I have been teaching music in the Spokane Public Schools for the past 15 years. Since the late 70's and early 80's I have had a great interest in electronic music, beginning with the early Moog and Arp synthesizers. As the mid 80's approached a new format emerged called MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). This allowed communication between different brands of synthesizers where one or more units could be controlled by another. It was not long after that that the computer got into the act which then opened up all kinds of possibilities for creating music.

As an educator, the advent of all of these new technologies became very intriguing to me. How could this be utilized for students to gain a better understanding of the fundamental building blocks of music? If students had this technology, with its instantaneous feedback, would the student be more spontaneous with experimenting and creating music of their own? If it were to be used in the classroom, what would it look like?

The first obstacle that an educator runs into is funding. The typical cost of a MIDI music lab that includes a computer, MIDI keyboard and software is in the neighborhood of $2,000 to $3,000. While public schools are finally beginning to join the computer age, the arts are not a top priority for technology funding. Most schools are lucky to get one music lab. I was fortunate enough to get seven labs in my classroom. With a minimum class size of 28 you can quickly see that the inevitable "waiting in line" is a given. I had begun to give up on the idea of a viable electronic music program until I stumbled across an ad in Electronic Musician magazine about music software for the Palm PDA. This began to get me very excited! I could begin to see the cost effectiveness of supplying an entire class with 28 PDA's, software and tone modules for much less than even four of the typical computer MIDI labs. This would mean no down time for the students. 100% involvement, 100% of the time. I had to see this through!

I began to e-mail Palm Inc. to see if they had any department of their company that dealt with supporting education. I was led to the donations arm of the company and discovered, luckily enough, it was still functioning and they took my proposal. This was in October of 2000. In April of 2001 I returned to my classroom after Spring break and, to my surprise, there were two huge boxes on my piano bench. Palm had donated 15 Palm IIIx's to be used in my proposed P.A.L.M. (Potential Artists Learning Music) Pilot Program. I knew then that we had to find a way to get the entire program off the ground. This meant securing 13 more Palms, software, and tone modules.

Finding financial support in public education can be a very daunting task. Administrators are usually very supportive of ideas until addressing the issue of where the money is going to come from. This is totally understandable because of very tight budget constraints and so many demands for financial support of various programs. I was able to secure funding for the remainder of equipment through various grants and a very supportive staff at my school. The software came through a partnership with miniMusic whereby I would exchange lesson plans for the use of the software. Finally all of the pieces were in place. I now had 28 Palms, 20 tone modules from Swivel Systems, software and 8 Serial to MIDI adapters from miniMusic. Additionally, I was able to download Palm Emulator from the Palm web site and turn my laptop into a virtual Palm. I now can project my laptop onto a screen in front of the room for the initial presentations to the class.

The classes are going exceptionally well. At the outset of this article I posed the questions that I have been pondering for years. The answers are very interesting to me in light of using the Palm PDA and its associated software and clip on hardware:

How could this be utilized for students to gain a better understanding of the fundamental building blocks of music? The students have been able to learn note reading, the subdivisions of rhythm and now we are working on the formation of melody.

Each lesson is entirely interactive with instant feedback.

If students had this technology, with its instantaneous feedback, would the students be more spontaneous with experimenting and creating music of their own? What has been amazing is how quickly the students have been taking to the lessons and working on the classroom assignments. The students have each composed an eight measure multiple percussion piece and are already wanting to begin experimenting with writing their first melodies utilizing the major scales that they have been learning. In March we will be learning more about composition as we collaborate through a series of workshops with Dr.Mark Polishook and four music majors from Central Washington University in a live Palm Pilot Orchestra.

If it were to be used in the classroom, what would it look like? There is never any down time in the class. 100% of the class is engaged 100% of the time. The students are actively engaged learning the basic fundamentals of music through interactive software, listening, writing, and inquisitive discussion.

The challenge is to create a curriculum that will achieve the goal of music literacy with the Palm as a tool. Technology in any form must be used as a means to an end and never as an end in itself. This will always be at the forefront of my mind as I develop lessons for what has become a very dynamic class.

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