Sounding the Teaching III: Facilitating Music Learning with Music Tec Sounding The Teaching III | Page 20

SOUNDING THE TEACHING III /
EXPOSITION
the prevalence of deletion could also reveal
the lack of patience that Student A and many
other students have for the refinement of
music arrangements in DAWs.
The event of “Editing” mostly occurs during
the sequencing of drum rhythms and
drum fills as the students had to adjust and
quantise notes within the piano roll. It is
standard practice in the pop music industry
to edit during production sessions. Hence, as
teachers, it might be useful for our students
if we align our teaching practice to industry
practice.
Click or scan QR code to view example
Case Example
Student A started work on the bassline in
this lesson and used the MIDI keyboard to
sequence. The key events are as follows:
Click or scan
QR code to watch
and listen to
Student A’s work
Fig 4: Screenshot of
Student A’s work
0:00 - 0:52  Student A tries out the
sounds and timbres of
different bass guitars and
bass synthesisers on the MIDI
keyboard. He cycles through
3-4 instruments before
deciding on one.
0:53 - 1:13  Student A practises along
to the teacher’s track. This
period of exploration also
reveals a breadth of creativity
of bass patterns – almost no
two patterns are alike.
1:14 - 1:21  Student A records the
bassline from the chorus.
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Key Observations & Discussion
Timbre or instrument choice was generally
the students’ first consideration and what
they largely spend time on before moving
on to other aspects. It seems that students
prefer to select a sound that is suitable before
sequencing and not vice versa. In hindsight,
I could have given students a list of suitable
instruments for each layer of music, so the
choices could be more focused. On the other
hand, this task was the first time the students
had extensive contact with GarageBand and
perhaps it was good for them to explore as
much as they could.
Another observation made was the length of
time a student takes before arriving at a
decision. Since Student A was adept at playing
the keyboard and seemingly comfortable
with GarageBand’s interface, each decision
was made rather briskly. The same cannot
be said for the other students. The length of
time that the others took to make a decision
increased when they were less able at playing
the keyboard or had less knowledge of
keyboard geography. This could also boil down
to students’ lack of musical ideas when given
the opportunity to create music. Upon further
analysis, Student A tends to be easy-going and
does not mind taking risks, which could explain
his occasional rapid-fire decision-making. How
students make decisions could reveal much
of their personality, though one student took a
longer duration due to her special educational
needs.
Expanding on the thread of students’ deleting
work, sometimes students do not improve
their work after wholesale deletion, which
begs the question of whether the time taken
to delete and re-record was worth their while.
The loop function and further editing through
the piano roll can definitely be explored in
future tasks as it will save students time to
sequence.
The last key observation was about students
not being able to apply the concepts learnt
from the video guide to their own context.
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FACILITATING MUSIC LEARNING WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
This occasionally occurred repeatedly before
the teacher intervened. Students start by
copying exactly from the video guide, before
realising that the musical context is different.
IMPLICATIONS TO PEDAGOGY
From the data, music teachers can glean
some implications for our pedagogy.
1. Our (sometimes indifferent) approach
to choosing appropriate timbre
In my teaching practice, there is a
tendency to hurry students through
the exploratory process of choosing an
instrument in the DAW, instead of
wanting them to focus on the creation
of music.
One area of growth could be to inform
students how to make decisions based
on timbre, instead of merely exploring
and selecting what sounds best to their
musically untrained ear. An example
would be selecting the grand piano with
all its glorious sound for use in electro-
pop styles. Or using a synth bass for a
light ballad. Moreover, in instruments such
as drum sets, their timbres are different
for different genres of music. Should
teachers then set aside one or even a
series of lessons on timbre? Perhaps
one factor that dissuades teachers from
starting and dwelling on choosing timbre
would be the lack of time. However, if
students find their musical voice, within
certain boundaries, would this then lead
to a greater ownership of their own work?
2. Industry practice for music production
As mentioned earlier, the industry practice
in music production is to edit instead of
delete. To students, deletion seems like
the faster option as it requires the mere
click of a button. While it might be a
lengthy process to bring students through
the editing technique, would this be a
case of wasting time in the present so
that time will be more efficiently used
in the future?
3. Individualised curriculum
All six students involved in this project
started at the same time with identical
resources. However, each progressed at a
different rate which resulted in the need
for an individualised curriculum, especially
for students who needed more guidance.
Some teachers might feel that it may
require too much effort to conduct a
lesson that caters to each student and that
might certainly be the case if the class size
was bigger than six. Ultimately, it goes back
to a curriculum that is student-centric and
places students’ needs as the foremost
consideration.
4. Process of scaffolding
I have used leading questions to help
students make their musical decisions
and to get an insight into their thought
processes. The other end of this form of
scaffolding would be didactic instruction,
explicitly informing the student what or
what not to do. What makes each music
arrangement unique are the different
decisions each student makes along the
way, which leads to different aspects of
music that they and the teacher have to
consider in making a good arrangement.
In turn, this would lead to greater
ownership of their work as it is their
own decision.
5. Use of video guide
Lastly, the video guide, while beneficial for
students to refer to at any point during
the lesson, could become a crutch when
students do not tap on their own creativity
or end up imitating the guide fully. It is
necessary to emphasise to students that
the video guide is a means of “how to
do” instead of “what to do”. This will allow
students to know that their task is of a
completely different context from the video
guide. The use of the video guide could
also have resulted in a lower occurrence of
original and creative ideas. Some students
applied the same patterns that were
demonstrated by the video.
EXPOSITION