Effective Use

What this software does well

This tool can provide instant feedback on a number of common partwriting errors. This can be particularly helpful when practicing partwriting as it can be hard for students to perform a self-assessment (or peer assessment) of their work.

What it doesn't do well

There are a couple of partwriting standards that this tool cannot assess. Most of these deal are related to music concepts that are much more complex from a computational perspective. For example, this software is not capable of detecting errors resolving the leading tone since that would require the tool to have a concept of the current key area.

This software also is not capable of any assessment of the musicality of the partwriting. There are often several valid solutions to any given partwriting assignment. This tool cannot tell any difference between those solutions, and which ones may have better or worse choices than others. It is entirely possible to complete partwriting that follows all the "rules" but doesn't sound good.

At some point, fixes to these problems may be implemented in this software. See Future Work for more information and some proposed solutions.

My biggest fear for this software

Many of the musicians I have met view music theory as just a course that needs to be completed to get their degree. I disagree with this perspective as if the course is taught right and students are willing to learn, music theory courses can have a great impact on developing a students musicianship.

This tool was built with the primary goal of helping students to succeed in their coursework by providing them with a tool they can use to practice partwriting on their own outside of the classroom. While this tool does a great job at taking a computational approach to partwriting and music theory, it cannot assess the musicality of a students decisions and is unflexible in regards to when partwriting rules can be broken. This is where the traditional grading and assessment of music theory takes a critical role. An experienced music theorist may choose to break the standard partwriting rules and when that theorist is also the instructor, they can provide much feedback in regards to musicianship to students.

My biggest fear is that use of this software will hinder this transfer of musical knowledge and stifle the growth of students musicianship. While this software could be an excellent tool for assiting instructor's grading processes, it should not be their only source of feedback to their students. Additionally, students should not rely on this tool as the sole assessment of their work. Ultimately this tool is just a tool. Critical thinking and true musicianship will always be more important than any of the capabilities of this software.