Queen’s University arts education professor Rena Upitis is the lead developer of a new, free online music instruction tool designed to support music study and instruction.

"There is no other tool like it," Dr. Upitis says of iSCORE, an online, bilingual module. "Not only is it geared to students born into a digital world, but it is the first tool to support the largely ignored population of teachers -- studio teachers, some 50,000 of them across Canada -- who give music lessons to millions of Canadian students."

iSCORE supports music-making with a wide range of features including a personalized homepage that enables students to set goals and priorities, an embedded recorder and online portfolio allowing students to record and save practices and performances, links to composition and sequencing tools, interactive plans and feedback from teachers. It was piloted in the summer and fall of 2011 and is now available at iscore.rcmusic.ca.

Dr. Upitis worked on the creation of iSCORE over 10 years with Queen’s University professor Julia Brook, Queen’s doctoral students Meagan Troop and Scott Hughes and Queen’s alumna Marie Anderson.

The program was developed in partnership with The Royal Conservatory and Concordia University. Supporting the development were the Department of Canadian Heritage, TELUS and the Matthews family.

To try it out, go to iscore.rcmusic.ca.