. It will be released in December 2015 for mobile devices using the iOS operating system. April 2016 is the projected release date for Cadenza, a tool that, like iSCORE, embeds self-regulated learning support, but is simpler to use and more intuitive for young musicians.