Tool: Focus On Sound
If you are already a MusicFirst customer, then it is likely that you already know what an incredibly in-depth and useful tool Focus On Sound is for teaching music. If you’re not a MusicFirst customer, then please allow me to introduce you to Focus On Sound. It just might make you one :)
Focus On Sound is a company based in the United Kingdom. It was started over 10 years ago by an amazing music educator named Dr. Simon Foxall. Simon was a senior examiner and music educator for many years. His PhD was focused on the use of computers in testing music and linguistic ability - very similar to mine. He is brilliant and he used his many years of music teaching experience to create a beautiful piece of software that every music teacher should use in their teaching.
Available exclusively through MusicFirst in the US, MusicFirst.co.uk in the UK, MusicEDNet in Australia and New Zealand, and available online everywhere else around the world, Focus On Sound has a few very useful features. It is essentially an encyclopedia for musical instruments and musical terms. The Instruments section features over 200 musical instruments - not only Western instruments but musical instruments from around the world. Each entry has has up to six pages of description, with photos, videos, diagrams and recordings.
The musical terms section, called Musical Topics, has around 850 terms, arranged in various topics and subtopics like tempo or pop song structure. Like the Instruments pages, each musical term entry has has up to six pages of description, with photos, videos, diagrams and recordings that help students understand the term. One of my favorite topics is the Music Technology section. It is PERFECT for any music technology class and each included term is illustrated with images and audio to explain what those terms mean. For example, there is an entry on a Low-Pass Filter. Included in the entry (see below) is not only a definition of what a Low-Pass Filter actually does, but also a visual diagram and most importantly, an embedded audio file so that you can hear what a low-pass filter actually does. VERY cool.
In addition to these two main sections, there are also complete Lesson Plans and Tests for every topic. These are PERFECT self-guided activities for students to complete either in class, with a substitute teacher, or for homework. All student work that is completed in Focus On Sound is recorded into the highly detailed Results section - a veritable assessment data bonanza. These results are also recorded directly into the MusicFirst Classroom Gradebook if assigned as a Task.
In the UK there are literally HUNDREDS of secondary schools using Focus On Sound and the enhanced Focus On Sound PRO version (which allows teachers to create their own custom content and tests) that use Focus On Sound to help their students revise (study) for their various GSCE exam boards, including English, Welsh and Scottish exam boards. This allows students to really get up close with the works that they will be taking the exams on and it has proven to be a highly successful tool for teachers in the UK. Here is an example of one of those set works by Afro Celt Sound System.
On a personal note, I absolutely LOVE this tool. Having high quality content, written by music teachers specifically for use in music classrooms, comes at a very value in my humble opinion. There is a LOT of information readily available on the internet, on sites such as Wikipedia, but very little of it was written for the classroom, let alone vetted for accuracy. The high quality writing, audio files, videos, and graphics should make this tool a must-have for any music teacher.
So here’s the good news: Focus On Sound is INCLUDED with every MusicFirst Classroom subscription. Soon, we will be offering Focus On Sound PRO in the US market as a standalone product, or an option within the MusicFirst Classroom. The standalone version can be directly integrated with Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams. If you would like to take Focus On Sound for a test ride to see how you could use it in your music classroom, just sign up for a FREE 30-day trial.
For those of you that already use Focus On Sound, I would love to hear from you on how you are using it.