GarageBand - Day 1

Yesterday my 4th graders launched the GarageBand unit.

Immediately upon entering the classroom and seeing the laptop cart a hand shot in the air,

"Are we going to learn GarageBand!?!"

Last year I covered a technology period for a teacher that went home sick.  I was provided 10 minutes notice and carte blanche.  The first idea that popped into my head was GarageBand and I ran with it.  This particular child was in that class on that day.

I anticipated spending most of the period rehearsing procedure and routine but the kids nailed the initial set-up routine perfectly the first time.  Since they use the computers during their weekly technology sessions in their homerooms they were fluent in setting up and logging in to the computers.  I used my SmartBoard to demonstrate how to locate GarageBand in the finder and start a new file.

The remaining 15 minutes of the lesson were devoted to exploring loops.  The students were tasked with selecting one percussion loop, dragging it to the work area and looping it for 16 bars.  If they completed that assignment they were free to layer additional loops underneath.  The primary objective was to get them familiar with working in the interface.

I was amazed that in a short 15 minute period so many of the students had already put together really catchy beats and grooves.  Some of them are already well on their way to creating a full-blown song.

The laptops will come back out on Thursday.  Objectives include:

• Students will create a 32-bar piece using loops in AB form.
• Students will save the file created to their folder on the shared server.

The Great Fourth Grade Experiment

As the founding music teacher at a prominent charter school in Harlem, NYC I have had the great fortune of creating at least one new curriculum from scratch every school year.  Consequently my fourth grade students, whom opened the school as first graders, have become the musical guinea pigs.

At the beginning of this school year the teachers of the "special" subjects proposed a program to our principal in which the fourth graders select one elective special to study intensively throughout the school year.  24 students elected music and meet with me last period every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  Two periods a week are dedicated to beginning band but the remaining two periods a week are dedicated to my ever evolving general music curriculum.

The first half of the school year has been focused on music literacy with students primarily studying the ukulele.  Both the students and myself are growing tired of the ukes and are ready to jump into a new unit.  Therefore today I launch a unit that has been stewing deep down for over a year.

Today we dive into...

(Drum Roll Please)

GarageBand!

The school does not have a computer lab, instead we use a rolling MacBook cart that travels from classroom to classroom.  The initial week or two of the curriculum will be devoted to teaching the routines and procedures of set-up and pack-up of the laptops.  A rough sketch of the remaining unit is as follows:
-Early to Mid-February: Introduction of loops.  Students experiment with creating beats and grooves.
-Late-February to Mid-March: Composition.  Students begin using their beats and grooves created with loops to create original compositions.  Live tracks of either voices or their band instruments are layered in to create brief compositions.
-Late-March to Late-April: If students aren't totally bored at this point I hope to bring in iMovie and introduce the students to basic film scoring.

I plan to document every rocky step, so stay tuned for the next installment of The Great Fourth Grade Experiment!