Chromatik and SmartMusic are both programs that offer students the ability to play along with music, providing the notation in-time with the accompaniment (and in the case of Chromatik, the lyrics are included even for instrumental parts). SmartMusic is marketed as an educational package with additional features to assist teachers in evaluating students, additional material for students including metronome and fingerings and modelling options, and integration with many popular beginning methods.
Chromtik is a fairly simple site focused on providing a connection between popular music of many genres and the instrumentalists or vocalists who want to play or sing those pieces. The site provides notation for a selection of popular tunes, as well as an 'official' play-along track (which seems to generally be a track of the recording artist for the pop genres). There are no print options, although computer-savvy individuals would have little trouble creating screen captures to print (note that this would be copyright infringement, which is NOT ok!) The navigation and tools in Chromatik are very intuitive, and are on par to contemporary web sites -- slick images, smooth transitions, and clear control clusters are reminiscent of Pandora, iHeartRadio, and other popular websites.
My biggest complaint (I always seem to have those!) about Chromatik is that it's not well-edited. The songs are closely realized, or about as close as pop tunes can be realized for instrumental performance, but there are some basic editing choices that baffled my mind. As a violist, I was very interested in just what the viola options were going to be. Viola was completely absent from the classical selections, even those where the viola has transcriptions and would make sense (such as Elgar's Salut d'Amour, one of my favorite pieces to play on any stringed instrument!). I will admit to not being real surprised (violists understand these things happen), and it wouldn't be a big deal for me or others at our level of performance, but kids and young adults and adult amateurs that get interested in classical music will certainly be disappointed if they go to find a piece that they particularly enjoy that isn't there. I think that's especially unfortunate because many of the classical works on the site seem to be public domain, and therefore realistically can be arranged or transcribed or whatever to be workable for any of a number of different instruments other than the original. When I went in to check out some of the pop tunes that were available, I checked out Owl City's 'Fireflies'. I was again struck by 'violist syndrome' -- while the piece was rhythmically and melodically accurate, no violist would ever write the piece up in the stratosphere of the viola the way how this transcription has suggested! I think the problem comes from a low Bb that occurs in a few times, and the overall large range this requires to reproduce faithfully. But even if this displacement couldn't be avoided by moving the key of the piece (again, would have taken a little human effort, but not challenging in the least with modern technology), the high stuff could have been rewritten in treble clef -- MUCH more friendly for reading prolonged areas above the staff (and this is coming from someone who plays flute on a regular basis too!). Also disheartening were seeing all of the collisions in the parts where the 2nd voice was notated -- in some cases the note heads were completely obliterated by rests. Chromatik really seems more as a 'fun' exercise to keep kids playing, but the inclusion of the lyrics makes me less likely to use it in the classroom or even as an alternate option for students playing outside of class. Too many popular songs today have language, metaphors, and concepts that are not welcome in the education spheres, and while Chromatik would be a wonderful way to get reluctant practicers to play more at home, I worry that parents would be less than enthusiastic about their child having access to explicit content (I'll leave the discussion of parental involvement in practicing, internet usage, and mature content for another time).
SmartMusic is intended for use in educational settings, and so has none of the issues with lyrics or content that Chromatik has. However, SmartMusic charges for everything. Subscriptions start at $40 per year for student access, or teachers can set up practice room subscriptions for ten percent more. With more and more schools moving to a 1:1 technology model, SmartMusic becomes a very attractive software suite for music teachers -- especially instrumental music instructors, who frequently have to juggle differentiated instruction by ability as well as by instrument, a situation where SmartMusic provides a great benefit and support system. The ability to assign etudes or method book assignments on a per-student instead of per-class basis is a genius move in today's age of portfolio-based evaluation in the arts and with the increasing expectations for teachers to be evaluated on student products as well as in-classroom observation and evaluation. SmartMusic can be a very smart investment for program justification, if a school district is willing to put the money out for it. And perhaps that's one of the bigger draw backs to SmartMusic. If the district isn't supportive of the cost, and the students can't afford to buy their own subscriptions, SmartMusic is basically dead in the water before a teacher even starts using it. SmartMusic requires that students have a compatible device and internet access even before the subscription piece enters. While this is a great option for schools with large budgets or affluent families, urban and/or rural districts with budget woes and a high number of students in the lower socio-economic strata will struggle when trying to implement SmartMusic without outside help from fundraising, donor/sponsors, or grants. Additionally, using SmartMusic as a classroom tool requires space to put the computer or device, recording rig, and the student(s) that will be using the system. In some schools, especially those where music facilities are shared with other classes, the space for SmartMusic may be hard to come by. For my situation, SmartMusic would require funding assistance both to get started at the school as well as to get student access. I would love to have the ability to listen to my students' assessments outside of class time, so I will be spending some time brainstorming how to make it work, but I'm not sure where I would have students working in SmartMusic while at school if I am able to purchase a subscription. One of the best benefits with SmartMusic would be solo repertoire access. My students do not have many opportunities to study privately, so having a semi-autonomous feedback system for solo repertoire practice would be a wonderful boon when preparing for solo & ensemble contests.
Both SmartMusic and Chromatik can be wonderful tools, but SmartMusic shows through it's many features that it was truly designed with the music educator in mind. Chromatik, with it's easy access to pop tunes, really seems to be aimed more at music consumers and could potentially help students enjoy playing at home (and practicing, although not necessarily what their teachers would hope they would be practicing) more than the material given to them by their teachers, but the content may not be entirely suitable for many students. Neither are a perfect fit for all music programs, but both may be useful to some educators for specific purposes in the classroom and beyond.
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