A fellow teacher asked for some advice to teach rhythm using iPads. Wearing my “educational technologist” hat, one of my goals is to find places where technology opens the capacity for students to learn in more intuitive, more creative, or more effective way. I think that music theory in general, and rhythm as a specific example, is an area where digital learning tools can let musicians experience and interact with the concepts in a direct and meaningful way. This is why I firmly believe in the power of teaching and creating rhythms through the use of drum machines and the piano roll editors. The underlying essence of rhythm that many students struggle with is the hierarchy of “beat->division->subdivision” (or big-beat, little-beat) and being able to apply that concept across multiple time signatures, particularly changing the type of note which gets the beat (e.g. 2/2, 4/4, 4/8). Anyone who has ever watched a beginning musician try and count or sight-read outside of 4/4 for the first time understands this challenge. Garage Band has a perfectly functional piano roll editor view for this, and it lets students see the micro and macro structures of time which make up the essence of rhythm. Rather than using the packaged Apple Loops, or recording audio in, try spending time drawing in melodies and rhythms on this “grid” view, changing the time signatures and noting (sorry) the different kinds of observations that can come out of this view when it comes to rhythm.
Software drum machines have a similar value in that they allow you to visually align beat and division in a way that is obvious and intuitive. Reason’s (PC/Mac) drum machine was one of the major Earth-shakers in my teaching: set the thing to loop continually, and have the kids program in beat and division until they hear a steady, even beat. Now move the divisions around to create other kinds of rhythms. What do you observe when you move them around, etc.? Finally, they can very easily translate the visual notation of the drum machine into “proper” musical notation. Unfortunately, ReBirth for iPad (Reason) is a visual/interface disaster. I have heard really good things about DM1 for iPad, and the visual interface there is more like what I’d want to see for this kind of free rhythmic exploration.
Finally, Impromptu is a very different but very compelling approach to teaching theory including rhythm and form. Impromptu was developed by Jeanne Bamberger, who was at MIT for many years, and is now at UC Berkeley. The software is currently Java, but she shared the beta of the iOS version a few weeks ago and said it was very close to release. I’d highly recommend her as a resource to your teachers, and when the iOS version is released it’s worth exploration. Unfortunately, she mentioned that the accompanying textbook (“Developing Musical Intuitions”) is out-of-print and being revised for her website, but Amazon has used copies available.
Aside from DMI, I highly recommend two other resources for teaching elements of music theory through digital environments: Music Theory for Computer Musicians, and Teaching Music with Reason. The latter was a curriculum that Propellerhead released to work with Reason, then decided not to update when they updated their software. They ended up releasing it as a free download under Creative Commons. While the songfiles won’t be useful without Reason itself, the workbooks are a great example of some of the approaches possible through digital composition and DAW software. It’s a bit hard to find, but there are copies floating in back corners of the Internet.
These three strategies all involve alternative forms of “notation,” or visual ways of representing time, sound and silence. They all can lead into traditional notation, particularly if students then begin to write notation hand have to think about how the proper spacing of notation reflects the same visual layout of time that a drum machine or DAW does. This is only one possible strategy, though– if you teach theory or aural skills in your programs, do you have favorite digital tools which help? Discuss below and share any of your strategies!
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