I have written before about the use of iconic notation in composing with computer software. In having students listen to and analyze music it can be very helpful for them to use iconic notation to help them focus on various details in the music. This online video of Bach’s’ Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is completely in iconic notation. This is just one of many videos created by the music animation machine. By importing a MIDI file into a software program that has a piano roll editor you could have something similar to show your students. These videos,however, are on a black background which makes them a little less cluttered to look at. One advantage of a piano roll editor,however, is that you could mute and take away various lines to draw students’ focus to a particular part of the music.
While there are issues when combining the visual with the aural, the use of iconic notation may be helpful in having students be able to understand countour, intervals, duration and how various different melodic lines interact in a piece of music. Why not give one of the music animation machine’s videos a try in your classes and maybe even have one of your students compose a piece for the other students to listen to and analyze!