No Keyboard? No Problem!
This week Music Tech students will compose and record their own melodies using the virtual keyboards that are part of GarageBand. In the first picture, notes are played by pointing and clicking with the mouse. Below that is an image that shows which notes are associated with the “home row”. Both of these methods of inputting musical notes will do the trick if a keyboard with Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is not available.
These keyboards can be used not only to compose a melody, but with the simple change of one setting, they can be used to create drum sounds. The objective for this week is for students to deepen their understanding of the ways to create original music on a computer. The lesson for Monday and Tuesday focuses on drum accompaniments. Using the mouse as a “drumstick” on certain keys in the above images will result in the recording of a drum loop that can be used instead of one of the pre-packaged loops that comes as part of a program such as GarageBand. Even though there are hundreds of drum sounds on the computer, sometimes only an original groove will do. The same can be said of a melody: The “delicate piano” loops are not delicate enough for you? Create your own with the virtual piano keyboard. Students will finish the week’s lessons by creating a melody in two keys: C Major, and D Minor.
A detailed plan of the week’s lessons and activities can be found under “Lesson Plans”, above.