Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

Continuing with my posts on how the nine national standards from The National Association for Music Education (MENC) can be enhanced by technology in the elementary general music classroom, today I approach standard #6.

Content Standard:
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music

Achievement Standard:
6c. Students use appropriate terminology in explaining music, music notation, music instruments and voices, and music performances

This is a lesson for Grades Kindergarten and First. It utilizes the website tvokids.com’s Make Your Own Music Game. I had not heard of this website until one of the participants in the TI:ME 1B course that I taught in Maryland showed it to me. This is a wonderful website for the youngest of students because it allows them to create their own rock band, however, in an educational way.

To set up this lesson, I would connect my laptop to a projector and screen, or to a projector and SMART Board, or to a TV. I would show the students how to create a song using this website. It is a simple process: You would audition the members of the band by clicking on them and dragging them to the stage. The stage allows up to four musicians to play together. The following instruments are played by the musicians:

Beat boxer, stick player, drummers, bass player, electric guitarist, maraca player, and more.

If you do not like the musician you chose, you can replace him/her with another musician by clicking on the new musician and replacing the old musician with the new musician. One of the best features of this website is that there is a mixer, so you can increase and decrease the volume of each musician and you can solo each instrument.

For this lesson, each student would come up to the computer, audition, and choose a musician. Once there are four musicians on stage performing together, I would then choose a “mixer.” The student who is the “mixer” will use the volume controls to “mix” the song so that all of the musicians are heard. I would also ask the students some listening questions such as “Can you hear all four musicians?” “Is one musician louder than the others?” “Is one musician playing too soft?” When the song is complete, the website records the song for up to one minute. You can then send the song to the jukebox or email it to an email account. Some listening aspects taught in this lesson include listening and choosing a musician, listening and identifying the instrument that the musician is playing, and listening to each musician’s volume.

I would probably utilize this lesson on a day before a school break or at the end of the school year because it would generate a lot of excitement and fun for the Kindergarten and First Grade.