I had the opportunity on Friday, September 25th to see a presentation on the use of Music Technology in the Classroom. The presentation was given by Radio Cremata, the music technology teacher at LaSalle High School here in Miami, FL. Cremata is also a Doctoral Candidate in Music Education at Boston University, and is pursuing his degree through a case study based on music technology. I did live updates to my Twitter stream during the presentation, which I have pasted below in chronological order. You can also see the original “tweets” by viewing the tag #musictech, which I included in all my posts. Below, find the pasted updates, as well as some major ideas that Cremata discussed:
Twitter Stream – The Updates
- Morning, everyone! This morning I’ll be live-tweeting a presentation on #musictech from our weekly #umiami Music Ed forum! Stay tuned!
- Today’s #musictech presentation: Radio Cremata-”Maximizing Your Student’s Musical Potential: Strategies for Teaching Music With Technology”
- Radio Cremata just started his presentation off right-saying he’s hoping for a ‘Canes win tomorrow!
- “Music is Evolving, but Music Education tends to be behind the Evolution of Music”
- Reason: Electronic Music Creation Program -Allows students without musical training to create music
- Technology Program:”Reason” helps teach how a Mixing Board works (visual mixing board, front and back, on the screen).. way cool!
- This guy can beat-box, too! He’s an a-capella aficionado
- Cremata is showing an example of how he teaches students to create drum patterns, when they have no musical experience!
- “My goal is to make them un-afraid, so they can love music”
- In “Reason,” you can look at the back of the mixing board, and drag/drop cables on your screen to re-wire!
- The class that Cremata uses “Reason” in is entitled “Sound Engineering”
- Cremata moves on to a demo of “Music Ace Maestro” to teach students with no experience how to read music!
- EarMaster Pro – Ear Training software
- Uh oh! We’re getting tested… the last level of the “Extended Harmony” lesson in EarMaster Pro!
- Another software demo: eMedia Piano & Keyboard Method
- Jazz Piano MasterClass with Miles Black helps teach Jazz Piano… not very interesting interface, but it teaches well!
- Cremata gives every child he teaches in his classroom high-back leather chairs, so they “feel special” and are more motivated
- Programs that Cremata calls “creative software”- GarageBand, Logic, Reason, ACID Pro
- Cremata is modeling how he teaches the blues using ACID Pro
- “Music is supposed to be FUN!”
- Cremata has a project to remix the #umiami fight song in ACID Pro! WAY cool!
- “Our goal is to maximize students’ opportunities to grow” – Radio Cremata
- GREAT presentation from Radio Cremata on using Music Technology to enrich students’ music education! Thanks for coming, Radio!
The Software
The following is a list of software programs that Cremata mentioned during his presentation, with links to the websites of the programs.
- Reason – Music sequencing, sound engineering, digital mixing board
- Music Ace Maestro – Teaching basics of music
- EarMaster Pro – Ear training/aural skills, basic to very advanced
- eMedia Piano & Keyboard Method – Computerized piano/keyboard method book
- Jazz Piano MasterClass with Miles Black – Jazz piano method
- ACID Pro – Music sequencing, recording software (Free Version – ACID Xpress)
Quotes
Quotes from Mr. Cremata’s presentation:
- Music is Evolving, but Music Education tends to be behind the Evolution of Music
- My goal is to make them un-afraid, so they can love music
- Music is supposed to be FUN!
- Our goal is to maximize students’ opportunities to grow
The Study
As part of his doctoral work, Mr. Cremata is doing case studies on collegiate music students and their experiences with music technology instruction. If you are interested in participating in this study, which will take no more than 15-20 minutes of your time, please email him at rcremata@yahoo.com. Any offers to participate would be greatly appreciated, I’m sure.
What do you think of some of the things Mr. Cremata is doing in his classroom? Do you have other ideas for integrating technology into the music classroom? Share them below in the comments, so we can continue to advocate for music technology!
Front Page Image – Flickr Photo
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