More on MIDI

When reading the article "Using MIDI Accompaniments for Music Learning at School and at Home", I was reminded of what a great resource MENC is. By putting out magazines like the Music Educator's Journal, there is a place for teachers to share their ideas, and thus for other educators to learn from that and pass it along to their students. In the middle of this article, there was an entire laid out lesson plan. It was something that you could literally borrow, and take straight to your own classroom, which is truly a great resource. This article gave me another idea that would be good to implement in my own classroom. I know that in my high school, there was a class website, but it was never used. Of course it was the one sponsored and attached to the high school itself, but the music page never changed. Maintaing a webpage for your music class can end up being a great resource for your students can help their learning. Through the website you can post links to videos or recordings of the pieces you are going to play. You can also upload MIDI files of play along tracks so that your students can get used to hearing the other parts of the orchestra while they are playing. MIDI has become such a universal thing, that it would work on most computers, and would be easy for your kids to get a hold of. you could even record a performance in class, and put it up later, and use it as a way to improve performance; have your students tell you what needs to be worked on. And also from the "Picture This" article, the idea of having students identify waveforms is pretty interesting. You could input a MIDI file into something like Garageband, and easily see where main playing parts are loud. It could also help identify issues in dynamics. Overall, MIDI is a tool that can go a long way.

PLN Post

So I know the general order of things is to post about the readings first, but I stumbled upon (yes, using the random website generator stumbleupon) this and had to share it. Its essentially a composing tablet. It does cool things like write out the melody for you. It looked awesome. Hopefully it's the wave of the future!

PLN: BBC

This website was posted on the Delicious hotlist for music education. Although it hasn't been updated in a few years, it seems to have some great ideas. There is a bunch of stuff on getting students more interested in music, and things like helping kids choose the right instrument. I thought it was cool.

MIDI

Musical Instrument Digital Interface. No wonder it gets shortened, thats is a bit of a mouthful. The article called "An Introduction to MIDI" was really helpful. I had no real understanding of MIDI was or did or anything like that. But the article opened right away with 'Why MIDI matters', which pretty much made reading the rest of the article worthwhile. Without the understanding of what MIDI could do for me, the article would have truly fallen on deaf ears. One of the points made there that I really liked was that with MIDI you can play back your music instantly. Without that playback feature, we can't listen for mistakes. I know that during my notation project, the playback feature in Sibelius helped me catch several little mistakes, things like a missing sharp or flat, by ear, and easily correct them with the piano attached to the computer. Trying to compose without being able to hear as I went would have been a serious problem. It makes you wonder how any composer composed before computers; the anticipation of waiting to hear the finished masterpiece, and whether it actually sounded like what you thought it would, would probably kill me. MIDI allows you to attach a variety of instruments to a computer, play something, and then rearrange it or change the sound with the aid of a sequencer. It makes the world of musical possibilities endless, and lets creativity reign. The article also really broke down exactly what you need to operate everything, which I found really helpful. The second article looked at MIDI in a less technical way. It put MIDI into terms of a teacher as opposed to a computer programer. One thing that both articles really emphasized was that MIDI does not make noise itself, it just translates noise making signals between two programs. So MIDI is really more of a message sender, one that mainly makes music.

PLN: Classics for Kids

The past 2 weeks of the classics for kids podcasts were really great. The first is about Johann Strauss, Jr. himself, and this week is about the rest of his family. I really like these. This would be great in a class to give background on a composer, and would be useful in getting the correct style of a piece we are playing.

Creative Thinking and Music Technology

I really liked this article. So far everything we've focused on has been very much about composition type technology. It's focused on expensive programs and things that some districts won't be able to afford. And while composition is very beneficial, it could be harder for younger students to understand that. This article was more about moving with what you already have. Things like iPods being used to show musical examples, and even using an out of date computer as a message board are things that can be useful. And posting musical examples to email is something I hadn't thought of. Just putting practice parts out can help improve the quality of the group. All of these ideas are more basic uses of technology, as opposed to always being the more complicated composition things all of the time. It was almost like a dumbing down, or bring it back to the roots of technology. Sort of bringing it back to it's roots, where music fits into already established technology as opposed to always creating technology specifically for music.

PLN: Study Habits

I know that in my personal experience, the mantra has always been: sit down and study hard. Even the word study brings up feelings of tight confined spaces (aka my dorm room) where all I do is work. But this article that was posed by Delicious was very interesting. Through psychological tests, researchers have shown that by moving around and doing other things while studying, we are more likely to retain information because we can associate it with other things. Enjoy!

Notation Software

Until the article brought it up, I had never thought of using notation software as a way to rearrange music. In younger age groups, there is sometimes an issue of whether or not the students can play the music. Sometimes its not the entire piece, it's just parts of it. Notation software becomes a way to rewrite music to accommodate the playing abilities of your students. This way you don't have to compromise and play and overly dumbed down arrangement, you can simply edit a more complex one to be slightly easier, and more playable for your students. It can also be used to add to an arrangement, or fill a musical hole, or something that you thought was potentially missing from the music. This way you as the teacher can improve upon music, and make it more pleasing to the ear. The ability to edit can help your students to be better musicians. You could also write out warm-ups to improve their ability. It's a different aspect to the software that I hadn't considered when we first started exploring music technology. And letting your students do the arranging themselves could further promote musical ability.

PLN

This week I have been overloaded by the amount of new technology I have signed up for. Between the blog, and the reader, and the twitter, it's a lot to keep track of. I ended up with the twitter app for my phone so that it's one less thing I need to look at when I log on. But checking my twitter I found this tweet from @tomwhitby and was retweeted @teaching_music. It was:  tomwhitby 

Tech is only an Edu tool. In the hands of a believer it works well. In the hands of a doubter it crashes. When not used it does nothing. It tied in nicely to an article I found in my reader.It was from soyouwanttoteach.com titled Planting Seeds of Belief. The article was about getting different parties to believe in you when it comes to your teaching. You need to be able to convince your employer (the school district), your students, and most importantly, yourself, that you are capable of teaching students. You need to show everyone that you know what you're doing as far as teaching a subject. This goes double for technology. Not only do you have to be confident in the subject you are teaching, but you have to be confident with the technology you are teaching on. If you can believe that technology will help better teach your students then you can easily succeed in conveying all technology has to offer. 

Notation

The first article we read this week truly reinforced what I talked about in my last post. Notation Software: A Versatile Tool for Music Educators is about how we can apply different notation softwares to help compose in a class. Each aspect that was examined was another musical skill that could be improved by composition. The technology aspect of music education is very centered around composition. Most software has to do with composing, and this helps to build musical skills. When you can both create and play music, you have a better overall understanding of what you are trying to accomplish musically.
With the technology around today, it's possible to create an entire symphony without ever having to leave your desktop. It's a way to help almost expand our creativity. I can't tell you how many times I haven't pursued a project because I didn't have the necessary elements to complete it, or completion would take to long. Composition through notation successfully eliminates both of those issues meaning that there is no cap on creativity. The second article 11 Innovative Users for Notation Software also touches on way in which composition through things like notation software is important to not only to the creative process, but it also helps with our own musical abilities. I wish I had a composition class in high school, I think it would probably help with my theory ability, and creative thinking. This is something I would want my students to learn, even if it was just a one day in a computer lab type of thing, it could teach so many things.