Clap Along to Meter
Audacity allows students to record themselves along with an existing recording of a piece of music. Using this technique, students can record themselves demonstrating a musical concept along with a piece of music. In this strategy we will be addressing meter. This new recording can then be submitted for evaluation or placed in student digital portfolios for long-term self evaluation.
For this strategy we will focus on meter, but many musical concepts can be substituted.
In the study of meter we often times have students clap along with the beat of a piece of music. This helps students internalize the beat and helps them identify the meter of the musical example. By having students vary their clapping with strong and weak claps they can identify and demonstrate the strong and weak pulses of the meter.
Doing this exercise in a group setting is a very effective learning strategy and it can be extended to Audacity to produce even more learning opportunities for students.
Procedure:
Teachers will load a piece of music which demonstrates a specific meter into Audacity. The music can be edited to the desired length, exported as an MP3 and given to the students via the school website, dropbox, digital portfolio, etc.
Students will open the musical example in Audacity and record themselves clapping along to the beat of the piece of music. When completed the students will export their new recording of the music example and their clapping and submit it to their teacher for evaluation.
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Composition with Specific Musical Elements
The Video Guide to Audacity is an excellent tool for student composition. Students can easily record themselves as they explore musical elements, such as a melodic phrase or rhythmic pattern to find ideas that they like. Audacity provides instant auditory feedback for students as they create. The Video Guide to Audacity allows students to quickly record an idea, listen to it back, manipulate it, redo it, and add to it. It is a musical sandbox for young composers.
The open-ended nature of this powerful tool offers students infinite freedom to create, but this can be overwhelming in the early stages of composing. It is a good idea to introduce students to composing in this medium by providing specific guidelines for them to follow. These restrictions will help students stay focused and allow them to gain a mastery level of the both the specific musical concepts identified by the teacher and the use of the Video Guide to Audacity as a composition medium.
As students work through music curricula they can be asked to compose passages exploring musical elements being studied in class, such as various meters, rhythmic concepts, intervals, textures, scales, and chord progressions. The Video Guide to Audacity provides and excellent means to provide students with hands-on exposure to musical elements being studied in class.
Procedure:
Teachers can ask students to compose a short rhythmic and/melodic passage using only specified rhythms and/or intervals. Teachers may decide to ask for the passage to be a single part or a 2-part piece.
Students can use Audacity right from the beginning of their composition exploration. As they invent their passage they can quickly record themselves performing it so they can hear it back instantly. Upon hearing their work they may decide that refinements are needed, at which time they can mute their first ‘take’ and record a new version.
As multiple takes are made they can switch back and forth between them to find which they like the best. When a favorite is found students can discard the others and continue to refine and add to their work.
If the activity requires that students create a 2-part composition they can easily add a second track to their pieces. This is called mulittrack recording. As students multitrack their new parts they can explore the interplay between parts 1 and 2. Students can explore harmony, musical question and answer, combinations of timbres, interplay between rhythms and so on.
Students can save their work in their digital portfolio and submit it to their teachers for evaluation. Further musical activities can make use of the pieces composed by students as they can quickly go back and reuse and expand upon themes and ideas composed in earlier activities. Students will develop a collection of their own musical works which they can build upon as they grow as musicians and composers.
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Demonstrate Musical Concepts Through Sound
Teachers can import an existing piece into Audacity and edit it to demonstrate a specific musical concept. Students can listen to the edited excerpt and respond.
Audacity allows teachers to record themselves speaking while an existing piece of music plays in the background. This is excellent for when teachers wish to point out musical concepts in a piece of music. For example, a teacher can talk about rondo form while a piece of music plays and say, “The B sections starts right….now.” This directed listening technique works very well for musical concepts that need to be identified in musical works.
Teachers can use this teaching technique to create a series of recordings focused on a variety of musical concepts. Students can open and listen to these recording in Audacity or any MP3 playback software.
