Music Technology

Music Technology is a complex subject – but it doesn’t have to be shown or taught in that way. As with almost anything musical, it’s possible to make music technology fun and exciting if you put your mind to it.

I designed a class for the 7, 8, 9 and 10 year old kids where the intention was to expose them to various aspects of music technology in a way that would ‘open their eyes’ to possibilities. My idea was that formal tuition can always come later after you’ve got their attention.

At the beginning of this class (in the video) is a flattering moment when the kids are arriving. It has nothing to do with music technology but I left it in as a wonderful memory of how excited and engaged these kids are. There’s a tiny bit of background to it….We always had music classes in the same spot for all the kids, so for every class my assisstant teacher Nara would go to the other end of the school (maybe 60m away) to fetch each class from their normal room. She would always make them walk in a very orderly line in pairs. While this was happening I would normally be playing music which the kids could easily hear as they got closer – a bit like the Pied Piper story in a way.

So this orderly line of children would calmly and slowly get closer and closer with Nara leading them. And then at a point unknown to me and just a few metres from me, she would give them some signal to form a circle and sit down- at this moment it was like letting a bunch of mice out of a bag; a total lolly scramble of panic and excitement as the children sprint the last few metres to ensure they get a good seat.

And this wasn’t some early fad of excitement they had at the beginning – the video you can see below (with 8 year olds) is one of the last classes I taught them nearly at the end of my 2 months –  its incredibly touching and illustrates how much they enjoyed my music classes.

The actual video is fairly self explanatory. We check out if we can turn a boring looking wooden computer trolley into a funky sounding instrument. We play around with microphones and weird sounds. We have some fun with a drum pad; we record some drum beats and vocals. And then we finish it off with some chaos at the end where I leave the beat playing and hand out some instruments to play along to…That gets pretty chaotic – but hey they’re having a ball!  🙂

If you actually click on the video below where it says “You Tube” it will open a new window with a much larger player. The video is in High Definition – so click that little HD button for maximum enjoyment!

Enjoy.