Soundtrack Story
Megan Smith
[email protected]
Heathdale Christian College
TI:ME Technology Areas Addressed:
Music Production
Multimedia
Level:
Middle School
Class:
Music Theory
Equipment:
Garage Band, Auralia, Mac Computers, iLife 5
Duration:
90 Minutes
Prior Knowledge and Skills:
Basic knowledge of manipulating sound.
MENC Standards Addressed:
MENC 4: Composing and Arranging Music within specified guidelines.
MENC 6: Listening to, analyzing and describing music.
MENC 8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
Materials:
www.findsounds.com and any other site for soundfiles.
Objectives:
1) The students will be assessed on how they tracked the sound files (research). They must include the website and what type of file they are going to transfer.
2) They will be marked on creativity in writing their soundstory.
3) The students will be assessed in how closely do the sounds match up to the story they have written. Is there a correct sequence for these sounds?
4) Have the students used different techniques such as pan, volume, and pitch change in their compositions.
Procedures:
Students will plan their story in detail and write what sound effects they would like to use to illustrate this story. It least needs to be about 2 paragraphs in explanation. This will take about 10 minutes, check each student’s story to make sure that sounds will be able to tell the story. Explain you have someone visually impaired and you are writing for them, so they cannot visualise the story you are telling, they can only listen. Then students log onto the internet and find the sounds needed. Using macs, they just save and drag these files onto the desktop. From here, it is dragged onto Garageband where the files can be manipulated. This could take a 50 minute lesson depending on students abilities. Manipulate sounds so they are in order of correct sequence, and from here students will answer a self-assessment sheet, and then teacher marks the assignment.
Evaluation:
Evaluation of results is both a self-assessment and a teacher assessment. Asking questions such as what sounds could I have used to convey the message better.
Teachers are marking for:
Accuracy of story- is it real, or are the sounds out of sequence?
How well planned the story is, or does it not even resemble what the music sounds like?
Technical skills: have students used the technical skills such as pan, pitch change etc in their compositions.
Follow Up:
Working with multi-media and creating a junior story book with a story to match the sound effects. Design a book with pictures and story, and sound effects to match as you read the story.