Whether it is through improvising with Orff instruments or in the jazz band, interpreting a solo, or formally composing, we involve our students in creating music.  Many advocates point to developing creativity as one of the main advantages of music education.  Yet despite our best efforts, creativity often goes underdeveloped, usually due to time constraints.

The Problem
Taking the time required to allow students to improvise, interpret or compose is often difficult to do in a typical music room.  Providing students with constructive feedback is even more time consuming.  Students often lack the skills or resources required to realize their ideas and can be frustrated before they can fully develop their ideas.

The Solution
Technology can help by providing students with the skills and resources to create while addressing their individual needs.  Educators gain the time to provide valuable feedback and assessment.  Students can create music beyond their performance ability, improvise within a musical context and interpret solos with an accompanist – without having to find and wait for other participants.

The computer can provide an aural canvas upon which students can experiment with creating music.  Without first developing music reading and writing abilities, it has often been difficult for teachers to ask students to create and record their own music.  As well, students are often restricted to composing to the level of their performance ability.  Students possessing the requisite skills can save many hours of laborious manuscript inking and part copying, by relegating these duties to a computer.

How does it work?
Using a computer, students can input, manipulate, and record or print their music.  Although most programs are based on our traditional system of notation, many programs provide additional ways of viewing music.  This can be helpful in entering and manipulating music.

A common feature of many programs, for example, is a graphical view of the notation.  Pitch and time are plotted on a graph, often dubbed the “roll view,” referring to an earlier technology – player piano rolls.  Many sequencing programs allow you to draw in notes, change note lengths and pitches while viewing the results in traditional notation.  It also allows you to look at the entire composition in an overview where you can define and arrange large or small sections of music.  This is particularly useful when working with form.  Creating a canon, ABA or fugue is as easy as dragging and dropping sections of music.

Recording
Connecting a MIDI device to the computer makes it possible to record a performance in real time.  The computer then takes over the work of transcribing the performance into traditional notation.  In the past, the MIDI device connected to the computer would almost always be a keyboard.  We can help you get connected!

Step Entry
In addition to recording live performances, step-entry can be used.  Pitch is determined by the note played on the MIDI device, but the rhythm is not recorded – instead it is entered manually.  For those without MIDI capabilities, there is still the mouse.  Along with clicking on the staff or roll view to enter notes, some programs include on-screen keyboards for this purpose.

Editing
Once the music is entered, students can freely manipulate the notes.  Changing pitches, rhythms, or key signatures is easily done.  Fixing mistakes, trying new ideas or adding other parts can be done as easily as editing a document in a word processor.  Students can create music well beyond their performance ability, with instrumentation exceeding their resources and hear their masterpiece immediately.  Mentors can provide feedback and students can respond to that feedback and hear the results immediately.

Recording the final version to tape, or printing a professional score and parts for live performers is easily done.  Sharing music across the world via the Internet is an exciting prospect for many students and can be done through the use of MIDI files.  Students, parents and administrators are usually impressed with these representations of their students’ musical learning. 

Sequencer vs. Notation Program
Sequencers are primarily concerned with how the music sounds.  For example, a sequencer can record parts and then quantize them – line the music up to the metronome.  Advanced sequencers can also “humanize” the parts or “grove quantize” the parts, making the music sound more realistic.  Looping parts and experimenting with multiple “takes” of a section help in getting the musical ideas accurately recorded.  Most sequencers allow for an audio recording using a microphone.  Sequencers usually will not print out the music, or are restricted to simple melodies and rhythms when they do print.

Notation programs (known as scorewriters), on the other hand, are very strong in printing out scores or parts.  They usually do not allow for changing the way the music sounds.  Traditionally, a sequencer would be used to record the music before exporting it to a notation program for printing.  The distinction between these two programs are starting to blur, however, as a number of programs now merge the two into one.

Special Tools
In addition to these general tools, a breed of specialized compositional tools has been developed.  Morton Subotnick, for example, is developing a series of programs designed at allowing children to be involved in Making Music.  The first CD-ROM in his series gives students a musical sketchpad, in which they can draw melodies using a paintbrush.  They can paint with different colours representing different instruments.  In addition to painting on a static canvas, children can choose to create in “real time”: the canvas moves by as they sketch, giving the impression of live recording.  Children are encouraged to experiment with buttons that provide various transformations such as retrograde, inversion and sequence.  Further parameters can be put into place by selecting a certain modality for the composition – major, minor, pentatonic or custom.

Further in his series, Making More Music translates students’ sketches into traditional notation, helping students make the transition to note reading and writing.  He also plans on using the computer to allow students to compose in the style of various composers.  Going beyond the traditional paradigm of notation programs, he plans on giving students the tools to create their own music, but within certain parameters.

Accompaniment programs
There are other popular composition tools such as Band in a Box.  Students can use these programs to experiment with adding accompaniments, harmonies and solos to their melodies.  For example, students can record a melody and then enter chords they think will sound good with the melody.  After choosing a style for the accompaniment, they can then listen to a computer generated arrangement based on their chords and melody.  They can then change the chords as required.  Since you can enter the chords using chord names, solfege or function, students can be introduced to harmony by finding when certain chords sound good and why.  I have had students enter I, IV, or V chords for their melodies and through discovery learn what the chords mean and how they function.

In addition to exploring harmonization, students can experiment with styles and learn to identify unique features of various styles.  They can also borrow ideas from the automatic soloing feature of Band in a Box.  The developers of these types of programs created a set of rules that directs the computer to take certain actions depending on the conditions.  For example, guidelines were created that govern the patterns and instrumentation for various styles of music. Students can gain insight into style or other elements of the compositional process by exploring these rules.  They can also create their own particular styles, soloist or other elements, thereby helping them summarize the knowledge they have into clear instructions.

Improvisation
Another important aspect of creativity is improvisation and interpretation.  Both typically take place within a stylistic context and framework.  We may direct students to improvise over a twelve bar blues in jazz, or use a pentatonic scale on Orff instruments.  Drawing upon a vocabulary of patterns, students try to fit their ideas into the present context.

Given the importance of the context, it is often very difficult for students to develop their improvisation skills outside of class.  Unfortunately, there is just not enough time in class for each student to fully develop their skills.

Technology now enables users to change keys and tempos and even create accompaniments for music for any chord sequence in any style.

In addition to providing accompaniment for practicing individually, these programs can be used quite effectively in the general classroom to create instant accompaniments.   They can help provide a sense of tonality/modality, and a rhythmic foundation.  In addition to providing motivation for students, they can also help build the authenticity of your performance situation if you are lacking the required resources or student ability.

Having the advantage of switching key, tempo or style on the fly makes this technology more versatile than a pre-recorded accompaniment.  Although auto-accompaniment programs can save you time by only requiring the chords and a melody, you can also record each instrumental track yourself into a Standard MIDI File.  There are also many SMF’s on the Internet designed for this purpose.

Teacher uses:

In addition to students creating music, teachers can also benefit from creativity programs.  Many notation programs, for example, allow you to print out music in sizes large enough for flashcards or theory assignments.  The task of transposing music for certain instrumental or vocal ranges can be much easier with a notation program.  Programs such as SmartScore even let you scan music into your computer and convert it into a MIDI file for transposing, rearranging or playback.

How to get started

If you’ve got a limited budget, and aren’t sure where to get started, consider getting Band in a Box.  You get lots of “bang for your buck” and the students will enjoy working with it - for more information, read about the “Educational Applications of Band in a Box”.