This is a post by Katrina Proctor, Former Middle School Music Teacher & Content Manager at Midnight Music.
Introduction
If you’re a music teacher, there’s no doubt that you’re constantly on the hunt to find new and interesting ways to teach music history and tech in meaningful ways! TeachRock Lessons and Soundbreaking TechTools are fascinating options to engage your students in their own learning. Both of these initiatives offer new and exciting ways to learn about music and recording technology– and are presented in easy-to-follow lessons and hands-on activities.
TeachRock is a standards-aligned, arts integration curriculum that uses the history of popular music and culture to help teachers engage students by providing them with free videos, lesson plans, and worksheets. Soundbreaking, an interactive tech tool by TeachRock and the NYU MusEdLab, helps students experience hands-on learning of music technology and recording technology as it emerged throughout the years.
In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at both of these projects and how they can benefit music educators and their students.
Introducing TeachRock and Soundbreaking Tech Tools
TeachRock is a standards-aligned, arts integration curriculum that uses the history of popular music and culture to help teachers engage students in meaningful learning. The standards-aligned lesson plans are tailored for students in all music classes and at differing ages. They feature rich educational resources, including the interactive Soundbreaking TechTools that allow students to experience firsthand the technological breakthroughs explored on screen.
Soundbreaking TechTools by TeachRock, is an interactive tool created with the help of NYU MusEdLab (the same people who designed Groove Pizza, aQWERTYon, and Variation Playgrounds). The TechTools help students experience hands-on learning of music technology and recording technology as it emerged throughout the years. Students can explore different microphones, hear different sound waves, play with a sample mixing board, and play with audio effects & sampling. These tools provide an engaging way for students to learn about the history of music technology, and how it has shaped the music we enjoy today.
2 Benefits of Using TeachRock Lessons & Soundbreaking Tech Tools
#1: TeachRock is a Wealth of Standards-Aligned Lessons
Rock and Roll Forever Foundation’s TeachRock offers a wealth of standards-aligned lessons for music educators, which provide resources that can be tailored to any music classroom. Music can touch all facets of our lives, private and public, and is experienced not simply as a sound culture, but as an extension to all other parts of our culture (movies, television, politics, books, fashion etc).
The curriculum offered by TeachRock shows students how popular music, namely Rock and Roll, provides historical context for current trends while also teaching them to think critically about the music they listen to every day. As the first curriculum of its kind rolled out for free to music teachers, TeachRock is an essential tool for educators who want to provide their students with well-rounded music education.
#2: Soundbreaking TechTools Offer Engaging and Meaningful Hand-On Material
Students learn best when the learning is in their own hands! The Soundbreaking TechTools allow students to experience many different aspects of music technology by playing with them on their own devices.
Here are the musical experiences that students can have in the Soundbreaking TechTools:
- Multitrack Mixing Board
- Allow students to play with different levels of drums, bass, guitars, keys, and vocals to the song, “Come Back” by Jen Durkin and the Business.
- Emerging Microphone Technologies
- Students can listen to 3 different recordings of music recorded using three different devices: a phonograph, a carbon microphone, and a condenser microphone.
- Microphone Comparison
- Students can hear the same vocal track as it is processed through three different microphones (the phonograph, a carbon microphone, and a condenser mic).
- Vocal Effects
- Students can listen to a single, unprocessed vocal track and how it changes when adding a double vocal track and a reverb.
- Guitar Effects
- Explore a single guitar track and add different levels of effects (chorus, distortion, and fuzz) to hear how music, especially in the 1960’s created the iconic “Rock” guitar sound.
- Sound Wave Generator
- Watch and hear how sound waves change over a major scale using sine waves, triangle waves, square waves, and sawtooth waves.
- Rhythmic Layers (Beyonce)
- Hear how different percussion tracks are layered together to form the backing to Beyonce’s song, ‘Single Ladies.’
- Rhythmic Layers (Santana)
- Hear how different percussion tracks are layered together to form the backing to Santana’s song, ‘Evil Ways.’
- Sampling
- Allow students the opportunity to choose different musical samples from a track and then sequence those samples in a new track.
- Sound and Vision
- Hear how three very different emotive soundtracks change the feeling of a movie scene.
How to Use TeachRock and the Soundbreaking TechTools in Your Music Classroom
When exploring the TeachRock Lessons and Soundbreaking TechTools, you have a few options. You can either choose to teach the TeachRock lessons and integrate the Soundbreaking TechTools in their specified order, teach the lessons out of sequence or simply use the SoundBreaking Tech Tools to supplement your lessons.
The TeachRock lessons are all-encompassing lesson plans you can teach individually or in sequence. But, the Soundbreaking TechTools can be used on their own. Here are some ideas:
- In an ensemble setting, teach music history in bite-sized lessons throughout the year. Introduce a tool, allow the students to play with it, and discuss what they hear using musical terminology.
- Use the TechTools as an emergency sub-plan. Simply ask the students to play with each tool and describe what is happening in each tool, and what they liked/disliked in each tool (describe their musical preferences).
- Use the tech tools as an introduction to a musical technology course to explore, very broadly, the progression of recording tech.
- Play some of the audio of the tools without displaying the screen. Have students describe what they hear.
- Display one of the tools without audio, and see if students can explain what they think will happen when the tool is played.
Conclusion
The TeachRock Lessons and Soundbreaking Tech Tools offer a variety of ways for students to learn about music and recording technology. The lessons are engaging and meaningful, while the TechTools provide opportunities for hands-on learning. These online activities are a great resource for music educators and students alike. With so many options for teaching and learning, there is something for everyone.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know about the TeachRock Lessons and Soundbreaking Tech Tools, it’s time to get out there and start exploring! These online resources are a great way to engage your students in learning about music and recording technology. So what are you waiting for? Get started by clicking here.
Have you ever used the Soundbreaking Tech Tools and TeachRock Lessons in your classroom? Do you have any questions about these resources? Let us know in the comments below.
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About the Writer
Katrina Proctor is the Content Manager at Midnight Music and is also a music teacher from Colorado, USA. She has taught middle school music for nearly 10 years in northern Colorado where her passion is low-income students in Title 1 schools. Katrina has taught 5th-8th grade chorus, advanced-level chorus, class piano, orchestra, band, and general music. She has her Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education & Master’s Degree in Music Education-Choral Conducting from the University of Colorado at Boulder. You can connect with Katrina on Facebook or via her website, She The Teacher.
Looking for More Resources for Music Teachers?
Hello! I’m Katie Argyle – an Australian music technology trainer and consultant with a passion for helping music teachers through my business Midnight Music.
I’m a qualified teacher but no, I don’t currently teach in a school. I help teachers through my online professional development space – the Midnight Music Community – where there are tutorial videos, courses, links and downloadable resources.
I like to focus on easy ways to incorporate technology into what you are already doing in your music curriculum through a range of creative projects. I also run live workshops and have presented at countless conferences and other music education events.
If you want simple, effective ideas for using technology in music education, I would LOVE to help you inside the Midnight Music Community.
One Comment
Look forward to it!