From the standpoint of providing students with an academic program that leads to a viable and sustainable path to college and a professional career, music technology is one of the fastest growing industries in the nation.
Music technology classes provide another opportunity to expose students to music education who would not otherwise be enrolled in a music class.
There are students who love music, but they do not want to sing or play an instrument. Music technology classes allow these students the opportunity to be creative while participating in their love for music. This blog discusses the importance of music technology classes and how fostering this skill can lead to a career in the ever growing music industry.
learning repertoire and a musical vocabulary
using our intuition and reason to create and improvise
reflecting on our learning, and
learning from exemplars.
develop improvisation and composition in a variety of musical styles
include improvisation and composition as an integral part of teaching and learning, and
assess student learning.
Classes and rehearsals can be planned to develop executive skills for singing and playing instruments while also scaffolding the rhythm, tonal, and harmonic understanding necessary for thoughtful improvisation and composition. Through interactive music making, participants confirmed that students need opportunities to think musical thoughts that provide pathways for developing higher-order thinking skills when making music.
This awareness leads us to make more conscious and inclusive choices as we determine the material our students learn.
We participated in a series of discussions regarding the text, rhythmic and melodic choices, specific editions of arrangements, and a host of other problematic decisions we make that can demonstrate biased perceptions of which we are unaware.
This article brings awareness of diversity in students and activities music educators participated in to receive a different perceptive pf how to engage with students.
Google Drive™ allows you to store files and share them (without having to send files via email). The Google Apps that complement Google Drive™ such as Google Docs™ or Google Forms™ allow you to send information in a format that can be changed by the reader and sent back, or simply filled out and returned (as in the case of Google Forms).
n musical performance, we see this with Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) applications such as: SmartMusic, Music Prodigy, and Practice First. Depending on the software, these programs allow students to practice with an accompaniment (SmartMusic has an Intelligent Accompaniment System that can speed up or slow down with the performer). All the programs provide instant feedback to the user (typically regarding pitch and rhythmic accuracy).
This article provides several ways to integrate technology in the music classroom. To aid in administrating, the article suggests Google Drive using Google Docs and Google Forms. I personally am a huge fan of Google Classroom. The article also provides software such as SmartMusic for instructional use.
This article describes the difference between active and passive listening, and how to incorporate the elements of music to be used in active listening exercises.
The first thing I use is an app for iOS called Attendance2. Every kid is given a QR code, and when they walk into the room they scan in.
I like using SmartMusic, not only for projecting sight-reading exercises on the screen and running through them that way, but also for assessment of sight-reading skills.
In general, when you integrate technology you are trying to move into transformation, where you transform what you are doing to things you could never do before. The first entry level is substitution, where you are just substituting technology for something else. Then you augment your activities and improve on what you are doing.
modification: that’s the whole new level of application where you can do something you never could do before.
he final step is when you have gone through those other levels and you are completely transformed with redefining: you are doing something you could have never possibly thought of before.
When integrating technology in the music classroom, teachers need to know exactly what having technology in music looks like. A representative from Choral Director Magazine conducts an interview describing how a teacher has integrated technology in his choir. He provides two examples such as SmartMusic to aid in sight-reading skills and Attendance 2 allowing students to take roll through QR codes as they walk in.
hear the silence – every song starts from silence. Remind your choir. Ask them to stand in silence and focus on the sounds they can hear from outside the rehearsal room (wind, cars, children playing, dogs), then ask them to re-focus on the sounds from inside the rehearsal space (breathing, creaking floor, shuffling, throat clearing, doors banging).
sing the same note and disappear – choose a note that everyone can sing comfortably in the same octave for quite some time. Get everyone to stand very close together facing different directions. Mix the usual parts up. Everyone starts to sing on an ‘aw’ as a sustained drone. Tell the singers that after they’ve taken a breath they need to gently ease back into the overall sound. Ask them to match the quality and volume of all those around them. Tell them that you want them to disappear into the sound so it’s not possible to tell who is singing what.
stop conducting – one problem with a choir can be that the singers become so used to someone standing in front of them conducting that they stop taking responsibility for themselves and start to believe they can’t do it without that person guiding them. Without telling the choir, start a song off, gradually stop conducting, then walk off and listen. There will be an initial blip probably, but then they’ll manage fine and begin to listen more to each other. Repeat the exercise, but just give the starting notes and tell them they all have to begin together but without you bringing them in.
Sometimes students have trouble with understanding what to listen for while singing or don't pay attention to anything other than their own individual part of the ensemble. This blog describes creative a ways to enhance how students listen within the choral ensemble.