Topic 1: The best ICT tools to assist in Music Education
Sibelius and Finale are arguably the ‘veterans’ of the composing world. Back in the olden days before computers, composers were restricted to composing their music on the Piano, to get any idea how it sounded. Others had to do it strictly from being able to hear it in their heads and notating it down on manuscript paper. We now live in a world where students or teachers do not necessarily have to be piano players to hear how their compositions will sound when played.
These programs can play back to you exactly what you write. You can write for any instrument, and there is a playback system option, you can put all forms of music expression in, there are also tools to help you with using the site.
The only drawback to Sibelius and Finale composing is that you hear EXACTLY what you write but only in a computer generated form. The technologies have improved for these programs where the instruments sound more ‘real’ although of course nothing beats the real thing when played live by live people. It is therefore important that the teacher can remind the students of this, and make sure that they can imagine the music that they are composing being played by a live person.
For a composer who has no knowledge yet of how to notate music, Garageband is also a very good basic composition program to use in the classroom. Instead of notating music, you can either record your music into a track, and/or make use of the loop tracks available on the Garageband program. This program would be especially useful to get kids interested in layering music tracks on top of themselves to get a final product.
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