Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

Today ended our winter trimester at school. As spring break begins (yeah!), I now have some time to update my website with my students’ works. This trimester, my second graders composed songs using the notes middle C (do), D (re), E (mi), G (sol), and A (la) and quarter, half, and whole notes in 4/4 time. We have been studying the pentatonic scale through songs and reading notes on the staff. I signed out the computer lab and had the students use Finale NotePad to compose their songs. To help them achieve success, I gave them a 4-measure B section to compose. I composed the A section and the completed song had an ABA form. They did an excellent job! They successfully composed using Finale NotePad. Their only obstacle was that many of them wanted to use the note F (fa). Afterward, since we had been studying music in African and Latin styles, I arranged two accompaniments in GarageBand for the students to choose from in an African style or a Latin style, to accompany their melodies. They could also choose to leave their song as just a melody with no accompaniment. I adored watching the students feel a sense of accomplishment and ownership over their compositions. Today, they received a CD compilation of their works and their faces lit up!

To listen to the second graders’ works, please visit my website and click on “2nd grade.“

Today, one of the 3rd grade teachers performed two songs from Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro for my kindergarten music classes. My kindergartners have been studying Mozart’s life, particularly his childhood, and his music. We read a book about Mozart’s life, moved to various works by Mozart (recordings of myself performing his flute and clarinet concertos), and watched a wonderful version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Many of the kindergartners loved watching his opera so much that they wrote about it in their classroom journals (this was music to my ears when the kindergarten teacher told me). As I was discussing Mozart with the 3rd grade teacher, who I knew was a vocalist, she stated to me that she had been studying and wanting to perform two songs from The Marriage of Figaro. I asked her if she wanted to come into the kindergarten music classes to perform for them. She was delighted to do so. Not only did she perform, but she explained the songs beautifully to her young audience. They adored her and they loved listening to her perform. On a side note, her schedule would not permit her to come to all of my kindergarten music classes, so she graciously allowed me to videotape her performance and presentation and I then showed it to the other classes.

In addition, a couple of years back, one of the second grade teachers hesitantly admitted to me that she plays french horn, but has not played it much in recent years. When a teacher admits that to me, I feel that they would like to play the instrument again if they had a venue. I then created an arrangement of Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring for the students for our holiday concert, and added her, another teacher who plays piano, and a teacher’s father her plays trombone, to play along with the students. It was extremely successful and from then, she has played many times.

One of the benefits of teachers performing for the students is that the students can relate more to the performance because it is being performed by their teachers. They know their teachers. It is like a new cool factor added to that teacher and to the instrument that the teacher plays.

I highly encourage you to find out if any of your teachers once played or sang in high school. Find out if any were all-state musicians. I usually have to do some detective work to find these things out and then have to use that information carefully, but when I do, the most wonderful results are produced.

I am so thrilled that The Music Education Blog Carnival is back. Back in July of 2008, Joel of www.soyouwanttoteach.com and Joe of musictechnology.net presented the first Music Education Blog Carnival. I was so proud to be a part of it as Joe and Joel incorporated my blog post titled Podcasting with the Youngest of Students.

The carnival continued until June 2009 and then it went on hiatus. I was so happy to read that Joe was starting up the carnival again. This edition features blog posts separated into three categories: Music Technology, Music Tips, and Music Pedagogy. There are many excellent posts from some amazing people such as Joe, Barbara Freedman, Andy Zweibel, Bonnie Brown, Theresa White, and many more. Check out the blog by clicking here.

The next edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival will be hosted by Carol Broos on April 1, 2010 – Carol Broos @ http://beatechie.com

Today is the 100th day of school at our school and my first graders are beaming with pride as they entered my classroom with their “100th Day of School visors.” On these visors were stickers and other items that added up to the number 100. In music class, we sang “The 100th Day Of School” by John Riggio  and “1-0-0″ by Teresa Jennings (both found in Music K-8). We then continued to work on “The 1st Grade’s 100 Favorite Song List” changing marker colors at every tenth number. I am slowly learning my students’ musical influences, and they range from Beethoven, to movie themes, to The Black Eyed Peas. The list is only half way completed so I cannot wait to see what other songs will be added.

How do you celebrate the 100th day of school in your music class?

The past two days have been eventful ones at the TI:ME/NJMEA conference. There were some amazing presentations that involved technological tools for music education such as YouTube, EAMIR (Electro-Acoustic Musically Interactive Room), music labs, microphones, software, hardware, and much more. The sessions were informative, rich with materials and ideas, and the presenters were knowledgeable and excellent. I heard many compliments about the conference, one being “Glad that TI:ME came to NJ. Great conference!”

