Technology Blog - Week 3

Some of the most interesting things I encountered this week were actually from my PLN.  I was excited to share some exciting talks and demonstrations with my students.

First was this TED Talk from Mark Applebaum.  He is a composer and spoke about being bored with conventional notation and conventional instruments.  He discussed some of his musical creations (including a Concerto for Florist and Orchestra) and his instruments.  I found his talk to be fascinating and it challenged my thinking as a musician and as a composer.



The second video was a Wired presentation from Imogen Heap.  Imogen has been one of my favorite performers in the last 5-7 years.  Her music is ethereal, beautiful, and imaginative.  In this video, she describes a new musical glove that she has been working on.  It allows her to control her electronics with her hands, by using gestures, finger placement, and sharp movements.  Additionally, she is able to assign different parts of the stage to different effects.  It was amazing.  There is a Kickstarter campaign running right now for the large scale production of the gloves.  When these become more cost-effective, I am excited about the educational and musical possibilities.


In my discussions with my classmates, I found that many of us face the same challenges when it comes to using technology and developing Non -Traditional Music courses.  Many of us struggle with finding the financial resources needed to incorporate technology into our ensembles, but also to start new courses that can help reach the "other 80%."  A big example of this is in my own former brick & mortar school, where our band director has had to use band money and equipment to start a sound engineering class.  With STEM becoming such a big deal in the world of education, you would think that administrations would jump at the chance to offer more tech-oriented courses.  Unfortunately, it is not always the case.

I enjoyed the opportunity to experiment with Soundation this week.  My biggest concern came from the latency problems between my MIDI keyboard and the program.  I can only assume that it had to do with the fact that Soundation is web-based.  I tried on two different computers and in two different locations (with various internet speeds) and the latency continued to be a problem.  I could not keep up with the click track and I did not have the energy (or time) to go back and manually adjust each phrase to line up properly.  This changed the way I constructed my song.  My original plan was to compose many melodies and countermelodies that would make up the majority of my piece.  I had also intended to develop my own beats and percussion, rather than use the pre-made (canned) ones.  Time was not on my side, and I had to settle for a few original samples, and then I used the ones provided in the library.  Overall, I was pleased with my composition (though I use that term lightly since it contains mostly pre-existing material, perhaps arrangement is better) and I feel it has a strong beginning, middle, and end.  I think that teachers with the opportunity to incorporate this program into their curriculum should.  I have already shared it with several of my colleagues outside of this course.

I am thoroughly enjoying this course and am looking forward to the projects in the upcoming weeks.