I wanted my students to do an activity that would get them to think about the way that music is used to enhance and complement the mood in movies.
I tasked them to create animated sketches that would include a variety of different moods. The site we used was GoAnimate. The great thing about GoAnimate is that some of the animation templates include music that is already categorized into various moods.
GoAnimate is fun and relatively easy to use. The students all enjoyed using this site to create their productions. Here are a few exemplars to enjoy:
Students in my music class composed hip hop songs.
They used Myna to create the background music and beats. Myna is a free online audio editor. It includes a library with many audio samples that can be stitched together.
This student used 19 different audio clips in her production.
Then, the students used Ujam to record their voices. They used headphones to listen to their music on Myna while they sang.
Myna can be used for voice recording, but I prefer Ujam because it has many neat effects that can be utilized to improve and distort the sound of your voice. The only drawback is that Ujam has a one minute time limit. If necessary, this problem can be solved by having students record two different sessions and then using Myna to paste them together afterwards.
Here is one student`s voice, as recorded on Ujam, before he added his music.
Having recorded their voices, the students download the MP3, and then uploaded it to Myna. They then did any necessary adjustments, such as changing the tempo, to match the vocals to the music.
Here is the song created by one student who actually did not know what to write about, so she read from the novel, `The Giver.`
Since I’m on the topic of listening to music online, another good website for creating playlists is ListAndPlay.com. Click on, “Generate your own MTV,” input the name of a song or artist, and the site will generate a playlist of similar tunes. ListAndPlay is linked to YouTube, so you can watch videos of your songs.
Sometimes I like to listen to music online. I had been using Grooveshark for this purpose. Grooveshark allows users to create lists of their favorite tunes, but I'm not the kind of guy who likes to collect songs and listen to the same songs over and over. To suit my needs, Grooveshark has a number of stations, in different formats such as Rock and Classical.
I recently found a similar, better site, called Playlistnow. What I like about Playlistnow is that you can input your mood or activity and it will find playlists of songs to match your situation.
Here is a project that caters to one of the primary interests of many students: music.
I asked my students to choose a song, then create a slideshow on PhotoPeach using the lyrics from their song. They used photos downloaded from Google Images. I recommend using only large size images.
I created the slideshow below on a website called Shwup.
Shwup has several appealing options. Users can upload photos, or import them from common sites such as Flickr. There are a few melodies on the site that can be used, or you can upload your own song. Shwup uses the Muvee technology to create slideshows with attractive transitions. There are several styles from which to chose. Best of all, it’s free.
I found two websites that complement each other because they both allow for 30 second productions.
Students used the website MyBytes, which has an online Music Mixer, to create a 30 second MP3.
Then, they uploaded their song to Animoto. Animoto allows users to create a 30 second slideshow for free. Animoto has a library of video clips and photos available.
In my Music class, I wanted to devise an activity that would let the students practice using Audacity.
I decided to have them create their own audio track for a movie clip.
I soon discovered that 99% of the movie clips on the internet are in MOV format, which is for Apple Quicktime computers, and cannot be edited in Windows Movie Maker. This is odd, given that 90% of the computers in the world are PCs.
After searching, I found a website called "Trek Mania" that hosts some Star Trek video clips in AVI format.
Students downloaded one of the clips and used Movie Maker to edit it. Movie Maker is a free program for editing video that is part of Windows XP. I found out that Movie Maker is not included with Windows 7. This is odd.
Students used Audacity and a microphone to recreate the speeches in their video clips. They downloaded sound effects from Flashkit and background music from CCMixter, These sounds were imported into Audacity.
Their final Audacity project was exported as a WAV and then imported into Movie Maker. Movie Maker allows users to mute the original sound from the video.
One of the challenges of teaching is trying to balance the difficulty level of the assignments. You want the work to be challenging but not too difficult for the students. I crossed the line with my most recent music assignment. Most of the students were unable to successfully complete the task.
I wanted the students to practice using Audacity. I wanted them to practice manipulating different tracks and to apply different effects to different tracks in a song. With these goals in mind, I thought it would be a good exercise for them to compose a song.
I knew that the students, at this point, would be unable to compose their own song from scratch. So, I decided to have them remix an existing song. The song I chose was, "I'm Yours," by Jason Mraz. This is a good tune because it repeats the same four chords throughout the song.
Unfortunately, Audacity does not have any built-in sounds or instruments. I figured the simplest way for the students go get the music into Audacity would be to use Jamstudio. So, the students entered the chords for "I'm Yours" (C, G, Am, F) into Jamstudio, and then selected some instruments. I instructed them to use different instruments for the verses and the chorus. So far, so good.
I knew that the students would not be inclined to sing, so we used AT&T's text to speech website to convert the lyrics to speech.
Most of the students were able to get as far as this. But the process of importing chunks of spoken lyrics into Audacity and then synchronizing them with the verse and chorus of the song was very challenging. It required the students to use Audacity effects to change the speed of the lyrics, repeatedly, until the length was correct. Many of the students got frustrated by this process and were unable to successfully complete the task.
