Take Your Music Instruction to the Next Level with Annotations on MakeMusic Cloud

MakeMusic Cloud Annotations Blog

Let’s explore how you can use MakeMusic Cloud’s new Annotations feature to maximize student home practice time. 

The new Annotations feature can be accessed in Compose and is intended to be used by students through Assignments in Practice—opening up a new line of communication between teacher and student! Teachers can leave helpful notes, markings, highlights, and even brief recordings for students to access as they practice to further enhance and personalize the music learning experience.   

How to access Annotations in MakeMusic Cloud

Access Annotations in MakeMusic Cloud

Mark or emphasize accidentals, key signatures, or anything else you want to make sure students see

Demonstrate appropriate ways to mark music, reinforce accidentals, remind about the key signature, and more. Mark things the same way you would during class time to maintain consistency. The highlighter tool and free drawing tool allow you to mark up the music as you see fit. 

Record a stylistic example for student reference

Make a brief recording to demonstrate style or pitch with your voice or an instrument. Hearing an audible example is so powerful for students as they develop their ears. Since recording time is limited (30 seconds), we recommend recording brief examples that are just 1-2 measures long at a time. 

Record a verbal direction or tip for student reference 

Use the recording tool to record a brief verbal message for students that might include instructions or appropriate reminders. This is your opportunity to add your personal teacher voice to assignments! Do you have a special chant to review key signatures? How about other class-specific reminders? These and more can all be briefly recorded to share with students. You can even record yourself counting a rhythm in your exact counting system. There are so many possibilities here to bring your voice home to your students while they practice. 

Leave quick reminders to students about concepts you have been focusing on in class

Bring another dimension of your classroom to students while they practice by adding written notes of reminders in the same way they would be presented in your classroom. Do you define staccato notes as “bouncy” or have an inside joke with your class about “hippo style vs. light feather style”? Written annotations are the perfect place to make a call to these very relatable reminders for your students! You can leave a text comment that viewers must click on to reveal or include the text directly on the page with notation. 

More Annotations Tips

  • At this time, Annotations are only visible to students who have been assigned your piece from Compose; simply opening in Practice from Compose will not display any Annotations. 
  • Easily resize or reposition any Annotations by clicking and dragging. 
  • Customize the font, colors, and more on your Annotations with the tool palette.  
  • The Annotations tool palette has its own “undo” and “redo” buttons, separate from the Compose menu items found in the Edit menu. 
  • Entering in Annotations while viewing a specific part (rather than the full score) will ensure that the placement in the music is accurate and that students see the correct annotations for their part. 

Get more details about how to use the new Annotations feature in this knowledge base article

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