Music Technology Week 2

"Using technology to facilitate music learning does not require excessive amounts of money" (Bauer pg. 40). I am beginning to understand that I CAN utilize music technology within my classroom while not breaking the bank in the process. My original point of view regarding music technology was that, in order to incorporate it, you needed to spend a lot of money. However, after being introduced to www.incredibox.com and understanding how www.musescore.org and www.noteflight.com works, I can see that there are quality free programs out there that music educators and students can use and enjoy.

My technology goal for my classroom is now to create a small music technology center.  I have never used centers before for my students.  But this may be something to look into because of the benefits.  I do not have a big budget to purchase 2 or 3 computers or IPADs for students to use.  However, www.donorschoose.org is a great way to earn these materials.  We could definitely utilize the free programs and I could have small groups compose music together in a safe environment.  In addition, if we invested in Ipads, we could utilize the Apple program called Garageband.

This week, we talked about using improvisation in the music classroom and I am proud to say that I try to utilize it as much as I can!  I never had the privilege to improvise when I was growing up.  My first introduction to improvisation was through my undergraduate music technology class.  We were split into groups of four or five.  We had to record ourselves into a music composition program and it had to just be improvised.  I froze when it was my turn because I had just never done it before.  I had no idea where to start.  Following several failed attempts at improvising over the other students in the class (who were all instrumentalists while I as a vocalist), someone suggested I just TALK and tell a story.  So I made up a story on the spot.  We ended up playing with my voice a bit with vocal effects and ended up with a very cool song!

I decided then and there that my students HAD to be exposed to improvisation.  I didn't want them to feel like me when I went through 22 years before ever having to improvise and freezing when I had to for the first time.  So I try to incorporate it when I can!  I used to think that because improvisation was such a huge deal to me, I had to think of BIG ways to incorporate it within my lessons.  However, I have come to learn that I don't need to do that.  I can have improvisation in small ways.  For one thing, my younger students and I play name games such as the teacher asking, "What is your name?" using only Sol and Mi pitches.  And the students need to improvise back saying "My name is _____" using Sol and Mi pitches.  They can copy the melodic pattern if they don't feel comfortable, or they can make up their own Sol-Mi pattern.

In addition, we my older students, I like to incorporate improvised conversations.  I know I felt more comfortable the first time when someone just suggested that I TALK instead of sing.  So I have them improvise conversations about different things.  One way is to show 5 pictures on the board that have to deal with a certain composer.  However, I don't tell them what the pictures mean or who they are learning about.  So they have to pair up and in 1 minute make up a story about a person using those 5 pictures.  About every 15 seconds, I will ring a bell and the partners switch who is telling the story.

In addition, another great way to get the students to improvise is to begin with echoing.  For instance, I will say and clap a pattern using just quarter notes and eighth note pairs, and students echo and clap it back.  When they are comfortable with that, we move on to a question and answer.  Students clap and say MOST of what I said but maybe change the last 4 beats.  Then we move onto the entire answer being made up.  We then transfer that to drums.  It really gets the students comfortable by using parameters (only quarter notes and eighth note pairs at first) and gradually expanding those parameters.

I think if teachers give improvisation some thought, it isn't so hard to incorporate it into their lessons.  Most of the teachers probably went through what I did: they were not experienced in improvisation.  But I used that as a challenge to get better so that my students could be great improvisers!  And my students are definitely improving!