Monday-Ethan Hein Guest Lecture
Ethan Hein from New York introduced us to Groove Pizza, a step sequencer for education which we experimented with at the beginning of the semester, and aQWERTYon, another programme by musedlab for modes, chord progressions etc. I personally enjoyed playing with the latter more.
He brought up whether these resources has made it too easy for kids. I personally think they should at least have a solid foundation on music theory before using these programmes. Just because letting them rely on given progressions doesn’t seem like a long-term method. I would still suggest learning step-by-step, in case they want to study music in high school and on a tertiary level.
However, I think kids should be exposed to music technology as early as they could. Music making has changed so much and people can even compose without using any real instruments. It’s beneficial for musicians and aspiring musicians to be more connected with current trends and at least get to know how music everybody listens to is made.
Wednesday-Ethan Hein’s Challenge
We were given a task to make something new out of a song on our iTunes. I decided to make a remix of Say Amen (Saturday Night) by Panic! At the Disco because my brother puts 3 of their albums on my laptop and they were literally the only songs I have. I felt super ocd and changed the colours of all the tracks too haha
For this short track, I mainly played with the intro and ad-lib, and cymatic drum loops and 808 from the free sample packs.
I honestly had more fun with the music tech unit than I anticipated. One of my goals for this year was to work on my production skills, and I didn’t expect to have the opportunity to do so in this course! And I didn’t even know it’d be possible to integrate digital music with classroom teaching. Can’t wait to see what MTeach has to bring next semester!
Kidz! Music! 