ask and you shall receive
This week I’ve been doing some serious thinking and planning for what’s to happen after Christmas. I’ve decided to create some stations around my music room for various times throughout the year. I asked around, and I did a little digging in storage areas, and I came up with some great stuff!
#1. A Second Computer
I already have a computer at my desk, but I wanted to set up a basic technology station. As I’ve mentioned before, my school is fairly behind the times when it comes to technology, but I’m determined to use what we have to its fullest potential, and try to find ways to get more into the school!. Anyhow. I asked around and found out that we do have some computers laying around the school that are not in use. One of the teachers helped me set it up and hook it into the school network today. Ta-Da!
#2. Listening Station
I’ve got a large stereo system in my room, but I do not have anything for concentrated, small-group listening. I’d noticed that other classes around the school had headphone hubs and 6 nice pairs of headphones, each individually controllable. Again, I asked around and found that there was one complete set – headphones and all! – just lying in storage. I got permission to use that! Then, I looked around for a second CD/Tape player that I could set up the listening station with. I found one – brand new – in the basement and got permission to use that. Listening station complete!
Now, here are two questions for all of you out there
#1. What other kinds of stations do you set up in your music room?
#2. What software do you use with elementary students? I’m thinking audacity, notation software, I own one copy of Groovy Shapes…What else?
Please comment and let me know your thoughts!
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For elementary students any of the programs from Morton Subotnick’s “Creating Music” series are an excellent choice.
http://creatingmusic.com/
For upper elementary students composing software such as
Garageband
Mixcraft (For Pcs)
and FLStudio http://flstudio.image-line.com/ (PC but can be run on an intel mac with windows)
are all great choices.
I’ve also had great success with using the piano roll function on sequencing software with upper elementary students as well.
If you are feeling adventurous and have access to microphones and an analog to digital converter – consider learning how to use Ableton Live
http://www.ableton.com/
In a live performance/improvisation set up you can have your students playing anything ranging from Orff instruments to electronic drum pads and send the audio signal to Live where you can do all kinds of interesting effects processing and sampling.
If you hook up a MIDI controller – (the Korg Nano-controllers could work well in an elementary setting) you could teach the students to manipulate the sounds with Ableton Live without them ever having to touch the computer. You’d have to do some work on your own to get that set up, but it offers tremendous creative opportunities. Good luck!
Thank you so much for all of that info! This is a great help to me. I appreciate it!