The use of electronic systems to assist with the teaching and learning of music and providing feedback to students is important and well known. Many patents such as US 2011/0283866 (‘866’), US 2014/0260903 (‘903’) and WO 2010/083563 (‘563’) have claimed systems with respect to teaching the playing of music and providing feedback.
The claimed invention is not concerned with the playing of music and important points which distinguish the claimed invention from ‘866’, ‘903’ and ‘563’ are that no instrument is required and that it is not a prescriptive learning method.
There are also many systems available that are concerned with electronic learning platforms. Patents such as US 2013/0052631 (‘631’), US 2013/0266924 (‘924’) and US 2007/0196807 (‘807’) cover general courseware, that may or may not have music as an intended subject area. They certainly do not concern themselves with musical scores, non-destructive editing of musical scores and non-destructive editing of audio recordings.
Other patents such as US 2013/0164727 (‘727’) are more musical in their approach, and indeed mention musical scores and their display, in the context of student answering questions. Again, there is no mention of non-destructive editing of musical scores.
The patent WO 95/25312 (‘312’) is concerned with creating new works from recordings, using sub selections from the recordings without altering the original. ‘312’ has two separate software applications, one for creating marker points and one for playing the resulting composition back. ‘312’ does not concern itself with; integrated systems, non-destructive editing of musical scores and questions, answers, assessment and feedback.
The patent US 2012/0259788 (‘788’) is not dissimilar to ‘312’ and again does not concern itself with; integrated systems, non-destructive editing of musical scores and questions, answers, assessment and feedback.
With electronic learning systems being present in most educational institutions, there are ongoing debates about their value and benefit.
The primary benefit when using such systems concerns the student. In well-designed systems students have the ability to practise as many questions as they desire, while receiving quality feedback. Their results will all be recorded for later instructor review.
The other benefit, arguably more important, concerns the instructor. The use of such a system gives them the ability to track students with minimal effort, set tasks and activities, monitor progress and easily provide differentiated learning opportunities.
Using such a system imposes some workload on the instructor, which should be easily offset by the reduction in traditional grading and monitoring tasks.
Many instructors find it useful to include their own content into such systems if possible, which can ensure that content is closely matched to the curriculum requirements of their student body.
In the area of teaching music, inclusion of content can be very time consuming, involving media selection, media manipulation and management and ultimately the creation of questions to present to their students.
As an example, an instructor may have an audio recording of a string quartet that is ten minutes long. They would like to use this work in their teaching as part of a melodic dictation question. Such a recording is generally too long for an instructor to use in most single questions. Instead, they would want to use smaller sections from that recording, and quite possibly multiple sections from the same recording.
Traditionally the instructor would have to edit the recording and produce multiple audio files that need management and filing before using them with student questions.
A very common question is to ask the student to transcribe some music after listening to the audio recording. In this case the question could be ‘Transcribe the Violin I’ part.
The instructor would need to devise a method whereby the student could enter their answer, in this case the transcription of the Violin I part in the audio recording that the instructor has manipulated.
In years past the instructor may start with a blank sheet of manuscript, add relevant items such as meter and key signatures, and possibly a starting note. This sheet would then be photocopied and distributed to the students.
A more modern method would involve the instructor starting with the musical score that matches the audio recording. The instructor would open the musical score in a suitable editing package, remove the Violin II, Viola and Cello parts and edit the Violin I part. The editing of the Violin I part would involve remove all notes except the first note of the example, which is a very common way to present the student with such a question. The file would then need to be saved and hard copies created for distribution to students for answer submission.
It is important to note that in the method just described, the saved musical score containing the remnants of the Violin I part has no connection to the original musical score, they are completely separate.
The management of these musical scores is laborious, time consuming and error prone.
Also, both of these traditional methods require the instructor to assess each student response individually and the said ‘modern method’ involves destructive editing of the musical score, which create long term administration and musical score management tasks.
In the claimed invention, a fast and integrated method to non-destructively edit audio recordings and musical scores with a question and assessment system is described, saving instructors countless hours.
An integrated system and method that provides instructors with non-destructive ways of manipulating musical scores and or audio recordings for student practise, testing and assessment. The said integrated system and method allows instructors to create questions that utilise one or more of the manipulated items, present questions to a student, collect the said students answer and assess the said students answer. The said integrated system is delivered via digital devices including computers, tablets, smartphones and other such devices.
The said non-destructive editing allows instructors to optionally create extracts of musical scores or audio recordings. Audio extracts have starting and ending timestamps, allowing instructors to specify smaller timespans to be played.
Musical score extracts have starting and finishing measures and beats, allowing instructors to specify a smaller timespan from the entire work. These musical score extracts can be used for playback, display and student musical score interaction.
The said integrated system allows creation of notation, tapping and multiple-choice questions. Each of these questions allows the use of audio and or musical score extracts or the entire work. A single extract or entire work may be re-used in more than one question.
