Responding to Music with Technology

This week’s class started with reading in Music Learning Today by William Bauer. The starting of chapter five the story of Elizabeth a middle school general music teacher. Even though she was a middle school general music teacher, her passion and most of her education had been in choral programs. She was up to the task of teaching a general music class and wanted to instill the qualities that made her love choirs. At the start of her teaching, this was not a great strategy. The students did not respond to her teaching and they also showed no interest in the music that she had a passion for. So she decided to take a different approach to teaching music to her classes. Elizabeth had included the students in their own learning of music. This made the students excited about music and most of the problem that she had in the class went away.

When I look at this story it helps to remind me of a few things to remember about teaching. What music do students like? How can I make this a part of their lesson and still get them to the goal? How can technology help make them better musicians? What kind of music would they like to make? Students are all different each one has a different personal preference in music. We can start to answer some of these questions by just listening to the students. Having the student make a list of songs or share a song with class is a great incite on how to engage the students in making music. When a student can relate to the music they are making it draws them closer to the music. The participation is better and the students care about the music they make. This also makes the students willing explore new music to perform.

In the class this week we also look at a very powerful teaching tool Zaption. This website has a lot to offer the teacher and the student. When using the website you can take a video of what you like to cover and insert question about the video. This is also helpful for assessment and it can also be used in many situations. Also in the class we had to evaluate music software. I choose an ear training program called EarMaster. I have used other programs like EarMaster before, but this one was good for the beginner as well as the student who had taken ear training. We also used Diigo this week a website that organizes your bookmarks and allows you to tag them for later use. This week's assignments were beneficial to continue our look a music technology. The class also continues to expand our knowledge of what we can do to help a student become better musicians and performers.

Performing Music with Technology

The focus this week was on the performance and how students use technology that can help them become better musicians. A piece of software that was used as a great example this week was Smart Music. This program allows the user to practice their instrument using a microphone as software records and tracks the performance of the student. This is very beneficial to the student and to the teacher. The student will know when they are not with the rhythm because the notes will be in red and the correctly played notes will be green. There was a discussion about smart music and students tone this was a focus of the discussion with many different types of educators. The teacher cannot rely on Smart Music as the only way to teach an instrument. Smart Music does create an advantage by giving the teacher more time to focus on tone during lesson or class. The teacher can also critique the students and also have the student self-critique by using Smart Music.

YouTube is the wealth of knowledge and anyone can find variety performances on the website. It also allows others to show their skills on their specific instruments. This can help the students learn about their own instrument. This helps the student advance with tone, technique, and other pedagogy areas then the students uses YouTube as a practice aid. This also gives the students an excellent way to listen to their own instrument and gain an aura appreciation about their own instrument. They can also record themselves and put themselves on YouTube for others to critique their performance.  They can also take  lessons from famous musicians who have posted videos on YouTube.

This week with Lynda.com the class continued with the digital audio principal chapters.  The first topic covered microphones this is an important topic for a teacher to know when recording their ensembles. The videos discussed three specific types of microphones that could be used in many different situations depending on the ensemble. The next topic covered audio input and output are bridges to soundboards or computer. These devices can be used in conjuncture with the next topic mixer. Mixers can be used in many different situations outside of the recording studio.  Using a mixer can allow the performers to have a better sound for their audience.

Computers and audio have been vital to recording and producing music. They also have a major influence in music technology.  This combined with the correct software can give modern musician more tools when working with music technology. After editing music has been complete using music technological advances the musician can now publish their own work. When choosing a format there are many options depending on what the recording is used for. Formatting music will take audio compression tools that can make the recording in a common format for the average listener.

This week the class used a program called Audacity, this program is a file share and free for use. Along with the download, you also have install the correct audio file compression software. This allows you have an MP3 of the edited music. Audacity shut down many times during my use of the program, which made it difficult at times to complete the assignments. This could be a positive teaching tool if the teacher could devote time to the program. Overall it did show how the process of editing and creating music in digital audio files.

When looking back at this week's topics  there are many important questions to ask about their use in classrooms or lessons. What do the students gain from the use Smart Music? Where does Youtube fit into the teachers lesson plans? Why is it important to use these tool  when thinking about to goal of performance? What kind of software can we use to teach students get their personal recording to the public?

Theses questions are not simple to answer and they take the time to complete and put into practice during the lessons. If the student starts to use these tool in small projects then they can become like second nature and make the students musical experience better.

Soundtrap.com

Soundtrap.com is an interesting website that is very similar to Incredibox.com. There are differences you can create a song with Soundtrap.com that is use many different voices that are available in small sections. There are so many different choices it makes it difficult to know where to start. I created my song with four sounds that are the constant background. The tutorial does not offer much when starting but if you play around with the website things become clear. I worked with the website for around 3 hours to produce a song that was around three minutes long. I did have difficulty with moving the loops around, but I just deleted the loop and replaced it where I wanted in the song. The useful features are that I could play the sounds over the composition before selecting them. This website has many possibilities for the students composer and the teacher. Students from a non-traditional backgrounds could create a composition for the other students to hear and receive feedback.

