Module 3 Reflection

This week's module focused on creating music with technology, with a focus on composing music. Every module, I start by doing the assigned readings, which of course is the recommended sequence of assigned work for each week. The readings discussed what we would explore further through Lynda.com and Soundtrap: digital audio and composition.

Lynda provided a long, in depth look at various audio cables, connectors, speakers, microphones, analog and digital audio, MIDI (musical instrument digital interface), and digital audio workstations (DAWs). There was a lot of great information there, a lot of which will be beneficial for myself as I want to start recording our concerts this semester. We have recorded concerts in the past, but in only one of two ways: a video camera or an audio recorder. What I want to do is to be able to record our performances with high quality audio and video (as you can see from the YouTube video below, it has good audio, but no actual video). Knowing the various cables and microphones will help to record high quality audio, but I must admit, I would have to go back and rewatch the videos and do some more research because there was a lot of information, and I only remember bits and pieces from the near 2.5 hours worth of videos we had to watch. This is one of the flaws of an eight-week course as you do not get to spend a lot of time on something that really needs more time. Fortunately, the real focus of this week's module was of DAWs.


As Soundtrap had its own reflection as part of that assignment, I will just speak of DAWs in general. Bauer (2014) says that "software that allows musical sounds to be presented graphically may be the best choice for composition" when it comes to younger students and adults with little to no musical experience, particularly in reading notated music (p. 63). DAWs are great resources for teaching music, especially when it comes to creating music, and the musical sounds are presented graphically, which will help those students who do not know how to read music notation, or otherwise known as the "other 80%". With these DAWs, however, the teacher really has to spend a good bit of time to become familiar with the programs. As noted in my reflection of Soundtrap, I had some frustrations with it, and I am sure students will too if they are not properly guided by a teacher.

At present, there is not much use for the information provided from Lynda or DAWs with my teaching situation. I touched on it in my Soundtrap reflection, but I am teaching concert band, which is very much a traditional setting, and not that a non-traditional program could not be implemented, but I do not see how I could implement either right now. I would also need to become much more familiar with both before I could decide how I would implement them in any music class. If I was told that I had to teach the undergraduate music technology course next year, then these would very much have a place there, but for right now, they are more for my own knowledge (like recording concerts or composing songs, although recordings of concerts will of course be beneficial for students as a way of reflection, or responding to music). 

Reference:
Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

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