Previously, I wrote about a project done by the students in my junior Music class. They created a slideshow using the website PhotoPeach. PhotoPeach is a site for creating slideshows. At that time, it was possible to upload your own music and pictures using the free account.
Since then, PhotoPeach has changed the features of their free account. Users are no longer permitted to upload their own music. As well, there is a 30 photo upload limit.
I found an alternative, which is One True Media. One True Media allows users to upload their own music and video to create slideshows.
Here is a video created by one of the senior Music students. Unfortunately, the version embedded on his blog is cropped.
Previously, we were using Myna. Myna is a great tool, but we found it to be slow and unreliable – it sometimes froze – when downloading the students’ productions
To get my students familiar with the basics of importing music and working with multiple tracks on Audacity, I assigned the following project:
Create an account at www.musopen.com. This website has plenty of classical music available for downloading. Select an song and download it.
Edit it in Audacity. You can apply different effects to different parts of the song. Your song should have a Fade In at the beginning and a Fade Out at the end.
Download soundtracks from this website and add them to your audio project. http://soundboard.com. You need to have at least 10 different sound clips, preferably from movies or TV shows. Try to repeat the same sound clip more than once.
Previously, my students created music slide shows by composing a song on Myna, then coupling their song with pictures using Stupeflix.
I asked the students to repeat this activity, with two modifications. For one thing, they had to add audio clips from movies to their composition. Movie audio clips can be downloaded from Soundboard.
Instead of Stupeflix, this time we used PhotoPeach. PhotoPeach is mostly the same as Stupeflix. PhotoPeach’s interface is easier to use.
In Music, I asked the students to each produce a music video. They used Myna to compose a song. They downloaded their song as an MP3. Then, they uploaded their MP3 onto Stupeflix. They added some pictures. Here are a few of the results.
For some time, I have been looking for an online alternative to Microsoft Movie Maker. Essentially, I wanted a tool to create slideshows, with music (created by the students) and photos. Additionally, I wanted a program that would allow my students to import public photos from the web, such as, from Flickr. This would alleviate the hassle of downloading photos and then uploading them again.
My search was more difficult than I anticipated. I assumed that there would be many online slideshow applications that would suit my needs. I began to collect them on Diigo. However, with each app that I tried, I found something lacking.
Clipgenerator only uses music from their own library and does not import public photos from Flickr.
Magtoo and Rockyou let users import public photos from Flickr, but these websites only use songs from their own library.
Vuvox allows users to use their own music and to import photos from Flickr. Strangely though, the final product requires viewers to advance the photos manually.
Photopeach allows users to upload music and pictures, but does not import public pictures from Flickr.
Masher uses their own library of music and video clips.
I was about to give up, when finally, I found Stupeflix. Stupeflix is the only slideshow application that does the two simple things that I want it to do. Users can upload their own song, and users can search for public photos on Flickr to import. Now, about the name…
I really like the philosophy of using fun and games to motivate the students; however, I always feel guilty whenever I use games in the classroom. I know I shouldn’t.
There is a website called JamLegend, which is a nice emulation of Guitar Hero. In my Music class, I asked the students to sign up at this site and take their character to Level 2. The students really enjoyed the activity.
Still, I felt uneasy about the task. Would my principal approve? Would the other teachers approve? Would the parents approve?
Were the students really learning anything, any skills? I had to convince myself that the game was improving their dexterity (for guitar) and developing their sense of rhythm and music.
Essentially, any time that my students are having fun or enjoying themselves in the classroom, I feel a tinge of guilt. School is not supposed to by fun. It’s irrational, I know; maybe it’s a product of my Catholic upbringing.
An event later in the week did nothing to ease my conscience. I decided to have my Geography class play SimCity, because I think it teaches a lot about the way a city functions. Unfortunately, I had to abandon my plan when I discovered that the SimCity website is blocked at our school.
There are many game sites that are not blocked. The filtering program seems to be quite haphazard. For example, an online game, Evony, is not blocked, and many of the students play it during their free time and during lunch. Evony is a medieval type game where the player must build up their town and army, and manage resources. Hmm, maybe I can incorporate it into my History class…
Today in Music class, I asked my students to make music videos.
They used Masher, which is a rather simplistic site that provides video and music clips for users to mash together. When I scouted the site beforehand, I was sceptical because the video clips seemed to be mostly outtakes from corny BBC documentaries.
However, the students really enjoyed the activity. I thought they would just slap some material together and call it a day; however, they carefully crafted their productions, combining complementary music and video to create impressive results. They surprised me.
In his blog, one of the students wrote that it was his best class of music ever. Wow.
It’s funny how sometimes, as a teacher, lessons that you feel the most excited about will often flop; and lessons that you find uninspiring will often be a hit with the students.
As I said, the videos were really well done. Here is one of them. Golf video.
