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technology

Does anyone play the laptop in your school?

The topic of composing and performing with a laptop will be a theme running through this blog I’m sure for a long time. Over at newmusicbox Marc Weidenbaum recently wrote an interesting article tracing the history of musciains using the laptop, focusing on some recent composers/performers making use of it in their own work. After getting a lot of feedback he wrote a short follow up with information that gives a fascinating insight into the possibilties that laptops allow musicians.… Read More »Does anyone play the laptop in your school?

Iconic notation music videos

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… Read More »Iconic notation music videos

Technology in music education in the eschool news

The company eschool recently featured an article on some ways technology is being used in music classrooms. The article mostly focuses on several software titles that are commonly used in music classrooms that make use of computers and software. In my own classroom my 6th and 7th graders are just starting to make use of FLstudio to create music. One great thing about the software is how it works so well with the way I teach my students how to… Read More »Technology in music education in the eschool news

A musical signature….

Have you ever wondered what your musical signature is? What about the musical signatures of your students? Why not pose that question to some students and see what they come up with? After trying out Jason Freeman’s itunes signature maker software you can have discussions leading in many different directions. What do the different musical signatures of your students sound like compared to one another? Why do they sound so similar or different? Does the musical signature reflect the identity… Read More »A musical signature….

Playing the Laptop

Does anyone have any students playing the laptop in school music ensembles? It would be interesting to find out how many programs include the use of the laptop as instrument. With more and more musicians such as Ikue Mori using the laptop as their primary instrument it only makes sense to start thinking about how to include it in our music programs. Just as any other instrument, performing the laptop live, requires skills and knowledge that can be developed over… Read More »Playing the Laptop