SmartMusic changes for 2016-17 School Year

As you probably know, I am a heavy user of SmartMusic in my band program... to the point that I often wonder how I got by without it for so long.  I am now teaching many more band students at one time than I ever have before, and arguably have less contact time with them than I have in the past, so some way to maintain some sense of where each student was on an individual basis was necessary. Right now I do not have very many students (I estimate less than ten) that have their own individual subscriptions, although a few more than that do use it at home, via a couple of student subscriptions that I bought through our school.  Part of the barrier to home use, as I see it, are students who do not have an iPad, or do not have a computer that they are allowed (or are comfortable) downloading software onto.

New Technology

Since I do make such heavy use of it, and it is a platform that I thoroughly support, I try to stay up to date with any changes and updates.  A year or so ago, they announced that a competing music performance assessment platform (Weezic) had been acquired by their parent company, MakeMusic.  One of the biggest shortcomings that I have noticed for SmartMusic is that it was dependent on a download and installation, and while many of the features seem to run in a web-enabled mode, the actual assessment features still required a download to work.  Some students complained of not having a computer at home that their parents allow them to install programs on, or that they wanted to use SmartMusic on a Chromebook, netbook or tablet.  Apparently some of Weezic's technology is being incorporated into the new version of SmartMusic, as it will now work on most web-enabled devices.  This should be a big plus in terms of accessibility (need to play on a friend's computer without needing a download?  No problem!) especially if it will work on Android tablets, since it seems that many of my students opt for Android devices since they are cheaper.

Pricing Model

The other, bigger, issue for me is the pricing setup for 2016-17.  Several of the music teacher social networks that I belong to have been vocal about the changes, so I will attempt to briefly break it down here.  I actually called SmartMusic last week about a different issue, and asked a few questions about the pricing model to make sure I understood it.  I was also told that the old ("classic") pricing model will still be available next year, a fact that I did not see advertised in any of the emails I received from MakeMusic about the changes.  The "new" SmartMusic allows multiple teacher logins (up to three) and 50 student subscriptions. An important note is that these are limited subscriptions, students can only access assigned material and not the whole library as they can now with a traditional subscription.  The new SmartMusic is available on "almost" any web-enabled device including (as they state) Chromebooks.  Not mentioned are android devices, such as tablets.  Pricing-wise, the package that allows three teacher logins and up to 50 students is available for $399, about double the old teacher package of about $140.  The 50 student logins are the limited ones (assignments only).  Additional limited student accounts are available in sets of five accounts for $40, so basically $8 each.  Not too shabby for individual access.  I believe practice rooms subscriptions are still available as well.  For smaller bands of around 50 students, thus model would probably save you some money and make home access easier.  For larger bands (like mine) full student access would run me over $1,000!  Considering so few of my students have (up until now) used it at home, I will have to think about converting to the new pricing model, or staying with the "traditional" pricing plan... although perhaps with access on any internet enabled device, more of my students would be willing to use it at home.  Clearly I have some thinking to do before next year!

Click here for some comparisons between New and Classic SmartMusic, in both features and pricing.