Further non-destructive editing of musical scores can be undertaken once a musical score extract or entire musical score is chosen for use in a question. This editing can include hiding of some musical parts, making parts editable or locked, muting parts, hiding individual notes and changing parts to a percussion staff. Many combinations of these choices are possible, for a single question, without altering the original musical score or altering any other question that has used the same extract or entire work with other non-destructive edits.
Depending on the question type, the non-destructive edits can affect playback, display, student musical score interaction or a combination of these, with separate non-destructive edits allowed for each area of use.
Instructors may use questions for student practise, within a test or within a course. In each case, questions are presented to a student, an answer is collected and assessed and students may receive feedback and or results.
Each of
Referring to the drawings,
Media items are supplied by the publisher and third parties, but can also be added to the library by the instructor 106.
Audio and musical scores may have extracts, allowing instructors to use smaller parts of the item when creating questions.
If extracts are present for an audio or musical score item, then this is indicated 103. New extracts may be created for any audio or musical score 106, once this action is chosen the instructor is taken to the extract editor in
Referring now to
Audio extracts also have their own set of attributes 209 and tags 210 to facilitate searching.
Musical score extracts also have their own set of attributes 307 and tags 308 to facilitate searching.
Both audio and musical score extracts have names 211, 309 and descriptions 212, 310 that can be displayed in various areas including the library 2603, 2604 and question editor.
A single extract may also be re-used within a question and also re-used in more than one question.
Note that creating an extract is not mandatory, questions can be created using an entire audio item or musical score.
Referring now to
In both these figures, the extracts are being viewed after they have been chosen to be used as part of a question in the same way an entire piece has been chosen 707, they can also be viewed directly from the library 107.
Referring to
A notation question allows the students to enter answers on a musical score 704, highlight elements on a musical score 705 or enter chord symbols on a musical score 706.
Tapping questions allow the student to tap a musical score to a click track 902, remember and tap a played musical score 903 or tap along to a played musical score 904.
A multiple-choice question allows answer types that are one of text 10002, images 10003, musical scores 10004, audio 10005 or midi files 100006.
In any of the question types, various selections of audio and musical scores may occur.
Audio items may be selected for playback 708, and the selection can be an entire work or it can be an extract as described earlier and shown on
Musical scores and musical score extracts can be chosen for the question itself (for student interaction) 707, for playback 10007, for display 905 or as multiple-choice answers 10004, 11001. Any of these selections may be an entire work or they may be an extract as described earlier and shown on
Referring now to
These non-destructive edits or manipulations can involve one or more of these items, depending on type of question and answer type chosen for that question; selection of musical part(s) that are visible 12001, 13001; 15001 selection of musical parts that can be edited 12002, 13002; selection of measures or notes to be hidden 12004, 12005, 13003; toggling of musical part(s) to percussion staff and converting pitches to rhythmic values 14001.
Referring now to
Referring now to
When notes or measures (bars) are selected to be hidden 12004, 12005, 13003, then different behaviours can result when the question is presented to the student. Areas of the score may be blank and have notes replaced with rests, and, the areas that are blank and have rests may be available for the student to edit 18001.
The claimed invention makes it possible to create questions with many variations. In this claim we have chosen to include four examples showing non-destructive editing in various ways.
The first example is a notation question and covers
Referring to
The Violin II part will not be shown to the student. The Viola, Cello and unlabelled chord symbol parts are visible but not editable.
The Double Bass part is both visible and editable and measures three, five and seven have the notes hidden 12005 when presented to the student (
The second example is a notation question, and covers
Referring to
The Double Bass part is both visible 13001 and editable 13002 and all notes will be hidden 13003 when presented to the student (
Note that this example is using the same musical score as in
The third example is a tapping question, and covers
Referring to
The Violin I part is both visible 14001 and has the pitches removed and staff changed to percussion 14001.
The fourth example is a multiple-choice question, with music scores or notation examples as answers, and covers
Referring to
Referring again to
In one embodiment
Referring to
In each of the four examples student answers will be automatically assessed. The method of assessment differs depending on the question type.
A multiple-choice question is assessed automatically, the instructor will have nominated correct answer(s) in the question creation process 11004.
A notation question is assessed automatically by comparing the musical score originally manipulated by the instructor and presented to the student for interaction, with the musical score nominated for assessment by the instructor.
An instructor may manipulate the assessment musical score 805, modifying one or more selections of musical part(s) to be compared and toggling musical part(s) to percussion staff and converting pitches to rhythmic values.
A tapping question is assessed automatically by comparing against the manipulated display or playback musical score.
In each of the different embodiments shown in
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2015902237 | Jun 2015 | AU | national |
This application is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/178,634, filed on Jun. 10, 2016, which in turn is based upon and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to Australian Provisional Patent Application Number 2015902237 entitled “An integrated system providing users with non-destructive ways of manipulating musical notation and or audio recordings for student practise, testing and assessment.” Both of the aforementioned patent applications are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety for all purposes.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 15178634 | Jun 2016 | US |
Child | 15669954 | US |