My personal favorite sessions were ones that were presented by teachers who utilized these tools in their classrooms daily. One of my favorite sessions was Barbara Freedman’s students performing their nanoband music live. Her highschool students were performing and creating music live utilizing Korg’s Kaossilators and more, and they were amazing!

I wish that I could have attended every session. However, the twitter feed (or the twitter chat room) kept me informed about what was occurring in each session. I personally thank all of the presenters and educators that attended. I especially thank TI:ME’s sponsors, Alfred, MakeMusic, Noteflight, Shure, SoundTree, and Yamaha,  because without them, this conference would not have been possible. I hope to see you in 2011, where the conference will be in Ohio!

Photo: Playing in the Technology Sandbox provided by SoundTree and found at http://tweetphoto.com/11779499

If you receive MENC’s Teaching Music magazine, please check out the feature article titled “Teaching the Digital Generation.” I was interviewed for this article and I explain some of my cross-curricular projects that I perform with elementary students. These projects are technology-enhanced. They will also be featured in my session at this week’s TI:ME/NJMEA conference.

Eventually, the article will be found at this MENC link: http://www.menc.org/resources/view/teaching-music-magazine

Since 2007, I have had a week in February titled “Bring Your Parents to Music and Movement Class” for the students in grades PreK-2. I discovered this idea on the MENC general music message boards and I have been so thankful that I did try it.

I thoroughly enjoy the week because it opens my eyes greatly to the following items:

• I see fathers come into the classroom and dance with their young children. Many of these fathers I have not met before.
• I see students who are normally very shy open up, smile, and actively participate because their parents are smiling at them.
• The parents see and experience the curriculum as opposed to only concerts.
• Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Babysitters, Close Family Friend, etc. If a parent cannot attend, it is so nice that the family will send another adult.
• Cooperation and Working Together: The dances, singing games, play parties, etc that we perform all require the students to cooperate and work together. When the parents join us, the parents will remark about how much they like that these activities help their children learn to work together.
• “Thank you.” It is really nice to hear the parents say “thank you for doing this.” Every year I debate if I should have this event because it is not required by the school and no other teacher does something like this. However, I feel that the parents do appreciate it and I appreciate that they take the time out of their days to come.
• Smiles, smiles, smiles. The students in this age group adore having their parents in the classroom with them. It was so wonderful for students to walk into the classroom with a smile and smile continuously throughout the class.

When I describe this event to other music teachers, I am asked about the students whose parents cannot attend. When we perform activities that require partners or groups, those students will pair up together or some parents will be 2 students’s grownup.

It is a great week and one that I will schedule again for next year.

Last night, I spent some time occasionally flipping channels around to watch the Grammys and also reading tweets and facebook statuses about peoples’ reactions to the program. I would read many reactions to the performers’ outfits and “who should have won this and who should have won that.” However, I think that the most amusing reactions were to how many performers have utilized (or more like how many engineers and producers) Auto-Tune. The term “auto tuning” is not a new term, as it has been done for at least three decades. However, Auto-Tune (as it was being discussed last night) is a plug-in created by Antares Audio Technologies, that corrects pitch in vocal and instrumental recordings. The plug-in can be used in recording studios and as a rack-mounted version in live performances. In 2009, Time magazine quoted a Grammy-winning recording engineer as saying, “Let’s just say I’ve had Auto-Tune save vocals on everything from Britney Spears to Bollywood soundtrack albums. And every singer now presumes that you’ll just run their voice through the box.” The same article expressed “hope that pop’s fetish for uniform perfect pitch will fade,” speculating that pop-music songs have become harder to differentiate from one another, as “track after track has perfect pitch” (found at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1877372-2,00.html). Though with the Auto-tune iPhone app and the price of the plug-in being very affordable, it will be up to the artists and producers to whether the trend will fade.

Last year the group Death Cab for Cutie wore suits and blue pins in protest to auto-tune. They were quoted, “Auto-tuning is a digital manipulation, a correction of a singer’s voice that is affecting literally thousands of singers today and thousands of records that are coming out. We just want to raise awareness while we’re here and try to bring back the blue note… The note that’s not so perfectly in pitch and just gives the recording some soul and some kind of real character. It’s how people really sing.”

Last night, it was obvious that the duet with Stevie Nicks and Taylor Swift did not have the enhancement of auto-tune and you heard some real vocal sounds. Jamie Fox’s auto-tune performance was described as “Most Unnecessary: Jamie Foxx’s crazy Auto-Tune extravaganza had us thinking one thing: The Oscar winner wants an EGOT necklace.”

As many of my students, even the young ones, tune into American Idol, they are surprised and often giggle at the first few episodes which show a variety of “singers.” My students will come in the next day to tell me about “the singer who sounded like he was shouting” or “the singer who was really really bad.” The next question to me from my students is “Why do they think that they sing well?”

