My Soundation
track represents where I was and wanted to be while composing the piece. This is the last week before school starts
again for teachers in Tennessee, so I was at the beach. I tried to pull in Caribbean sounds as well
as calming chords. I wonder if my
frustration with wifi connection comes through in any of the piece as there was
a lot of frustration with finding strong wifi connection to finish the
project. My goal for this composition
was to finish with something calming and easy to listen to.
Soundation was
very easy to use when it worked. The
program offered many options to mix and match the sounds I wanted to
create. One could spend hours working
with this program and not be bored or run out of options. Some of the challenges I encountered were
playback and little glitches. There were
times when I would have to save what I had worked on and reload the
program. This could have been due to
wifi connection or the program, I am not sure.
I did have difficulties editing to make the piece longer. I saved and republished but it seemed to keep
publishing the same length composition.
I realized later on after working with the program for a while, that the
midi files would only play in the “synth” channels. I did not try to use my midi keyboard with
this program, but will next time to see if that is an easier way to add
instruments.
The
educational implications of this program are immense. Soundation would offer students many
opportunities to compose smaller pieces and use their creativity to create
pieces from the files already provided.
This would be a great program for my younger students, as they can play
around more on this with the provided sounds to make their own pieces. As I explored Soundation, I thought that my
fifth graders could work in groups to create compositions at the end of the
year to present at their awards ceremonies.
These could be class projects or individual based on time
constraints. I really feel that this
could be a way to reach those students that aren’t motivated by traditional
notation assignments. This could peak
their interest in composing and music in general. I also thought that my younger students could
compose pieces with two parts – one being a beat and the other a rhythm. This would help them distinguish between beat
and rhythm in the younger grades. I
really am excited to try Soundation with my students this year, as I feel they
will really enjoy making their own music with a great deal of options not available
without technology.
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