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Directed Listening
As a directed listening exercise it is good practice for teachers to point out interesting musical points to students as they listen to music. The Video Guide to Audacity allows teachers to record themselves speaking over an existing piece of music.
Procedure:
Using the Video Guide to Audacity, teachers can open a piece of existing music in Audacity. The existing piece of music can be edited in length to include the portions of the music that the teacher wants students to explore.
Teachers can record themselves pointing out relevant musical concepts as the music plays. The combined recording of the existing music and the teacher’s monologue can be exported as a single MP3 using the Video Guide to Audacity. This MP3 can then be made available to students to listen to.
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Echo Intervals
Echoing intervals in a group setting is an excellent way to have student learn to identify and perform these intervals. Teachers can use Audacity to create an interval echo exercise that will allow students to demonstrate intervals individually. This is excellent for student practice and individualized evaluation of the musical concept.
Procedure:
Teachers will create an 8-bar recording. In bars 1 3 5 7 the teacher will sing a different interval for each bar. The alternate bars will be silent. This recording will be exported as an MP3 and given to students.
Students will open the recording in Audacity. As they playback the recording they will hear the teacher sing specific intervals in bars 1 3 5 7. In bars 2 4 6 8 students will record themselves echoing the interval the teacher had sung in the previous bar.
Once completed, students will export the new recording as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
While this strategy is focused on performing intervals many musical concepts can be substituted – rhythms, dynamic changes, diction, etc.
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Echoing Syncopations and Other Complex Rhythms
Echoing complex rhythm examples with students is a necessary strategy when showing students how these tricky rhythms are meant to be sound. Echoing also provides a means for teachers to evaluate each student’s grasp of the rhythmic concept.
While echoing complex rhythms in a large group setting is very valuable it does have some drawbacks. It can be difficult to hear each student in order to evaluate each student’s progress. Also, each individual student will need a unique amount of time echoing and practicing complex rhythms to attain a mastery level. The Video Guide to Audacity can offer an alternative means to address these issues.
Procedure:
Teachers will create an 8-bar recording. In bars 1 3 5 7 the teacher will demonstrate a rhythm being studied in class. The alternate bars will be silent. This recording will be exported as an MP3 and given to students.
Students will open the recording in Audacity. As they playback the recording they will hear the teacher performing the rhythm in bars 1 3 5 7. In bars 2 4 6 8 students can first practice echoing back the rhythm as many times as they need in order to achieve a mastery level. Once they feel comfortable with echoing the rhythm students will record themselves echoing the rhythm the teacher had performed in the previous bar.
Once completed, students will export the new recording as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
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Identify Solfege Intervals
Audacity is an excellent means for teachers to create resources that demonstrate musical concepts. Working with solfege is a great example of this. Teachers can create recordings of intervals and melodic examples with and without solfege for students to use as practice and/or evaluation tools.
In this strategy we will examine one example of how Audacity can be used as a learning opportunity for solfege, but as teachers explore this example other opportunities will emerge.
Teachers can use Audacity to create a recording that will demonstrate solfege intervals, give students an opportunity to practice these intervals and give students a means to be evaluated on these intervals.
Teachers will create a 3-minute recording which will first demonstrate a solfege interval through singing for the first minute.
During the second minute of the recording teachers will then ask students to sing along with the teacher’s voice to practice the intervals.
In the third minute the student will be asked to record themselves demonstrating the intervals through singing. As an example, the teacher may say, “Please sing the ‘Do Re’ interval starting on this note, ‘hmmmmm.’ Students will record themselves on a second track using Audacity and when they are done they will export the entire recording as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation. The recording will also placed in each student’s digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
Improvise Answers to Melodic Questions
Improvisation can be difficult to incorporate into a music program for many reasons, such as, students are hesitant to improvise in front of peers, it is hard to find time to have all students improvise, and it is difficult to evaluate individual students in a group setting. Audacity offers an opportunity to have students improvise while removing these and other barriers.
