Teaching Music in the 21st Century is a blog and writer I recently came across in my twittering adventures.  His updates and insight into iPhone and iPad apps have been very useful.  Likewise James Morrison presented a demonstration in the Bondi Apple Store Australia, for all things music and iPad.  You can view his apps and ideas here. Find a blog, twitter feed or very tech savvy person and I can guarantee you will come across some amazing keyboard applications and synthesizers.

For example, I received an article in my RSS Reader from The Unofficial Apple Weblog about a particular a program for the iPhone or iPad called Hexaphone.   I teach a unit on Rock Music in Year 8 at my school and this type of textural layering combines knowledge of the 12 bar blues, musical texture and the blues scale beautifully.  I have already used it to demonstrate how the Blues Scale can be used to improvise, create riffs and even record it into Garageband to create my own blues backing loops!  Keep watching for the improvisation at the end of the video.

My Year 8’s learn the blues scale and we improvise over a class arrangement of Hound Dog (Elvis).  This application makes me think, “What else could I do with a bunch of these?”  Pentatonic compositions, record layers for collective improvisation, a unit of work imitating Kraftwerk perhaps?

As you can see in the following videos, animations are set to the music of Mozart, but with emotive caricatures depicting chord changes. The effect is simple, stunning and educational.

How does one demonstrate chord changes through a body of work using images? Well the suggestion was to use Keynote and Garageband plus the piece of your choice to create a running timeline of How Harmony Works!

See the original idea below & maybe you could use this in your classroom?

If you come across any other videos demonstrating the same concept please let me know.

To finish I knew of one other video out there that discussed Should Joe Satriani Sue Cold Play Over Viva la Vida? through chord progressions.

This video was able to show comparisons between the two works by talking about the chords being used.  The only drawback is that I am a visual learner and just telling me the chords won’t make it ’sink in.’  So what did the video do?  Watch for yourself:

Now that I’m back I plan to make many more posts (regularly) as well as provide links, video tutorials and more.  I have purchased some outstanding applications to assist me such as:

• Voila 3.0 – for screen shots, the creative ‘front portals’ of each post
• Screenflow – for my tutorial and instructional videos
• Neck Diagrams Pro – for all guitar fretboard diagrams and future publications (keep watching)

The new menu bar (seen below) contains more specific links so you may have to search around to find things but I hope it makes more sense to those searching for guitar resources, web 2.0 resources or symphony orchestra sites etc, rather than it all being in one long blog page.

Additionally, posts made in the body of my blog will be featured in the above links.  For example, when I post about my film composition task using Garageband and Kung Fu Panda I will post the details in the >Tutorials menu.

All changes are made for my students and viewers to access materials more quickly and efficiently.

If you come across any problems or new resources please let me know

Don’t forget to share this site if you are a music educator!

I come up against numerous problems in the classroom, one of which is the lack of access to programs like Garageband for some students.  It is great to be able to compose something on a classroom computer, but imagine you have sat down at a computer, opened Garageband for the first time (because you don’t have it at home) and before you get a chance to learn the software, get down your ideas and complete the task – the bell has rung!  What now?  I am sure you see it as a fun and worthwhile task but how do you get more ‘experience’ with it?

1. Buy a Mac (this could be expensive)
2. Come in at Recess and Lunch (and forget about talking to your friends)
3. Use an online tool, that simulates garageband like features, for free, at home! (Yes)

If you travel through some google searches there are quite a few tools listed that compose music in a Garageband type fashion.  These two however, have taken my fancy.

First is Jam Studio for a simple way to create backing tracks and get down your composition ideas quickly.  It is light on yoru computer and internet bandwidth plus, you can enter in chords and patterns.  There are also loops and guitar styles to choose from.  The sit has even posted videos of their users music.  It is well worth a look.

Secondly, there is a fantastic online music flash site called Audio Tool.  This one can be heavy on your bandwidth and computer, but its options for music creation are worth it.  There is a toolbar on the right for adding synths, effects and loops.  If you have the time (or the assignment) this site is a great Audio Tool to have in your bookmarks bar.

Click on the links or Pictures to visit the sites.
If you have any other sites please drop me a comment and I can add them to my list.

Solution:

1. Make and format the actual paper but include melodic/rhythmic dictation, interval recognition, identify the wrong notes in a played melody, identify the bass lines played etc

2. Open Garageband and create a new project making sure to add a new ‘real instruments track’ for the CD’s voice over.

3. Write a script (which you can then alter for future exam CD’s) saying things like, “Yr 7 yearly examination in Music.  You have 50 minutes to complete this exam. There are three sections…”

4.  Press record, and using the built in microphone (or external one), record the instructions for each question.  You can then leave room (time) for the students to answer and then give them a warning signal to start them on the next question/section.  I enjoy picking from Garagebands extensive loops library for the warning sounds.

5.  You can then play in (using the keyboard or a MIDI interface) intervals, musical examples, melodies/bass lines, or even add audio tracks for extended analyses.

Note:

Make sure you leave room for students to attempt each question and always check it before burning to CD.

The last thing to do is to select all, and burn it to disc using iTunes.

Now you walk into the exam, hand out the papers, put on the CD and their attention is totally focussed on both writing and listening!