Getting Started Creating Music

Getting those creative juices flowing!

Introduction

As a high school student, I remember walking past the MIDI keyboard lab everyday on my way to class.  It was a mysterious place to me.  Piano keyboards and tubby Dell PCs sat there with an enigmatic and unapproachable vibe.  As a band, choir and full orchestra student, I had a quite intense schedule during (and before and after) the school day, but never once can I recall asking about that room.  I had assumed that if I were to be introduced to me, that it would happen during one of my classes -- not so much.

My junior year I took the music theory class, which happened in the band room away from the instruments.  One of our projects was to arrange a movie theme of our choice for an instrument/ensemble of our choice.  In retrospect, I have no idea why we did not get introduced to those MIDI keyboards at this point, but it never came up.  We used a free Finale version (NotePad) on school owned laptops to generate our arrangements for the project.  Although this hooked me as a lifelong Finale user, I managed to slip through high school (and college!) without having used a MIDI instrument.

The prospect honestly scared me!  MIDI instruments seemed so mysterious to me until 3 years ago at an OMEA conference, where I sat in on a session regarding technology in music.  In a 50 minute session, the presenter managed to thoroughly convince me that MIDI keyboards are among the fastest and most practical digital notation devices known to man.  I bought one that day (Akai 25 key) and plugged it into my school computer the following Monday.  I was floored.  Point and click had been my MO throughout all of college and in one hour's time, I had learned how to cut my notation time by 75%.

 Resources for the director

My conference experience taught me a valuable lesson about avoiding technology.  After embracing the use of a MIDI device, I immediately increased my efficiency and reduced the number of hours it takes to complete a project.  As a rural band director - this is a God send!  Every year, particularly in marching season, there are a myriad of needs for quick part writing.  Sometimes there is a part missing, sometimes a show needs tweaking, and frankly sometimes a piece needs flat out arranged.  With the incorporation of a MIDI keyboard in Finale, I am often able to play a part in real time (via the Hyperscribe tool) and then continue on from there.  In my experiences with Noteflight and MuseScore this week, I was reminded of how much the point and click methods slowed me down.  I did not use the MIDI keyboard for either of these programs, but instead experimented with the use of the keyboard/number pad combination.  While I found this very fun and quick to understand in Noteflight, I admittedly struggled in MuseScore throughout the process.  I don't mean to knock MuseScore here - it is a well designed setup with several features uniquely thought out, but the keyboard shortcuts for this program struck me as a larger learning curve.

When it comes to being an ensemble director, this week has been a game changer for me with technology.  I have struggled for a long time with how to engage my students with creative part writing outside of the use of pencil/paper.  While I own a personal copy of Finale and my trusty Akai 25 keyboard, I have used them primarily to create things myself.  What I've learned about Noteflight and MuseScore this week will allow me to engage my students on their Netbooks/Chromebooks to start writing/arranging their own music.

I have often cringed at the thought of trying to teach my students basic composition/arranging skills because I have viewed it as a money heavy endeavor.  With the advent of this beautifully open sourced software, I will be able to engage my students on what interests them in order to both fulfill the state requirements and also to help them develop their interest areas further in the notation realm.

Resources for the student

Improvisation is an under appreciated aspect of music in my classroom.  The way in which I plan to integrate with process now is by dedicating periodic classes to the fundamentals of this artform.  While I will also integrate this at a more basic level with my general music class, I will focus my immediate efforts on the high school band.  Since improvisation is an intelligently guided practice, not just a random smattering of notes, I plan to walk my students into the process by creating a basic controlled musical environment and starting them on the smaller steps.  Things like improvising with only a few notes or small rhythm with guided accompaniment will help me to get their creative juices flowing.  Once we are established on this track, I would like to have my students access some of the band in a box resources available (Garage Band on my iPad, for instance) or some free apps (Rhythm Pad, SmartMusic)  to get them engaged.  I think a mixed integration of "analog" and digital instruments might be the easiest way to ease both myself and my students into this process.

Composition and arranging are still aspects of the musical spectrum I would like to see my students engage with more, but I foresee this being more individualized to the students.  Composing in particular is a great tool for all musicians to have some guided basics with but beyond that depends on the intrinsic drive of the student.  I would like to leave this more open ended as an independent study project where my students could explore comfortable composing mediums with me.  Arranging is something I would like to start using more immediately with all of my students.  Something as simple as transcribing a part from an unrelated key instruments (Bb to Eb for example) would help them start to grasp concepts like interval relationships and key signature relationships quicker than a more academic approach might offer.

Whew!  What an ambitious and challenging week this has been for me on the learning curve!  The most important and significant take-away I have had from all of this is to get engaged and experiment with new tools to see how they might improve your arsenal -- and get the creative juices flowing!