In this strategy students will engage in a question and answer improvisation exercise, but other formats for improvisation can be substituted.
Procedure:
Using Audacity, teachers will record a 16-bar musical example. The example will have the teacher performing a short musical question for 2 measures then 2 measures of silence in which the students will have the opportunity to improvise a musical answer to the teachers musical question. This format will repeat for 16 measures. The recording will be exported as an MP3 and given to the students.
Students will open this recording in Audacity and record their musical answers to the musical questions as a second track in Audacity. When finished students will export their new recording of the teachers questions and their improvised answers as a new MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
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Improvise B and C of Rondo Form
Audacity provides an excellent medium for exploring musical form, such as rondo form. As we have seen in other strategies, Audacity is also an excellent medium to demonstrate improvisation.
In this strategy students will examine rondo form and improvise different sections to create a simple piece in rondo form.
This strategy can be as simple or complex as is required for the grade level. Students can use rhythm improvisation only or incorporate a variety of concepts depending on the instructions from the teacher.
Procedure:
Through class discussions, students will learn about rondo form and well as improvisation. Using Audacity teachers will record a simple ‘A’ theme and provide the recording to students for the activity.
Students will open the teacher’s A theme in Audacity. Students will improvise B and C themes and record them using Audacity. Students will then use the Time Shift Tool and Copy and Paste functions in Audacity to arrange the ABACA form.
Track 1 – A Theme
Track 2 – B Theme
Track 3 – A Theme
Track 4 – C Theme
Track 5 – A Theme
Track 2 – B Theme
Track 3 – A Theme
Track 4 – C Theme
Track 5 – A Theme
Once completed, students will export the rondo form as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
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Improvise Over a Chord Progression
Students can perform or improvise a melody over a pre-recorded chord progression.
The Video Guide to Audacity gives students the skills they need to improvise over an existing chord progression.
In this strategy teachers will provide students with a recording of a chord progression over which students will improvise. The chord progression and improvisation concepts will reflect what is being studied in class and can be modified to address a wide variety of musical concepts.
Procedure:
Using the Video Guide to Audacity, Teachers will record a chord progression. This recording will be exported as an MP3 and made available to the students.
Students will open the MP3 using Audacity and will improvise along with the teacher’s accompaniment. The musical elements used in the improvisation will be specified by the teacher (intervals, scales, etc.)
Once completed, students will export the new recording as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
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Listening Diary
Students can speak about the music they listen to and provide excerpts.
A ‘listening diary’ writing is an excellent means for students to reflect on music they have performing and listening to. For some students writing in a diary may not be the ideal medium for this reflection and response. For some students an auditory means of expressing themselves is much more natural than writing. To accommodate students with a variety of learning styles, Audacity provides an alternate means of journaling.
The Student Sound Journal is an excellent means for student to use Audacity to create an auditory journal. The listening diary is an extension of this idea.
Procedure:
Audacity provides students with an open-ended medium to create an auditory listening diary. Students will undoubtedly find innovative ways to use Audacity to create a diary that best suits their needs.
In its simplest form, students can use Audacity to record themselves talking about the music they have been exploring. This can be done as a monologue or students can do informal interviews with their friends about music.
Students can also import the music they are discussing into Audacity and edit it into relevant excerpts. Students can then talk about specific aspects of the music as the music is playing in the background.
Teachers may identify a specific musical concepts and ask students to provide a musical example and talk about it while the music is playing.
An extension of this strategy is for students to create a radio show in which the discuss and play selected pieces of music in a mock radio program.
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Multitrack Rondo Form
Video Guide to Audacity provides an excellent medium for exploring musical form, such as rondo form. In this strategy students will rearrange three prerecorded themes to create rondo form.
Procedure:
Through class discussions, students will learn about rondo form.
