Blog #10: Reading Reflections for 9/28/2009

Articles Referenced in this Blog Entry: “Sequence-stration” by Scott Watson
“Using MIDI accompaniments for Music Learning at School and at Home” by Fred Kersten

I really appreciate that the authors of all of the articles we’ve been reading have focused on communicating to an audience that knows very little about technology. I’m fortunate that this class has started us from the beginning in terms of using these software programs. I’m even learning the definitions to words I’ve always wondered about, such as URL (which I now know means Uniform Resource Locator). I know that my future students will likely be up to date on all of these resources and I think it’s important that I use such interests to lead them to a better understanding of music. For example, as mentioned by Kersten, young people love surfing the net for music files and would be very motivated to find sound clips if I posted them to a site. The use of sequencing devices truly makes comprehensive musicianship possible. In order to take a MIDI file and import it into Sibelius, students will need some background knowledge in theory, form, and orchestration. After listening to several MIDI files over the course of this week, however, I am nervous that students might forget the importance of human expression after much exposure to the standard MIDI sound. It is difficult for a computer to recreate a performance with the same level of expressivity that a living musician could. I want my students to know that there is a true difference between music created by a computer and music created by a person.

The “Sequence-stration” article confirmed the notion that often MIDI files can sound extremely unmusical. Compositions can become cheesy as if from a “low-budget kung fu film,” as Watson put it. This might lower my student’s expectations for what good music is. Watson’s article truly made me excited to use programs such as Garage Band. I’ve never been a composer and it’s fun to think of myself as one. It seems that the program makes it quite easy to create basic accompaniments for melodies. It was interesting to read that Watson himself is an elementary school band teacher and he uses this technology at such a high level. Creating fun accompaniments to back-up beginning performers can get them extremely excited to practice. It still takes considerable thought, though to create such a harmony with appropriate instrumentation and style. It seems like it would take a great deal of experimentation to develop a familiarity with all of the instruments in Garage Band. Watson noted that they have even included several world instruments which would help me expose my students to styles of foreign cultures with considerable ease. I loved the “timbral alchemy” section of the article which explained that the number of different sounds one can create with a sequencer program is practically endless. Layering two different timbres seems like it could be extremely useful; I’m just not entirely sure how to do this on Garage Band.

Over the past few weeks as I’ve been required to use Sibelius 5 and now Garage Band, I’ve been forced to think more about theory and compositional technique. According to Watson, in order to write a piece that will sound good (or authentic) between different synthesizers, one needs to write idiomatically for a particular instrument. For my Sibelius project, I had to know the specific ranges of the few instruments I was arranging for. As a music education major, I should have known this information anyway. Using such software has encouraged me to revisit my music theory and orchestration background.

On a separate note, I found the “humanize” function to be interesting although I’m not fully certain of what it does. Watson indicated that it adds an element of human error to the computer performance of a specific note (“adding slight, random variations to note timing, key velocity, and duration,” as the article states). Another idea which Watson mentioned was to play various synthesized MIDI melodies for students and ask them to suggest an appropriate instrumentation for the particular passage. This would promote close listening and critical thinking. Overall, I think that music educators who are comfortable using MIDI programs can add a new level of creativity to their rehearsals and classrooms.