As I was reading Martha Grondin’s excellent blog titled Artful, Tuneful, Beatful, I came across a post she wrote about a web-based notation tool called noteflight. This is a wonderful and free site that could be used for a class to compose a song or share a song with others so that numerous students from various schools could compose a song together.
Some of the benefits of noteflight:
- There are commands that are similar to those used in Finale or Sibelius, such as how to format a system break, delete a measure, save a file, etc.
- The magnifying tool is wonderful for younger elementary students because it makes the staff large so that they can easily place notes and spaces and lines.
- You can embed their compositions on a website, blog, wikispace, etc. Unfortunately, when I tried to embed one of my second grader’s compositions on this blog, it would not accept the embed code, but that is because I am lacking a plugin to do so. Therefore, noteflight also gives you the web address of your composition, so you can link it from your blog or webpage. This is an extremely helpful tool if you cannot embed items on your blog or school website.
- Entering notes is a very simple procedure. Press a letter on the computer’s keyboard, for example A, and it will appear on the staff. Then press the note value from the note value menu that will appear on screen.
- Saving a file is the same as saving a file with any program (Ctrl S or apple S). If your students forget to save, a message will appear reminding them to save.
- The Help menu is extremely helpful. It explains the application well so that you can easily maneuver it.
- The program saves various versions of your composition. Therefore, it can bring up a previous version of the composition at anytime. This is wonderful for a teacher because you can track the student’s progress and see how the composition was written. In addition, if you have a school brownout (this occurs too often when my students are on the computer composing), you can easily retrieve the earlier version of their composition so that they have not lost all of their work.
- Instruments: You can change the instrument sound.
- Key and time changes are possible.
Some items I would add to a wish list:
- It seems to only bring up a treble and bass clef staff together. I would love to see just a treble clef staff since my students are not learning bass clef just yet.
- If it could save your composition as a MIDI file, then I would feel like I found the free version of Finale NotePad (Finale NotePad is now $9.95).
Here is a link to one of my second grader’s compositions. This is a group of four students who were given a song that only had the note E. They were to use the computer’s arrow keys to change the notes to any note in a C Pentatonic Major Scale. They had a blast and many of them had no errors and achieved the goal of composing with the notes of a C Pentatonic Major Scale. I hope that you enjoy their composition!
I encourage you to check out noteflight. I feel that it is a great, free, web-based notation tool that could easily enhance any elementary music classroom.
If you have experience using this program, please leave me a comment!
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November 12th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I see from visiting this site you have to have an email account to create a log on. How did you handle having to log on with your 2nd graders? I too am mourning the loss of free Notepad and would love to have an internet based site to use instead.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Hi Brenda,
I used my own email account because I was using this on my computers in my classroom. However, I could have used my school email account. I also used a generic password. Not one that I would use for other items.
Before class, I logged in the computers and had them set up before the 2nd graders created the song. However, if time constricts this, then I would definitely use my school email address with a generic password and have the students login. This is only if they are old enough to do so. If you do not feel that it is appropriate for students, which I can understand, then login before they enter the classroom. If you performing the lesson in the computer lab, see if one of the tech or IT people in your school will login for you before the class enters.
I hope that helps.
Amy
November 12th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Amy, it’s great to see what you and other teachers are starting to do with Noteflight in K-12. Your pentatonic-scale composing activity sounds really exciting. (For future activities of the kind you described, you can delete the bottom staff before saving your “starting document”, which would give your kids a single-staff score.)
The Noteflight team is thinking hard right now about the needs of younger students and about what would make Noteflight work better in the classroom. Teachers clearly need to be able to create and manage student accounts that do not depend on email addresses. Another clear need for templates so that students do not start off with a blank grand staff for every activity. What you are doing now I think represents the best approach available with the limitations of our beta.
I encourage all of our users to please put up and vote on their feature ideas at http://feedback.noteflight.com, and don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via our informational or support email addresses on the site.
all the best…
Joe Berkovitz
President, Noteflight LLC
November 12th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Hi Joe,
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I hope that more teachers will use your product because it is excellent and some of us need to fill the void that Finale NotePad left when they decided to charge for their product.
I hope that teachers will respond to your feedback forum. Again, thank you for taking the time to reply and keep up the great work on your product!
Sincerely,
Amy
December 1st, 2008 at 10:42 pm
[…] Grade Two: These two podcasts are my students performing the “oooo” of Skin and Bones on the Orff instruments and their group compositions using the notes of a C Major Pentatonic Scale and Finale NotePad 2008. (If you are saddened by Finale NotePad no longer being free, check out the following post.) […]
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:25 am
Hi Amy, Thanks for sharing this amazing resource - I was waiting for someone to do this online, and I had not found this before! I’m sure you spotted this by now, but you can delete the bass clef in the default piano part by clicking on the left side of the clef and then selecting delete from the Edit menu - would be great to have the option of different templates though.
Now if only I could find some free computers to play it on….
February 14th, 2009 at 10:07 am
[…] blogged about Noteflight a few months ago. It was such a pleasure to meet Joe, who upon meeting him, you can tell that he […]
June 10th, 2009 at 6:28 am
Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog » Blog Archive » Noteflight great article thank you.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:01 am
good article thank you
August 7th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog » Blog Archive » Noteflight very good. thank you
August 7th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog » Blog Archive » Noteflight great article thank you.
August 15th, 2009 at 4:17 am
Hi Amy, Thanks for sharing this amazing resource .
December 10th, 2009 at 7:27 am
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December 14th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
thank you very much. usefull article
December 28th, 2009 at 6:52 am
nice post, thanks for sharing
February 7th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Thank Administrator…
February 8th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Thanks for this useful post! This blog is very useful to me and I usually browse around without commenting but wanted to say thanks!
February 15th, 2010 at 7:27 am
These sure are good tips on how to get value for your money by using Note flight.
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:29 am
thank you good information
February 23rd, 2010 at 8:05 am
tahnk you awillis2. perfect article. i love you technology