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.