Getting the Most from Auralia
by James Humberstone
I'm often surprised when visiting many schools around
Australia to find that while they have invested in a
site license of Rising Software's wonderful Auralia ear
training software (or its sister musicianship drilling
program, Musition) and while they have a networked
music lab or access to another lab in the school,
they haven't used the administration features in
Auralia at all.
Let's get one thing clear straight away. The reason
that an Australian-developed Auralia site license is
such good value for money is because it's unlimited.
With most music software nowadays you buy a license for
a specific number of computers, or a bunch of five-packs,
and legally you are limited to installing that number.
An Auralia site license is exactly that - you can install
it on every computer in your school, providing your
school is on one campus.
The second thing we need to be clear about is that
Auralia is very easy to set up to work on your network
(given a little help from your IT staff or Binary
Designs consultants if you haven't done something like
that before). And the advantages are immediate. Every
student can log on from any computer anywhere in the
school and continue from their last session. Their work
is recorded in a central database (automatically
configured and run by the program) which means that at
any time you the teacher can review the working patterns
of your students (and check they're actually doing
the work you set!).
There is much more in the administration section in
Auralia. Imagine being able to set up minimum levels
individually for each class you have, or being able to
ask a virtual 'professor' to tell your students that
it's time to move up or down a level. Imagine being
able to set tests which automatically appear when a
certain class logs in, and print out all of the results
remotely. It's all in that administration menu.
And of course there's the power of the program itself.
Everything from simple interval comparison to full Bach
harmony dictation. Both PC and Mac versions can listen
to you sing scales and intervals and tell you if you
were right. You can imitate rhythms played, tune
virtual instruments and compile rhythmic elements. And
as mentioned, Auralia is written in Australia, so
you're supporting an Australian company. If you've
already bought a copy of Auralia, but don't know how
to get all of this out of it, give Binary Designs a call.
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