Music education by computer: Skills development

Skills development

In music education, it is more important to train skills than concepts constructed through words. Technological media provide the chance to develop a number of learning processes and skills (listening, analysing, interpreting, improvising, composing, etc.) to help achieve the aims of music education. It should be noted that the purpose of technology is not to replace more traditional resources in the music classroom, which can also achieve the aims of music education, but rather to add to these resources and improve on them.

We will now comment on how technology can help achieve the aims of music education through skills development, and explain the type of activities that can be done.

The general aims of music education can be grouped into four categories:

Perception
- Analysing
- Listening
Expression
- Interpreting
- Composing

Percepcion
By perception we mean the processes that lead to a better comprehension of the communicative process which is present in any musical event.

1.1. Analysing
Analysis can lead us to a comprehension of the concepts of musical knowledge. With an editor or sequencer we can isolate, manipulate and highlight any parameter of a sound or elements of the internal structure of a musical sequence, transforming them instantaneously as needed. Other educational tools (blackboard, textbook, instruments, CD, etc.) do not allow this same level of fragmentation of elements that technology does. The advantage to this is that however broken up and isolated the musical element or fragment we want to analyse may be, these tools always let us hear them and identify them. This means a constant training of the ear by the greatest variety of processes.
Analysis Activities:

Manipulate musical sequences (the teacher or the students themselves), introducing changes and errors to be discovered and corrected: Mix up the order of musical phrases, hide the rhythm, hide the melody, introduce errors in rhythm or melody, hide the beat, leave empty fragments, give fragments to be completed, etc.

Analyse sequences and songs that can be listened to or interpreted with other means or vice versa, and then analyse them using technology: Isolate and analyse elements of rhythm, melody, form, texture, harmony, key signature, etc.

1.2. Listening
To develop listening comprehension and a taste for listening, a series of procedures can be carried out before or after the listening itself. The analysis mentioned in the previous section is one of these procedures. Using technology in listening activities involves a new way of listening: there is an implicit interactive process, with the student participating in a process of informal discovery with an element of entertainment. While they listen, they can visualise and follow along a score (which has been edited with a sequencer), or a musicgram.
Listening activities:

Listen to music prepared beforehand by the teacher on an editor or multimedia platform, and work on analysing the form, style, etc. of a work or fragment to improve conceptual understanding.

Do a guided listening exercise by reading the score or researching textual information related to the work during the listening. Many closed applications include an entertainment section that both aids and reinforces the comprehension of the listening passage, and allows it to be analysed.
Expression
By expression we mean the skills involved in producing music. These may include both interpreting a composer's piece, and creating sequences or pieces of music that can be interpreted on the computer, on musical instruments, or on a combination of both.
- 2.1. Interpreting
  As far as interpretation goes, the computer cannot replace the human expressivity and emotion of a living performance, but it does contribute to musical practice by improving control over the beat and tempo individually and collectively. Apart from the fact that it never makes mistakes, the computer can play the part of conductor (setting the tempo), or simulate the instruments in an orchestra.
  Interpretation activities:
  - Use the keyboard of the computer or a MIDI controller (saxophone, keyboard, etc.) to interpret scores (real time recording), visualise and listen afterwards to the interpretation and analyse the mistakes. This can also be a way of editing the scores of compositions that the students know how to play by ear but not to write.
  - Use the computer to accompany the interpretations done by the students on traditional instruments. In this case, the computer can act as if it were another instrument, or as if it were the conductor of the group, since many editors allow a metronome to be incorporated in the background.
  - Prepare the different voices of a score to make the computers act like musical instruments. They can carry out the orders of the teacher or a student to simulate the interpretation of an orchestral work: the computers (instruments) make sounds according to the instructions given them by the conductor (teacher or student) for entrances, counting bars and finales: All together now, one after the other, some be quiet, etc.
- 2.2. Composing
  Musical creativity is a skill that, while included in the music curriculum, is generally worked on less than the other skills we have mentioned. Using technology, it is easier to invent music. Musical creation assumes that with the musical and technological knowledge the students have already assimilated, they manage to produce new results in the form of original communication where they apply and build on their knowledge and creatively express emotion as well.
  Any creation implies a whole process of production, which means planning, manipulating, combining and organising the elements involved. Using technology the student invents music at the same time as he discovers it. The fact that the computer presents no problems in terms of interpretation allows the creative works to have a higher technical level that they would otherwise. Using technological resources, pieces of music can be created for all types of instrumental ensembles without having studied composing. Furthermore, the range of tones incorporated in MIDI technology notably enriches the spectrum of sounds and sound resources that can be used in the classroom.
  Composing activities:
  - Take a piece of music, which can be a theme from the work of a certain composer, a popular song or a tune written by another student, and make an accompaniment of melody, rhythm (obstinato, polyrhythmic) or harmony. Make variations in rhythm, melody, etc. Modify aspects of the structure, melody, rhythm, etc....until you end up with a new piece.
  - Take a design or pattern and produce a completely new piece of music from it: Create a melodic line for a given rhythm sequence. Invent the rhythm for an arhythmic melodic line. Create the melody for a given accompaniment. Create rhythm patterns that include percussion. Etc.
  - Take an extramusical element and create a piece of music, with or without guidelines. Create music for a static image. Create music for images in movement. Create music for a piece of prose or poetry. Create music for a play. Create music with a descriptive purpose or specific function (mood music, background music, scary music, party music, etc.).
  - Create freely without any type of guidelines.


RTEE Project	Cristina Fuertes cfuertes@pie.xtec.es