Music Technology

We are required to take a music technology course as part of our curriculum here at Montclair.  This class has opened my eyes to no only the common software/hardware that you will find in your classroom and how to use them; but to other newly innovated software that makes learning music easier and more accessible to students.
Because students are growing up in an increasingly more advanced technological society, creating lesson plans and learning activities that utilize everyday technological items that students will be familiar with (computers, iPods, etc.) will make the subject matter more interesting to the students and allow them to retain more from the lessons.
One of my favorite programs that this class has shown me is E006.  Available for free download at www.eamir.net.  This program makes ear training and learning to identify chords more fun for students.  By using the number pad on your keyboard, you can play the diatonic chords of a scale (1-8).  Students can play different chord progressions and even songs without any previous knowledge of being able to read music or playing an instrument.  This technology expands the accessibility of music to more and more students who are not interested in performing on instruments.  The program also puts the chords and progressions in terms of popular music that they listen to in real life.  Thus, applying the knowledge they are learning to real life situations.

Final Project

Google Spreadsheet

The lesson plan I have from my ELL class last semester is a lesson on the various instruments in a school band and introducing them, what they sound like and their function to a general music class who has probably never been taught this before.  The overall goal is to increase student understanding of school band instruments, their traits/sounds and their functions in the ensemble.  This is a lesson plan that would take much longer than one class period due to the amount of instruments that need to be taught.

In my matrix, you can see that I have separated the teaching strategies that I would use to teach this lesson and aligned them with which standards they satisfy and which technologies would be required in order to successfully complete each lesson/activity with the students.

The first line satisfies the standard of recognizing musical elements and using appropriate vocabulary to do so.  Having students watch teacher demonstrations and professional demonstrations will require them to use musical vocabulary to properly describe what is going on.  Without the musical vocabulary, it will be difficult to make an educated analysis of the performances.  The students would need to use the Internet, preferably YouTube, to find professional performances on each of the instruments.  Using a sound system and projector would allow me to share their findings with the rest of the class.  This, in turn, satisfies the National Educational Technology Standard of Students applying digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information because they are using the Internet in order to find videos and evaluate different musical elements about the video.  They are also using the information to teach others in the class about what they find.

            The second line satisfies the standard of arranging simple pieces for voice or instrument.  In this case, we are writing for instruments because that is what our lesson is about.  The students will be composing their own pieces using their knowledge about the band instruments and what functions they provide in the band.  Because the students I will have in this class will most likely not be able to play an instrument, we will need to find another way for them to produce sounds made by band instruments.  The computer program Garage Band has numerous patches that allow students to compose and produce a piece using band instruments through the computer, rather than playing the instruments themselves.  This program is easy to learn how to use and can be manipulated in many ways to create very different pieces of music by each student.  Hopefully a computer lab would be available so that each student could use a computer to produce their composition for band.  Each student would need a computer with Garage Band on it, headphones (so as not to disturb their peers), the internet (to expand possibilities of patches), and MIDI keyboards (to play their own creations rather than just patches).  This activity satisfies the National Educational Technology Standard of demonstrating creative thinking, constructing knowledge, and developing innovative products using technology because students are using technology to create their own composition (innovative product) and using their creative thinking to incorporate the instruments they’ve learned about in their own interesting ways.

            The third line satisfies the content standard of categorizing families of instruments and identifying their associated musical properties.  This is the primary content standard that the lesson addresses.  Along with a lecture from the teacher about each instrument and their function, I though games for the students to play and demonstrate their knowledge in would be fun and keep them actively involved in the learning process.  The games involve listening to clips and identifying the instruments and then sorting them into whichever family of instruments they belong to.  A sound system and media player would be necessary for the first part of the game of identifying the instruments by sound/timbre.  I felt a Smartboard would be an appropriate way of dragging and dropping instruments into categories for the kids.  They can use the technology to actually see the differences in the families of instruments.  The Powerpoint presentation would be used by the teacher during lectures as a means of illustrating the lecture.  This line satisfies the National Educational Technological Standard of using digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively.  The students will be working together using these technologies to work together and help each other learn about the instruments and their differences.