By Annie Qu
Staff Writer
AP Music Theory Class
Next fall, Vocal Arts Director Tammi
Alderman plans to teach an AP Music Theory class.
She previously taught the course at another school, and wants to offer performing arts students an AP class specific to their interests.
In AP Music Theory, students do a deep dive into reading music and look at music through the lens of a composer. Additionally, students learn to compose music according to a set of rules established in the 1600s and 1700s.
For students who are already musicians, the course will strengthen their sight reading skills and allow them to further understand how their part fits into the overall scheme of a piece of music.
Students will also understand music from a different perspective while listening to it.
If a student who hopes to take the class doesn’t have previous musical knowledge, Alderman offers a summer packet so they can catch up.
The Performing Arts department discussed the course’s introduction and teachers approved it to be added to the curriculum. Alderman plans to introduce the course to the school board, which is the final step of introducing a class.
“I hope that people will enjoy the course even if they’re not going to go into music as a career,” Alderman said. “It gives people better understanding, even if they’re just listening to music. They can understand how and why the chord progression works and why certain things sound great and other things make you feel surprised or bothered that it ended that way.”
WiFi Updates
The district’s Technology Services Department recently took steps towards further improvement of the reliability and speed of TCHS’s WiFi.
The wireless system runs on access points, with one access point located in each classroom. Network Systems Specialist Andrew Jennex made updates to the channels the access points were located on, getting rid of the inference that was causing massive WiFi slowdown. He did speed testing and found that the wireless system improved. Since the majority of problems were reported from the 400 and 500 building, it became the test area for the updated access points.
Jennex implemented the changes the week before Thanksgiving break and monitored them for the next two weeks. He sent a survey to teachers in the 400 and 500 building, and responses reported great improvement in the WiFi after the update made to the access points.
To update the WiFi, the department makes a change and sees how it affects the network. If they make multiple changes at once, it does not allow them to determine which change improved the WiFi. They then reach out to teachers in the classrooms for feedback and make another change based on their responses.
Jennex plans to push the update to the rest of campus within the next few weeks if WiFi continues to improve.