Reason Project

Another software that I have had the opportunity to explore through the Intermediate/Advanced Applications New Technologies Course at Teachers College, Columbia University is Reason.  Reason is a virtual recording studio rack.

I experimented with different features of the software and uploaded my creation to SoundCloud.

Laying Down Vocals

We are FINALLY moving in to the final stages of the AABA project.

A handful of students have finished their accompaniment tracks and are beginning to lay down live tracks.  They had the options of using voices or their band instruments for the live tracks but so far all have elected to do vocal tracks.

The kids are recording the tracks using my Yeti microphone.  I am a big proponent of using a quality external mic for this project rather recording using the Macbook internal microphone.  The Yeti produces a near-professional quality recording and the kids deserve for their hard work to sound as polished as possible.  A couple of them have mentioned that they were very impressed that I "know how to do this kinda stuff."  After they lay down their vocals I introduce them to the GarageBand vocal effects features and allow them to play around with adding effects to their vocal tracks.

After all of the kids have completed the project I am going to upload the final products to the class wikispace website so that they can listen to their classmates' work and discuss it on the discussion boards. I am also planning to burn a class album of all of their final projects to give to them as an end-of-year gift.

I am hoping to wrap up the entire GarageBand unit in the next three weeks.  After that we need to shift into full-time band rehearsals to prepare for the band concert.  A lot of rehearsal and lesson time has been sacrificed due to the state tests and we're going to need to do a big final push to have the music polished and performance-ready in time for the concert.

Slow Progress

Slow progress has been made and a few of my students should be ready to record their live tracks next week.

I am still not seeing my class with any consistency.  In fact I haven't seen them at all this week.  This week I've been given a hodge podge of fourth graders some of whom are in my elective and some whom are not.  The students in my elective that have come to me this week have been sent off to continue working independently on their GarageBand projects.  I've been doing Intro to GarageBand for the rest of the students who are not usually in my music class.

The state test begins next week, so I am hopeful that we will return to our regular schedule as of Tuesday.  This will leave us with about 12 more class periods to wrap up the GarageBand project.

I'm disappointed that we won't get to the iMovie/film scoring lessons I had planned.  I think my students would have been really excited to dabble in another aspect of composition.

A Gaga Remix

In addition to teaching full-time I am completing my Masters of Arts in music and music education at Teachers College, Columbia University.  As part of my degree I am enrolled in an applied music technology course.  In the course we have been using the program Ableton Live.  Assignment requirements include:
• At least one imported audio file.
• At least two minutes in length.
• At least one effects processor.
• At least one track of recorded audio.
• At least one track of MIDI.


I have uploaded my completed project on SoundCloud.  Take a listen!

Testing Season

We have entered every teachers favorite time of year: standardized testing season.

I apologize for the recent radio silence on the blog but unfortunately there has been very little to report.  While No Child Left Behind certainly increased the weight given to standardized testing for all schools, as a charter school in New York City the state tests carry even greater importance.  Our continued existence is largely based upon the scores our students earn on these tests.

Due to the importance of these tests a lot of time in the weeks leading up to testing is spent preparing our students to perform at the highest possible level.  As an unfortunate result content not related to ELA (English Language Arts) or Math is relegated to the back burner.

I have barely seen my fourth grade students these past few weeks.  They are only able to attend music sporadically, and when they do attend large numbers of students are pulled out to receive additional tutoring.  Because of this we have made very little progress on the GarageBand project.  Most students are still working on their AABA arrangements.  A few students have moved beyond and are beginning to write lyrics (and in some cases melodies) to eventually be recorded into the tracks.

The actual state test does not occur until the end of April so I am anticipating several more weeks of irregular class periods.  I will likely need to reevaluate my expectations for final projects as we are not going to be able to cover nearly as much material as I had first hoped.

AABA

Posted below is an example of an assignment completed by a student in my class yesterday.

The guidelines included:

• Create a 32-bar song in AABA form. 
• Each section of the song should be eight bars long. 
• Include at least two loops in each section- a percussion loop and a melodic loop. 
• Save to the folder on the StudentShare.  

 Click here to listen to a student created AABA example

The song was posted to the class wikispace page and students are asked to answer the following questions on the discussion board:

• How is the A section similar to the B section?
• How is the A section different from the B section?
• What elements of this song cause it to sound like one cohesive work?

We will continue building on this foundation by writing song lyrics or related melodic lines to be recorded and added to the track.

Rolling Along

The wikispaces website is in full use and the kids are loving it.  I find them logging in over the weekend to have discussions on the discussion board.  They think it is amazing that they can interact with me and with each other outside of the school day.  The students are constantly asking for me to post more clips and questions that they can peruse at home.  We'll see how long the fascination with the website lasts.


Vacation days, assemblies and field trips have consumed large quantities of our class time as of late so the kids have not had much opportunity to work on GarageBand in the past two weeks.  We're going to jump into GarageBand again on Thursday.


The assignment for Thursday is as follows:

• Create a 32-bar song in AABA form. 
• Each section of the song should be eight bars long. 
• Include at least two loops in each section- a percussion loop and a melodic loop. 
• Save to the folder on the StudentShare.  

We are also going to spend a bit of time discussing the elements that contribute to an interesting and cohesive song.  At the moment the kids are mostly picking loops that they think sound cool but the different sections do not sound as if they are at all related to each other.  My hope is that the kids will eventually be able to create a coherent finished piece.