Music Ed

There is a new trend in these independently produced internet videos to make a continual stream of video of someone doing something really freakin’ cool. It seems these days that anyone can edit video, but the stuff that grabs our attention more and more is made up of actual people doing amazing things. One student produced video of the song “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” illustrates this point perfectly.

And let’s never forget the ground breaking OK Go video. How could you forget an entire music video shot in one take and choreographed fully on treadmills. Visually appealing and amazing.S

So, what does all of this have to do with Technology in the Music Classroom? Well, it is music presented creatively through the technology vehicle of web videos. Maybe it could be used to inspire kids to do equally innovative things with technology and music. To be honest, though, I mainly posted these videos because I thought they were really cool. Hope you enjoyed them!

Of course the the idea of kids having iPhones and making music with them is pretty fantastic. From what I can tell, the piano application seems to only play one note at a time, and only display a portion of the keyboard at a time, but as we can see, when put with the other components, makes sweet sounding music.

One is led to wonder why the iPhone when actual instruments would be more effective? If this is the technology that kids are using and is available in their pockets at all times, why not encourage them to use it?

Then again, for those students who do not have iPhones, there is always this alternative. . .

This blog post talks about the benefits of podcasting in the music classroom. I hadn’t thought about the benefit kids get from learning how to mix sound, but that’s a good point. Mainly, though, in a music classroom, I think giving kids an opportunity to share compositions that they have come up with would be fantastic.

Ear Trainer is a good online tool that can be used to train students on subjects such as cadences, intervals, and so on. These exercises are usually done at school in front of an instructor, but thanks to the advancements of the web, students can now practice at home.

I have talked a lot about Finale in my assignments and other posts, so I’m going to take a moment to talk about what it is and how it can be used effectively in class.

Finale is one of the leading music notation softwares available today.  When I say “music notation”, I mean music score writing tools.  So, if I want to compose a song and write out the sheet music for it, Finale is the software I want to use.  Finale works mainly in templates and the wizard will walk you through time signatures, instrument lists, key signatures, and the like.  When you have your music page set up, all you have to do is enter the notes.  Click on the note you want to use (quarter, half, whole, etc) and place it on the staff.  Like any program, Finale takes some practice and may require some digging to find information on how to do exactly what you want it to do.

The benefit to the classroom that Finale has is the Notepad version of its software.  Even though it is limited in what it can do, the Notepad has the best advantage of them all.  It is free.  With it, students can learn about music notation and placement of notes.  Finale is great in that it will play back whatever you write, so you get to see right away if the music you meant to write really is what it is supposed to be.

Finale is a great tool to have handy for students who are curious about composition.

These guys have a really well produced podcast about music and technology. Very worth listening to!

Visit their site by clicking on the picture

This video documents the unique performance of iOrpheus, a public opera performed in Australia. From what I gather, the opera was performed in a public park by musicians, singers, dancers, and people on their laptops, cell phones, iPods,and other mobile devices. If there ever was a merging of technology and music, this would be it. For more information, visit the website.

Here’s an interesting song about standardized testing

I just found out about search engines that you can access on your mobile phone without having to use internet services. In Tony Vincent’s learninginhand.com blog, he posted an article called
800-GOOG-411, Texting GOOGLE CHACHA, and 800-2CHACA. In it he talked about Google’s toll free information number (businesses only) and automated search engine that you can access through SMS, or texting.

What impressed me, though, was ChaCha, the free search engine that employs real people. According to Tony Vincent, I can text ChaCha any question and someone will search the internet for me and text a response back (standard texting charges apply). Granted, if we were in a classroom setting, I would be teaching my students how to gather this information for themselves, but Vincent suggested that this tool would be most helpful on class field trips. So, say I take my choir on a trip to New York and while we’re standing on Broadway, someone wants to know what the longest running Broadway show was. Theoretically, a quick text to ChaCha would give us an answer. Now, Vincent did warn that ChaCha doesn’t always send back accurate answers, so I could tell the students to take each answer with a grain of salt until we got a chance to research it for ourselves, but still, to have this resource available anywhere is an amazing thought!

I decided to check this service out for myself. I sent a text to 242242 asking “How many cups are in a pint?” It took about five minutes to get a real response (they do send and auto response explaining that they will get back to you and you can text the word “hint” for tips on how to maximize your ChaCha experience) and eventually I got a text that said “there are two cups to a pint.” Cool! I did text the word “hint” back to them and learned that I can ask for weather conditions by typing “w zipcode” which I did promptly. This was the response:”Topeka Kansas is currently 82 degrees. There many be scattered thunderstorms later tonight. Thanks for using ChaCha!”

No. Thank you, ChaCha. . . .