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 #7.

Content Standard:
7. Evaluating music and music performances.

Achievement Standard:
7a. Students devise criteria for evaluating performances and compositions.

When I use a portable digital recorder in my classroom, I use it for numerous applications. One application is so that students can evaluate their own performances. When we are preparing for a concert, I will use the portable digital recorder to record their concert songs. I then hook the portable digital recorder to the speakers in my classroom. Before we listen to the recording, we devise an evaluation criteria to see if we meet it. For elementary, some items we have included are:

1. Can we understand the words of the song? (If not, then we need to enunciate more).
2. Do we sound like we are singing or shouting?
3. Do we hear our musical phrasing?
4. Do we hear any dynamic differences?

We have added more questions that related specifically to the individual songs, however, these four tend to work for all songs. After we evaluate our performances, we work on our weaknesses and record our song again to hear our improvements.

The digital recorders that I have are used in my classroom are:

1. Apple’s iPod with recorder: Attaching the Griffin iTalk Pro recorder, Xtreme Micromemo recorder, or the Belkin recorder to your iPod video, iPod Classic, or iPod Nano turns your iPod into a digital recorder. It saves the audio files as a wav files. You can plug the iPod into your sound system to listen to the recording or you can upload the recording to your computer. Very affordable if you already own an iPod. As far as I know, none of the microphones listed above work with the iPod Touch.
2. M-Audio MicroTrack II: This portable digital recorder records in stereo with an amazing sound. You can plug the MicroTrack II into your sound system to listen to the recording or you can upload the recording to your computer. Once you have access to one, you will use it as a recording device and an assessment device. It is well worth the price.
3. Laptop: Though not as portable as the two listed above, using such programs as Audacity (freeware), Apple’s GarageBand (MAC) or Acoustica’s MixCraft (PC) and your laptop’s internal microphone (or purchase a better microphone like a Shure SM58 or the Blue Snowball microphone), you can also perform this lesson.

One final reflection on this lesson: One of the things that my students adore is that recording them provides them with a satisfaction that they can immediately hear themselves. Though yes, your students will get giggly when they hear themselves and try to decide who is singing the loudest, however, by using the evaluation that you set up with your students will assist in focusing your students’ listening skills.