Carol Boos is a 4th-8th grade music teacher, and is determined to connect with the 80 percent of students who are not enrolled in band, orchestra, or choir. She is innovating the music programs by challenging the traditional classroom style that music is taught. Often times music is taught in such a way that the educator is standing behind a podium, telling the students what and how to play, but without allowing wiggle room for students to have a say in their musical education. (Demski)
Instead, Carol Boos is allowing her students to have more musical freedom. She allows for her students to create their own music, which naturally applies the fundamental concepts that are normally taught in the old educational lecture model such as rhythm, melody, harmony, etc. By using this approach, she is engaging students who are not taking part in band, orchestra, or choir, and who never want to be. We live in a digital age, where students have the ability to create music digitally at home, but as educators, we are not meeting them where they are at. (Demski)
First, Carol Boos used the technology already in her school's computer lab to create an electronic music lab. In her lab, she used a variety of Avid Technology to allow a way for students to input audio through a MIDI device, and used the programs such as Apple's Garageband and Logic Pro to create and compile the music. It is through this technology that she was able to build a music curriculum that incorporated these devices. (Demski)
Ever since allowing these courses as options for students, she has found an increase in student involvement in the music programs. Let's say a sophomore boy with no ensemble experience takes the electronic music class offered, there is a good chance that student might sign up for band, orchestra, or choir the next year. She has also discovered that a high percentage of students who do get involved in electronic music at younger ages, are more likely to go into the careers of music production or engineering. Because we live in a society that musicians can become famous by having little to no musical experience, but by making electronic music for themselves at home, more students are regularly drawn to this form of education. (Demski)
It is articles like these that challenge me to make opportunities like this possible for K-5 music students. I watch music interviews often, and I always find it fascinating that there are a large majority of contemporary music artists that were not involved or just did not like their own school music programs growing up. Yet these are the musicians that my students are listening to daily. As a K-5 General Music teacher, I also find it important to reach out to those students who decide they don't want to do band, orchestra, or choir, and let them know there are still musical opportunities out there for them. We are often told that as educators, we are preparing students for jobs that may not even be in existence yet. When I look at the music industry, I especially see that prevalent. If I knew there were so many jobs in music today than there were 10 years ago, I may have not decided to become a music educator.
The way I see my role as a K-5 General Music teacher is to give my students a "general" idea of all that they can do in the world of music. Yes, we learn the fundamental elements of music, but those elements are accompanied with real-world application. This last year, I introduced my 4th grade students to the Launchpad S paired with Ableton Live. The only experience I had with the software was during a 10 week Electronic Music Seminar during my undergrad. I only got two Launchpads for the students, and I allowed students to voluntarily sign up to work with the device a maximum of 3 times per student during the last two months of school. I pretty much told the kids that I had an idea of how to use these next year when they were in 5th grade, but that I needed their help to show me what they could do with them. Out of 50 4th graders, I had 40 sign up to come to my classroom outside of school. It was amazing! By doing this voluntary activity with the students, they actually taught me how to use the device in ways that I didn't know were possible!
By using the Launchpad S paired with Ableton Live, the students were able to loop a variety of tracks, upload prerecorded music to change in Ableton, record and loop their voice, record and loop the MIDI controller using any instrument sound of their choosing, add special effects to the audio and MIDI files, and put it all together to record and then export the file into an mp3 format. I could not believe they figured all of this out on their own! But it was allowing the students this freedom that they were applying and learning musical concepts that we were covering in the traditional general music class. Beyond even learning music skills, students were allowed to put their creativity and imagination into the music they creating on their own. Having an opportunity like this is not only something that they will remember, but is something that could change their life.