Using Audacity teachers will record three simple themes which can be rearranged by students to create a rondo form. The themes can be as simple or complex as teachers require based on the grade level. Each theme will be recorded and exported as individual MP3 files. It is a good idea to call each MP3 a colour rather than A, B, or C because we do not want to influence student choices as which theme they use for A, B, or C.
Students will create a new Audacity project and import each of the three MP3 theme provided by the teacher. Each theme will automatically arrive in a separate track. Students can use the SOLO buttons on each track to preview the themes.
Students will decide which theme they would like to be A, B and C. Students will then use the Time Shift Tool to arrange the themes in the proper order within Audacity.
Theme A will be needed three times so students will import the MP3 file for that theme two extra times to create A B A C A.
Once completed, students will export the rondo form as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
Reflection:
During a class discussion, students can share which theme they chose for A, B and C. Students can discuss why they made the choices they did.
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Ostinato in Different Meters
Students can create an ostinato using body percussion or beatbox demonstrating certain meters
In the study of meter students can use Audacity to create rhythmic ostinatos in specific meters. Ostinatos can be created using body percussion, beatbox of another means do percussion performance.
Teachers can provide classroom instruction and direction on how to create an ostinato in a various meters. Students can then create their ostinatos with Audacity. Once completed, students will export their ostinatos as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
Perform with an Ostinato
The Video Guide to Audacity gives students the skills they need to record themselves performing with an existing Ostinato.
In this strategy teachers will provide students with a recording of an ostinato over which students will improvise or perform a specified musical passage. The ostinato will reflect what is being studied in class and can be modified to address a wide variety of musical concepts.
Procedure:
Using the Video Guide to Audacity, Teachers will record an ostinato. This recording will be exported as an MP3 and made available to the students.
Students will open the MP3 using Audacity and will improvise or perform a musical passage along with the teacher’s ostinato. The musical elements used in the improvisation will be specified by the teacher.
Once completed, students will export the new recording as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
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Record a Recitation
In most cultures storytelling is an important part of history. The performance of these stories, or ‘recitations’ can be a colourful and entertaining activity.
Audacity provides an excellent means for students to record themselves performing existing or original recitations. Having an audio recording of a recitation not only archives the students work, but also gives students a way to self evaluate their work. It is almost impossible to self evaluate in a live performance, whether it is music or speaking. Recording a performance with Audacity lets students hear and objectively evaluate themselves.
Procedure:
Students can be asked to create a recitation on a topic of their own choice. They can be given parameters such as duration and style. Students can create their recitation then use Audacity to record themselves performing.
Once completed, students will export the recitations as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
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Rhythm and Beat with a Metronome Click Track
Practicing with a metronome is a very valuable practice habit. Audacity has the ability to create a click track (metronome) to help musicians maintain a consistent tempo as they perform and record. When used as a learning tool Audacity’s click track can be a great means for student self-evaluation.
The Video Guide to Audacity shows students how to use a click track (metronome). The click track pulse can be heard as well as seen as the pulses are shown as a waveform in Audacity. This is excellent for visual learners. Students will then record themselves performing musical passages with the click track. By recording with a click track students can see and hear their accuracy level.
Procedure:
Students will perform a musical passage using the click track in Audacity. The musical passage will be based on the materials being covered in music class and can be a simple or as complex as teachers require.
Students will make a new Audacity project and follow the instructions in the Video Guide to Audacity to create a click track based on the specifications provided by the teacher (duration, BPM).
Students will perform their musical passage along with the click track. By listening back to the recording and visually examining the waveforms students will be able to assess how accurate their performance was.
Once completed, students will export the performance with the click track as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self-evaluation.
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Rhythm and Other Concept Dictation
The Video Guide to Audacity makes recording rhythm passages easy. For the purpose of rhythm dictation, teachers can record a variety of rhythm passages based on the needs of the students and make them available to students. Using the Video Guide to Audacity, recordings of rhythm passages can be made in seconds. Teachers can create a variety of rhythm recordings that students can use for rhythm dictation practice and evaluation. Students can playback a rhythm recording from the teacher and write out the rhythms they hear.
