The current issue of Music Education Technology Magazine features a lesson plan that I wrote entitled “Film Scoring in the Music Classroom“. The lesson plan discusses ways of incorporating film scoring in the general music curriculum using a variety of software and hardware, including GarageBand ‘08 and Sibelius. One software title that I neglected to mention was Finale which also has a fantastic film scoring interface. The lesson plan includes links to websites containing copyright- and royalty-free film clips that you can use with your students, as well as two short film clips that will be posted on the MET Magazine website. While the online version is not yet available, I hope that you have subscribed to MET Magazine to see the print version.

Sadly, this will be the very last issue of MET Magazine and I am sorry to see this fantastic publication disappear. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing for the magazine and I believe it is one of the best resources for music educators who are interested in technology. Steve Oppenheimer has done a wonderful job editing the magazine and is a strong supporter of music technology in the schools. Thanks Steve!

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

My 7th Grade General Music students at the Franklin Avenue Middle School (as well as the students of my colleague Elizabeth Lavery) will complete their World Music Wikispaces today. The project requirements have the students to select a culture from their family background and then create a website that showcases the music and culture. The students have been working on their wikispaces for the past week, and this is the first time we’re trying this project. I’d love for you to visit their sites (links to the sites are at the bottom of the project requirements page) and give the students some feedback. Better yet, have your students check out the sites and perhaps create their own.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

In my post on Wednesday, Sept. 5th, I outlined the 7th Grade General Music Curriculum that I designed this year.  The first group project that is listed is called This Week In Music.  This project has the students create short podcasts that contain information about various events in music history that occurred during their assigned week.  In order to give students an idea of what I’m looking for, I took the time yesterday to create an example podcast on my podcasting site.  For a detailed outline and project requirements, visit our class wiki.

The students will create their podcasts during class on Mondays, with the first group scheduled for this upcoming Monday.  I’m going to experiment with this by having the students in the assigned group record their prepared scripts live with the rest of the class acting as a studio audience.  In addition to their script, the students need to hand in images that illustrate the podcast, and optional MIDI files of compositions by the composers mentioned to my folder on the school server (which students have access to at home).  I am looking forward to hearing their results.  Be sure to visit my podcasting site this school year to hear their efforts!

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Many know SoundTree as the leader in music technology systems. I have been a very happy SoundTree customer for over 10 years, and I am pleased to be a part of their consulting staff. Along with many other music educators, I have written lesson plans for the Teaching Resources portion of their website, and I strongly recommend checking it out. There are currently over 50 lesson plans covering all aspects of the K-12 music curriculum. The lessons are well constructed and utilize many different aspects of technology within them. They are all linked to the National Standards and come with downloadable materials to successfully implement them. The best part - they’re FREE! Check out the site today.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Audacity is a fantastic free software program for Mac or PC that allows users to create a multitude of audio and MIDI-based projects.  Like GarageBand, FL Studio, and Acid users can create audio tracks and then import audio or MIDI files.  There is a convenient microphone interface that allows users to record their voices either through a built-in microphone or using one of the many USB microphone interfaces available.  Editing with Audacity is a snap and when a file is finished, users can export it as a .WAV, .MP3, or as an Oog Vorbis file (another form of audio compression).  Audacity also has quite a variety of effects such as Chorus, Reverb, Delay, Compression, and Wah Wah.  Perhaps an even better tool though is the ability to change both tempo (without effecting pitch) and pitch (without effecting tempo).  The major difference between Audacity and other sequencers is that you can’t record MIDI and there is no built-in loop library.  For a great article that illustrates ways to integrate Audacity into the music curriculum by Tim Waters, click HERE.

If you’re looking for a free software program that does many of the things that other sequencers do, Audacity is perfect.  Create a link on your Music Department website and have your students download it at home.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Students in my TI:ME 1A course at the Dr. Henry Wise Jr. High School in Upper Marlboro, MD were asked to write short lesson plans that incorporated notation software.   These veteran teachers, few of whom had used notation software before taking the class, did a wonderful job integrating technology into their lesson plans, and I was very impressed with the ideas they came up with.  To read their lessons, click HERE.  Please take a moment to comment on their lessons while you’re there!