The creative possibilities with Soundtrap.com and other websites all up to the user. The teacher could ask the student to each create a movement for a larger piece. The students could also use a picture or a memory to create a new song on Soundtrap.com. If the student were given proper guidance this would affect their learning in both traditional and non-traditional setting. The teacher must be willing to give a small amount of time to make technology and non-traditional learning possible. Through this type of learning using Soundtrap.com and other websites like it could expand the student knowledge of the music world around them.

https://www.soundtrap.com/playlink/139663cf-b708-4cde-aded-2e12cdee4a99/

Non-Traditional Learning

This week the started with an introduction to the website Lynda.com. The website is devoted to learning about many varying topics. This week topic for the class was on the technology used by many musicians. The videos gave a very detailed about summary about technology, sound, and audio files. The first video explained the difference in the quality and the size of the recording.  This would show that small files contained less quality. The next topic was about the digital audio workstation. This was a good view of what a professional uses when editing or mixing music that has been recorded. I was thinking of how this could benefit the student user? Teaching this portion to a student is similar to garage band or similar software it gets them on the path to using editing software.

Cables and connector also a topic used in the video. This topic is a great for students that are musicians or want to make music. You have to know how to choose the right cables to use at the right time. I remembered at one time in my musical career thinking how does this affect my job? When I started playing with an Army Jazz combo the entire group is required to have some knowledge of the cables that are used to run the soundboard and the sound system.  This would also apply to any student that wanted to use this knowledge for his or her own music groups or recording these groups.

Computers and audio can be a tricky topic for professional that you asked for their advice. I know that most student and even professional that don’t use computers and audio equipment well. It is very important for all musicians to understand how this equipment works. Understand computers and audio equipment will include working with midi sounds that are made in the binary langue is also very important. These files can have a use for students looking to compose or share the music they have written. With all the topics on Lynda.com that were covered were very detailed and serve as a great tool for teachers to offer to their students to supplement their own learning.

The class also worked with other non-traditional music methods this week. Soundtrap.com is a wonderful website that allows users to create their own melody based on small snippets. Through this website, you can engage your students that are looking to make music but not wanting join one of the traditional musical groups a school has to offer. They can also share this with others and receive feedback. This is also important to any musician to make them grow.

This did bring up many questions about non-traditional learning and technology. How can students use these tools effectively supplement with traditional ensembles? Where else could this be beneficial to 80 percent of students that are not in these traditional ensembles? How do you add this into a busy schedule for student learning? With many of these question, it seems if you add these lesson into small increments then the students could benefit from these non-traditional learning tools.

This week in class we used Noteflight.com. We were asked to recreate a Bicycle Built for Two by Harry Dacre. The software was simple to use after watching the tutorial videos. This would be a wonderful tool for teachers to use to help students compose. I did have some trouble with entering the lyrics, I am not sure if that it a fault of the program. I did look in the help section and did not find the answer. I also check on the a google search, but I could not find a solution. This is a great website and I would definitely have my students create a composition using Noteflight.

Bicycle Built for Two

https://www.noteflight.com/embed/a04c7841ccfd171f92903fc0c313db707cee78e8?scale=1

Improvisation and Composition

 This week in Technology Assisted Music Learning the class focused on creating music. The two main topics of the class included improvisation and music writing software. This weeks reading started with the story of the Katie a student who was interested in music but did not want to be involved in band, orchestra or choir. She was able to use the technology available to her and make her own music. Through taking a music class on music technology, she was able further to enhance her knowledge of music. She was able to share her music with other students and receive feedback from the other students in her class. With the use of technology, she found a way to make music that other could relate with and critic each other.. With the use of technology, she gained confidence in her ability and increased her knowledge as a musician.

Teaching with technology can seem like a major task that takes that seem to take more time than we have.  As teacher looks to plan and included technology into their lesson this can help the student understand what their resources are in the musical world around them. The Internet can be much more than a research tool for the students. Compositions can help the students to understand the musical structure, but it can also provide creativity for the students. Noteflight.com is a great tool for the student to compose or arrange for any musical group. The site allows the student to create an account and start creating their own music after they have reviewed the instructional videos. Noteflight is a good tool for students using tablets or other devices that use the only Internet.  This allows the student also to save their progress easily.

If the student has a laptop or desktop computer MuseScore is a great alternative when looking at costly music software programs.  The program is shareware, which makes it free for the students and it also update frequently. The program also has many instructional videos that help the user create music with ease. This allows the student get started in their personal journeys into the world of arranging and composition. The use of MuseScore or Noteflight gives the students more options to help the teacher when planning their lessons.

Technology also has made improvisations easier to teach and to understand for the students. This week we were introduced to the seven-level model of development of improvisational abilities. Level one the students get to explore by listening to different styles of the music they would like perform as an improviser. They can use other technology to understand music theory to enable their essential skills of improvisation. In level two the students go through process-oriented improvisation. The can create sounds and their own melodies with the help of music software. Band-in-a-box allows the students to create their own melody or add the chords from an existing melody. With level three there is a deeper understanding of improvisational skill. In Product-oriented improvisation helps the students to understand the musical structure and how this applies to the improvisations they would like to make. When the students have a more technical aspect of their performance they are at level four. Fluid improvisation occurs when the musicians are comfortable with their own performances. Play-a-long books provide chorded backgrounds help the student to develop their own style and fluid improvisation.

Level five allows the performer to understand structural improvisation. They can develop ideas on the melodic ideas, tension and release. These also allow the performer to create a beginning, middle and end to the piece. Level six is where the performer develops their stylistic improvisation. They can achieve this through using the skills that are learned in the previous levels.  They learn through studying standards and listening to the artist. This helps them to perform personal improvisations. Creating an improvisation that is personal is a combination of all the levels. Level seven: personal improvisations show the confidence gained through learning and experience. Improvisation has benefited greatly from the technology that is available. It can create a stable environment for the student to experiment and that creates benefits the student and the teacher.

Bauer, W. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, New York: Oxford University Press.