Although this strategy is focused on rhythm dictation a variety of musical concepts can be substituted (chord progressions, meter, scales, intervals, etc.)
Procedure:
Teachers will identify specific rhythmic examples which explore a topic being covered by students. Teachers will create numerous examples using these rhythmic concepts.
Using the Video Guide to Audacity teachers will create a unique Audacity project for each example. Teachers will record each example and export each recording as an MP3. Each MP3 file should be given a name that will associate it with the rhythmic concept. Teachers will make these MP3 available to students.
Students will open each MP3 in Audacity and write out the rhythmic patter in notation noting the name of the MP3 that they are writing out.
If the rhythm is too fast students can use the Change Tempo effect in Audacity to slow the tempo to a more manageable speed.
The paper notation created by the student can be submitted to the teacher for evaluation.
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Sight Reading
Of the many music learning strategies sight reading is one of the best. Not only does it help students develop as musicians it is a very good method to evaluate students’ understanding of musical concepts. The Video Guide to Audacity provides students and teachers with an innovative way to engage in sight reading which provides two means of self evaluation.
Procedure:
Teachers will provide students with a notated musical passage to be used as a sight reading exercise. Using the Video Guide to Audacity, teachers will also record themselves performing the passage. This recording will exported as an MP3 and made available to students along with the notation for sight reading.
Students have a couple of options for working on the sight reading passage. They can first listen to the teacher’s recording of the passage then try reading it themselves or they can try reading without first listening to the passage.
Students can also record themselves sight reading the passage and compare it to the teacher’s recording for accuracy. A click track can also be used to help students stay in time.
Students can export their own sight reading recordings as MP3s, submit it to the teachers for evaluation and place it in their digital portfolio for long-term evaluation.
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Time Keeping with Rests
Properly performing rests can be a challenge for young musicians and finding a way to have young musicians practice rests can be a challenge for music teachers. The Video Guide to Audacity provides a means to have students practice rests in an engaging Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic way.
Students often perform a series of consecutive rests incorrectly by either rushing or slowing. A series of four quarter rests followed by a quarter note clap performed by an entire class will often produce inconsistent results. This exercise can be reproduced and expanded upon in Audacity.
Procedure:
Using Audacity, teachers will record a 3-bar rhythmic musical exercise:
Bar 1 will have four quarter notes
Bar 2 will have four quarter rests
Bar 3 will have an accented whole note
Bar 2 will have four quarter rests
Bar 3 will have an accented whole note
Teachers will perform this passage by clapping. Teachers will export this short recording as an MP3 and make it available to their students to use on their own computer systems.
As one can see this passage is a recording of a rest exercise done by many music teachers. In a class setting students would clap the 4 four quarter notes, silently count the rests and then clap the whole note at the time they feel is correct.
Students can open the teacher’s recording in Audacity and record themselves performing along with the teacher’s recording. Students will be able to see by the sound waveforms in Audacity and hear if their were early or late. This visual and auditory feedback can be very useful for students in evaluating their work.
Extension:
The Video Guide to Audacity shows students how to create a click track in Audacity. This is a great tool for expanding on this learning opportunity.
In a new Audacity project students will follow the instructions in the Video Guide to Audacity to create a 3-bar click track. By following the click track they will recreate the teacher’s 3-bar passage. Student will be able to hear and see the waveform of the click track pulses.
Students will then playback the new 3-bar passage along with the click and practice counting their rests. The click acts as a metronome for the students and will keep them in time.
Students will next Mute the click track and watch the waveform of the click track pulses to get a visual representation of the silent rests in bar 2. Students will then record themselves with the passage (click track mutes) to judge their accuracy.
Once completed, students will export the new recording as an MP3 and submit it to their teacher for evaluation and placed in their digital portfolio for long-term self evaluation.
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