Technology Assisted Music Learning

This week, I dove into the topics of music technology and non-traditional music classes. For my position as music director of The Salvation Army, part of my job is to serve as the sound engineer for all of our events. For many of the events, this involves the utilization of a portable sound system. In this case, 'portable' does not mean small. I am responsible for transporting, setting up, running, and tearing down the sound system. Of course, I find people to help with the heavy lifting. Over the 2.5 years I have been in this position, I have learned much about sound systems and how they work. However, I did not always have this knowledge. Within months of beginning my work, I received instructions to purchase a sound system. Sound equipment had not been purchased for nearly 20 years, and the equipment was failing. I had next to zero knowledge, so I consulted with friends in the sound engineering business, and conducted a great deal of research. Upon purchasing and receivi...

This week in the technology class, we took a look at several different websites and apps which can be used for writing music, arranging music, exploring with sounds, or making chord progressions. One such app that I enjoyed working with is iRealPro. In this app, you can write chord progressions for music which you want to practice, and the app with play an accompaniment with different instrument sounds so that you can practice or improvise with the accompaniment. This app can also be used to learn how to play guitar, ukulele, and piano. I would have loved to have access to something like this when I was learning how to improvise in high school.  I had to find jazz recordings of what I was playing and hope it was in the same key. Something like this could be used to help aid my students through the first step of improvisation - exploration - and further advance into process- and product-based improvisation. When it comes to music improvisation and composition in the classroom s...

Noteflight! For the technology class this week, we were tasked with getting to know how to use two common music notation softwares, one of which was Noteflight. Noteflight is web-based, and I have actually been using Noteflight for small things here and there since high school (yikes). Even with my experience with the site, through this small project I learned shortcuts I did not know about, and putting together Bicycle for Two was very easy and fairly painless. While I still prefer my first choice of Finale for notational software, alternatives such as Noteflight provide free or cheap options for educators, who may be confined to a budget, to be able to make arrangements/compositions for their students. Also, it is easy to have students sign up for a free account of Noteflight to complete composition assignments. After all, that's how I got my free account years ago. Take a listen below to my completed project!  

Week #1: Technology as Tools This week began an eight-week journey through the Technology Assisted Music Learning graduate class for the online masters of music education program at the University of Florida. When I looked at the syllabus on the day the class became available online, I saw a few familiar terms - Noteflight, Audacity, Twitter, to name a few. I have used various forms of technology throughout my own music education over the years, as well as in the various classroom settings in which I have taught during my young career.  This class uses the text by Dr. William Bauer entitled Music Learning Today: Digital Pedagogy for Creating, Performing, and Responding to Music (2014). Dr. Bauer talks about two main groups of users of technology: digital natives and digital immigrants. Digital natives thrive in our technology-rich society, while digital immigrants have had to learn and adapt as technology has been introduced. It is safe to say that today's youth and yo...