Engagement - Garage Band playing rhythmic composition

I was impressed with my Grade 2s and 3s success with composing rhythmic patterns.  They really enjoyed playing their compositions on Garage Band's drums.  We learned to turn off the metronome (we were not playing on the metronome's beat) and to convert the saved file, as prompted by Google Drive.

Music for iPad

Just wanted to share a link to the pre-amp that I am using in my music classroom that I had at the last meeting in Minden.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/HA957ZM/A/focusrite-itrack-solo-mic-preamp

Cost: $129.95 (but watch for sales!!!  I got mine for $99)

It's GREAT!  A really easy "plug and play" machine.  It allows for an XLR microphone connection and a ¼ inch instrument connection.  The GREAT thing is that it will allow for BOTH inputs to record at the SAME time!!!  This means you can do a really great quality live recording.  This machine plus Garage Band has been an AWESOME addition to my music class - especially my vocal class.

There are other preamps out there (and some do cost less than this one), but to be able to record two distinct tracks at the same time is pretty useful and worth the extra bit of money.

There is a little bit of a learning curve (for some of us less techie types) to figure out which settings to use in Garage Band, but there are lots of YouTube tutorials out there that easily explain the process.

OMG - it's MAGIC!!!

So in 15 years of teaching - music theory has always been a bit of a struggle...  I see the value in theory - my students have learned to see the importance of theory - but it's difficult to teach (and learn) this part of the course - mainly because both the students and I would rather be actively involved in playing music.

For the FIRST time EVER I had an entire room of music students TOTALLY enthralled in THEORY - to the point where I had 3 of them staying into the next period (their spares) to work on theory on the iPads!!!  Even the kid who usually instantly gives up on "paper work" was totally absorbed in what we were doing!  And I had a number of them asking if we could do theory again tomorrow!  WHAT???  This has happened before with PERFORMANCE but never with THEORY!!!

They were so excited!  And now I'm even more excited!  I'm looking forward to sharing some of their projects with you.

Fun things happening with Garage Band, and music on iPads at LCVI :)

Smiles,
Sheri