As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Connect With Music is a new website created with the generous support of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) by three music technology experts (Tom Rudolph, Stefani Langol & myself) from the Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME) and three exemplary classroom teachers (Jason Finn, Katy O’Malley & Valerie Ordway). On this website you will have access to 30 free interdisciplinary lesson plans that utilize multimedia, music, and technology to aid in the instruction of Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science at the middle school level. Included with each lesson plan are all of the associated materials to implement the lesson successfully, comprehensive scoring rubrics, links to standards in music, technology, and each subject area, and many useful links that enhance the lesson plans. While each lesson plan can be taught on it’s own, there are many that are linked together, providing each subject area with multi-faceted, classroom-tested, technology-rich interdisciplinary lesson plans. It is our sincere hope that you use these materials in your classroom, and that you share this new resource with your colleagues and administrators.

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Project Goals: 1. Creation of a Multimedia-based Interdisciplinary lesson plans integrating music into three core subject areas at the secondary level: language arts/reading, mathematics, and science. Each subject area will have ten lesson plans that will integrate music into the subject area instruction. These unit level lessons plans will be comprehensive in scope, and take up to five class periods to implement and complete.

2. Improving Students’ Mastery of Standards in technology, core subject areas, and creating, performing and responding to music. For this project multimedia is defined as “a computer-based information delivery system that uses a variety of media in a rich, interactive environment.” The variety of media includes text, graphics, photography, virtual reality, animation, video, music, sound effects, narration, and 3-D modeling. The delivery systems are web-based, CD, or DVD, using tools such as PowerPoint.

I hope that you find this new website useful in your teaching next year. Please share it with your colleagues. I welcome your comments and suggestions.

If you are looking for an amazing website that thoroughly covers the entire Well Tempered Clavier by J.S. Bach, then you need to check out this site. I found out about it while visiting another great lesson plan website called The Merlot Project - a website dedicated to utilizing multimedia to teach students about a wide variety of topics. The Well Tempered Clavier site was created by Dr. Timothy A. Smith (from Northern Arizona University) and Dr. David Korevaar (from the University of Colorado). The site was created using Flash and has tons of excellent information, including definitions of key terms and the historical significnce of the work. My favorite part of the site is that you can pull up any of the preludes and fugues and see a detailed analysis of the piece in an interactive movie environment. While the intended audience is the collegiate level, I believe that the material could enhance a lesson at the middle or high school level.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

In preparation for a session that I presented at IAJE this past January, I found a great resource for jazz educators - the entire Real Book collection available as Band-In-A-Box files.  The late jazz bassist Paul Phillips took the time to compile all of the wonderful jazz tunes from the Real Book and arrange them in Band-In-A-Box - and incredible amount of work.  When you visit his site you can download a zip file that contains all of the files.  There is also a link to get the Band-In-A-Box demo version so that you can play them if you don’t already have BIAB.  You can utilize these files in your classroom by either posting the chord changes online for your students to practice soloing over, or you can select a few tunes, import them into a program like GarageBand, and burn CDs for your students to practice along with.

From a copyright standpoint, the site raises a couple of questions.  Historically, the Real Book has been an underground resource for jazz musicians for many years.  While there are legal versions available, the original was far from it.  Thankfully, chord changes are not covered by current copyright law - but melodies are.  There are melodies included on the files that you download from the site.  If you are going to use this amazing resource for your students, my advice is to delete the melody track.  Everything else in the file is completely fine.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

In an effort to utilize the dialectic possibilities of wikis in my 8th Grade General Music Classroom, I set up a new wiki on a great website called PBWiki with just one question: What is Music? A true wiki is a space where anyone can edit the site - including each others’ responses. My 8th Grade General Music students have been posting their critiques of various works from the classical domain for a few months now, and as a way to discuss aesthetics in music during the 20th Century, I posted a provocative definition of music by composer John Cage - Music is desired noise. I then gave students the password to the site that allows them to post their own personal definitions of music - either as a reaction to Cage’s definition or a reflection on their own aesthetic values. While their definitions aren’t due until this Friday, they have been quite active in their posting so far.

There are some other educators utilizing wikis with their students. Alex Ruthmann, for example, used the wiki format with his Cranbrook Composers project to create a musical encyclopedia, and a tech tips page for working with software. Other possible ideas for wiki integration could include:

• Post only one definition of music and have the class edit it until a common definition is agreed upon
• Have students who are working in groups post their files on the wiki for editing at home
• Create a musical glossary containing definitions of musical terms
• Have the students create program notes for the Winter or Spring Concert
• Create an illustrated composer biography wiki

I am quite pleased with the responses of my students so far - their responses display a level of maturity that some might not expect from 8th graders. I believe that when students are utilizing a technology that they are comfortable with, they somehow loose the pretenses that might be preventing them from being so loquacious in class. Just a thought…

I welcome your comments and suggestions.