Those Idol auditions, and the recordings or live performances enhanced by Auto-Tune, are great teaching opportunities for your students in grades 3 and up (maybe even younger depending on your students). Having them listen intently to different types of singers is an amazing educational tool. For younger students, play a variety of recordings, ones enhanced and ones that are not, and ask the students what they think. Or play a couple of Idol auditions. The young students will be honest and they will listen intently. It will be a wonderful discussion. For the older students, create a blog or wikispace and put samples of audio and video (teachertube.com or youtube.com) of singers who are singing without the enhancement of auto-tune and singers who obviously must sing with auto-tune, and have the students comment on this. Even better, show two different recordings of the same singer: one recording with auto-tune and one without. Try this one from Enrique Iglesias-though there have been debates about whether this is fake or real-however, it is a great example of how auto-tune can greatly correct the pitch.

Years ago, I took a TI:ME Level 2 Digital Audio Course at Valley Forge Christian College and I absolutely loved the course. I learned how to utilize digital audio in my classroom and I learned what auto-tune does to my voice. My final project was a recording of me singing a 3-part SSA version of Appalachian Suite II. I was incredibly humbled when I first heard myself singing on the recording. My professor then applied the auto-tune plug-in and my voice magically sang in tune. Incredible, I thought…however, I felt like I “cheated.” I know that many performers utilize it, especially in live performances as a “safety net,” but as a teacher, I like to educate my students about this and just make them aware so that they can listen better to the music that they hear everyday.

Have you ever had a discussion about auto-tune in your classrooms? If so, how did you address it?

Picture found at toothpastefordinner.com

I have to highlight two posts from my good friend Jim Frankel, former music educator and current director of SoundTree. He just wrote two excellent posts about the iPad and music education. The first is titled “The iPad in Music Education - First Impressions.” The second is titled “A Possible Future for iPads & Tablet PCs in the Music Classroom.” Check them both out here. His latter post is a great insight into the future of music education and technology. Wow! Take a read and leave a comment for him. I promise that you will stop and think about technology in music education when you read his posts!

It was a great day for Apple as the long-awaited iPad was introduced by Steve Job’s in his keynote speech. I was thrilled to be able to catch the video, tweets, etc as the keynote was being delivered today. As I read about the iPad’s tech specs, I was immediately thinking about how this could impact education.

First, what is the iPad?  An iPad is in a category all by itself. It is not an iPhone nor a laptop. It falls in between these two products. The specs are as follows (found at http://mashable.com/2010/01/27/ipad/):

“- SCREEN: 9.7-inch IPS LCD screen. The LCD provides the backlighting, but most of the technology is IPS, or In-plane switching. This gives it a stronger viewing angle than most screens.

- RESOLUTION: 1024×768 pixels (132 pixels per inch)

- SIZE: 0.5 inches thin.

- DIMENSIONS: 9.5 inches x 7.5 inches x 0.5 inches

- WEIGHT: 1.5 pounds (1.6 pounds for 3G)

- CHIP: 1 GHz Apple A4 chip. They went in-house instead of going to Intel.

- MEMORY: Three models with 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB solid state hard drives.

- INCLUSIONS: Accelerometer, Microphone, 30-pin connector, Compass, full capacitive multi-touch, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11n Wi-Fi, 3G access on higher-end models

- BATTERY LIFE: 10 hours at full blast. On standby, it will last over a month.”

Second, what’s new about this? Two features are a multi-touch screen on a product larger than an iPhone and the iBooks application. The multi-touch interface is very similar to the iPhone interface. The iBooks application will now rival Amazon’s Kindle. iBooks allows you to browse, download, and read ebooks from such publishers as Macmillan, Penguin, and more.

How could this benefit education? If your school has a “laptop cart,” this could possibly replace it. Why? One word: Price. The iPad starts at $499 for a wifi 16GB model. The students can use it for word processing, even without a physical keyboard. The students could use it to read books. Can you imagine that our students’ children could go to school where they all pull out their iPads to read their books? Where the library just holds iPads (or its equivalent) instead of hard copy books? This might be far off, however, it is technology like this that gets the ball rolling. Finally, the battery life of 10 hours makes it easy for students to use it throughout the entire school day.

However, with all that said, this is the first generation of the iPad and because it lacks some items, the future generations of the iPad might be more beneficial in education. For example, the iPad lacks adapters. You need an adapter to plug in a digital camera and you need an adapter for USB. The keyboard looks to be awkward, as when you look at the video on apple.com, you need to be lying back and have the iPad resting on your lap in order to type. The iPad does not have a built-in camera, which will probably be included in a future generation of the product. Plus, if you utilize apps in your classroom, only one app can be used at a time.

With all that said, I cannot wait until March to play with this in the Apple store. I look forward to seeing how the iPad could positively affect education.

What are your ideas for the iPad in education?