In the Fall of 1997, we received a three-year grant from FIPSE, the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, which is funded by the US Department of Education. FIPSE supports experimental projects in education. Our project addresses MIDI technology in the music classroom. Many schools have funds for equipment, but the teachers do not have the knowledge or experience necessary to use the equipment functionally. There are limited curriculum resources available, and with the busy schedules that are maintained by educators, it is difficult for them to take the time and devote the energy necessary to learn new software and develop new ideas.

We started our work by targeting fifteen teachers from a variety of schools in Oklahoma, including elementary, secondary, and college-level institutions. The original contact list came from a presentation that Dr. James Faulconer, one of the project's Co-Directors, gave at an Oklahoma Music Educators' meeting. Dr. Faulconer mentioned that he was part of a FIPSE grant designed to help teachers learn to use MIDI technology. When he asked if anyone was interested in participating, hands shot up everywhere. We soon discovered, however, that our original list of potential participants had to change for several reasons. Some teachers had moved on to other jobs, two were about to deliver babies, and many felt they could not give us the time commitment necessary to stay involved over the course of our project. But significantly, we did not find anyone who declined to participate because of lack of equipment.

We now have a group of eager music educators with whom to work. Our goal is to help these instructors feel comfortable with the technological end of MIDI and then, and most significantly, guide them into using MIDI in their classroom teaching in a way that is meaningful to them. We hope that as we work with these instructors, they will begin sharing questions, ideas and information with each other, building a network and developing a consensus regarding curricular needs. We do require all of our participants to be on-line and we use e-mail as a means of keeping in touch. They e-mail us questions or sequencer files and we're on-line during regular, virtual office hours. We also have a listserve which has little traffic now, but we hope to see it grow as our project progresses.

Our initial visits with the participating teachers were primarily devoted to setting up their equipment properly and, in some cases, showing them how to turn it on. We also suggested what kind of software would be best for them and were occasionally able to supply them with miscellaneous items such as a MIDI cable or two. During the initial visit, we assessed their knowledge of MIDI, and if and how they currently use technology in their classrooms.

We've run into a few unexpected problems along the way. Developing the assessment process has been quite an adventure. We began by writing a questionnaire that we mailed to all of the participants. We asked questions about their basic knowledge of computers and technology, and also about how they used MIDI. After we had received a few completed questionnaires, we met with our team of professional evaluators. Outside evaluators are required under the FIPSE program, and they have proven invaluable. In our first meeting with the evaluators, we learned that we had asked all of the wrong questions on the questionnaire. Too often, we made the teachers respond with "no, I don't know this; no, I don't do that; no, I don't even know what you're talking about..." and this, of course, made them uncomfortable, so much so, that many did not even return the questionnaire out of sheer embarrassment. Our evaluators helped us to develop a useful questionnaire and checklist for our on-site visits. The information we gather during the initial visit includes what kind of computers and software they have, how much specific knowledge the teacher has of the equipment, how much knowledge they have of basic MIDI concepts, and how MIDI is currently used in their classroom.

We've also found that some teachers believe we're there to develop a curriculum for them. Some expect us to do all of their sequencing. This, however, is not our intention and instead, we guide them through the sequencing process, giving pointers, suggesting shortcuts, and most importantly, critiquing the musicality of the sequence. We want them to learn to do it themselves and even more importantly, we want the teachers to get their students involved. Student involvement in the creative process is what will be most beneficial in the long run. If we create sequences for playback purposes only, we might as well stick with the tape recorder. But if the students learn how to manipulate a sequence, they are already involved in the process of music-making.

And we've discovered that the most difficult aspect of this project is maintaining regular contact with the teachers. This is especially true with elementary and secondary instructors. Those teachers are booked solid from the time they arrive at school to the time they leave. Many have only a twenty-minute break for lunch and that is the only break for the entire day. Still, we try to meet on-site with each teacher at least twice each semester and keep up a regular e-mail correspondence.

We know there is a wide variety of needs which MIDI can help meet. For example, elementary teachers use technology as accompaniments for choir rehearsals or a recorder ensemble. A Junior High teacher leading the jazz band uses MIDI to help students learn improvising. In private lessons, teachers use the sequencer as an accompanist with the flexibility to adjust tempos while a student is learning a difficult passage. And the aural theory classes at the University of Oklahoma meet in the MIDI labs for dictation. We also have open-access hours in the labs during which students can work on notation, dictation, and composition.

We have developed goals to coincide with the national music standards set forth by MENC. Don Muro, in his article entitled "MIDI Sequencing and the National Standards," addresses specific ways to do this. For example, Standard 3, which asks that students be able to improvise melodies, harmonies, and accompaniments, can easily benefit from the thoughtful use of MIDI. Muro writes: "A sequencer has the capabilities of a tape recorder and a sound mixer in addition to other unique capabilities." He notes certain advantages a sequencer has over a tape recorder, writing, "The melody line, the harmony parts and the bass line of a song can be recorded one at a time on separate sequencer tracks. With teacher guidance, students can isolate and study the various tracks of the song to understand the function of each component." He also points out that it is easy for a student to compose a track or improvise with the other tracks. Certainly for traditionally-trained classical musicians, improvisation is a lost skill. Sequencers bring a special advantage to the study of improvisation because although high-end software programs allow a track to be viewed in conventional music notation, all sequencers are sophisticated accompanists that can introduce students to making music without relying on the written page.

The national music standards can be met by a variety of activities. For example, elementary teachers may primarily gear their use of technology for listening or rhythmic drills. Sequences can help students learn tricky passages. A young alto in a fourth grade choir can more easily learn a part if the song is in a sequence. The teacher can emphasize the student's part by increasing the volume of that track or by changing its timbre. It's a wonderfully open field, ripe for a slew of creative minds to come in and start working together.

An additional perquisite of our project is that we bring university faculty directly to other educational institutions in our state. The University of Oklahoma is our state's flagship institution and the only one in Oklahoma to grant doctoral degrees in music. We have a rich resource of experiences to share, and this project, in particular, brings composers into classrooms from the panhandle to the Arkansas border. Everyone on the project team is a composer and, admittedly, we slant our work in that direction. Young students need to realize that music isn't just composed by dead men, but is a vital part of music making today.

In the future, music education must change to include the needs of the general public, i.e., listeners of music rather than performers and creators of music. In an article entitled "Music Education in the Twenty-First Century," Bennett Reimer lists these three ways to meet this need. Reimer writes: "First, we must broaden performing opportunities beyond bands, orchestras, and choruses. Second, we must pay far more attention than we ever have to improvisation as a mode of musical creativity. Third, we must take full advantage of the new opportunity to teach all children to compose." We believe our FIPSE project is situated to do this. Our society is gravitating more and more toward the computer as a focal point for much of what we do. By latching onto someone's love of the computer, we can bring them into music.