This section shows the DBSchools Music Testing Application for music departments. It was developed specifically for Stanley Middle School in Lafayette, California, and probably has more broad applicability. At Stanley there is a small team of teacher aides who regularly test the students on selected pieces from one of three books: “Red,” “Blue,” and “Green.” There needed to be a way to record the results of these assessments and provide the information to the music teacher so he knows the testing status of all the students in all the groups.

Here is a walk-through of an earlier version of the application.

Summary Window

In the image below, the user has double-clicked on Symphonic Band in the tree on the left, and a summary for that band has appeared on the right. We can see all the students in alphabetic order, along with their instrument, the next piece they are to test on, the date of their last assessment, the number of days since they were assessed, the number of pieces they have tested on, the number of pieces they passed, and the number of times they were rejected for testing for lack of preparedness, such as having no book or a stuck valve or a broken reed.

History Window

Betty Spengler has arrived for testing. The tester double-clicks her name and her testing history appears. This history shows that on Nov 02 Betty was tested by “guest” (in the real system this would be the user name of the actual testing aide), and she first failed, then passed, piece number 7 in the Red book. Then she passed number 12.

Test Record Window

The tester pushes the “Test...” button and this dialog appears. The system determines the next piece in the red book to be tested on and displays the tempo. The tester sets the tempo in a metronome, turns it on, and asks Betty to begin when she is ready. Betty plays generally well but is a little sloppy with some staccato notes, so the tester checks the “Articulation” checkbox, and adds a comment: “Staccato notes should be more crisp.” The tester pushes “Save” and the record becomes part of Betty’s testing history.

As with all of DBSchools, the Testing Application is cross platform. It has been used on MacOS X, Linux, and Windows XP. .

The “DB” in DBSchools, Dave Briccetti, would love to hear from people interested in using the Testing Application or any other component of DBSchools. You may reach him here: daveb@davebsoft.com or here: 925 945-7565.