Composing, MIDI, Loops, Sequencing and ICT
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra - Encounter
In 1997 the Melbourne Symphony commissioned composer Stuart Greenbaum to compose a piece of music to assist students to explore individual instruments and their families. The work is 90 Minutes Circling the Earth (Hymn to Freedom) and it was the Australian Music Centre and APRA Classical Music Awards - Orchestral Work of the Year in 2008. The website offers a variety of ideas and activities that would appeal to a range of ages.
Audacity
Open source, free-ware, sound/music editing software
MIDIZone: Free MIDI files
Here you'll find an extensive range of high quality Midi files suitable for use in the classroom- many very 'contemporary' offerings are included here.
Jungulator
Free software for audio mixing and processing. The jungulator is made up of six ‘pods’, which are synchronized together. There’s an array of controls that affect how each sound is played back (timestretch, pitch shift and rearrange playback order). You can also load other VST effects into each pod. A great real-time environment for mixing multiple samples at a time. Suitable for beginners to advanced.
Sonic Postcards
Soundscape educational project in the UK. Practical educational packs for teachers; also listen to the kids’ work online.
Searching the Internet for a Certain MIDI File
search engines that help you find a specific MIDI file on the Internet.
Standard Midi Files on the Net
The List of Sites with MIDI Files
ACIDplanet
Allows users to create their own music using its free 'ACID Xpress' software, share their own music and view others' work via the forum. This site also regularly releases free loops that can be used with looping/music-editing software to create music.
Music Education Technology - Lesson plans for Teacher, Educators of Music
Music Education Technology is an extensive website that has a range of website links, activities and lesson plans.
Sound Rights
A British site that has online lessons and activities to help students develop song-writing skills as well as how the music industry works.
Berklee Shares
Berklee Shares is an electronic publishing initiative of Berklee College of Music. Its goal is to provide free access to faculty-authored Berklee music lessons designed for musicians, music students, and music educators. The Berkleeshares.com Web site is a library of free music lessons that are available for downloading, listening, viewing, or reading.
UNESCO – online tutorials, sound applications for music creation
These tutorials are broken down into the following areas:
Recording Score editing
MIDI and sound editing Sound processing and transformation
Sequencing MIDI & audio Sound analysis and representation
Sound Synthesis Sound mixing
Converters
Sound Sources and Samples (free)
Free Sound
Free Sound – a free library of recorded sounds. You can upload your sounds too, thus contributing to the community.
Find Sounds
http://www.findsounds.com/types.html
The University of Iowa Musical Instrument Library
High quality recordings of orchestral samples
http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS.html
Harmony Central
A list of midi sequencers available to download with links
Sound Junction
An award winning interactive music technology and composing site
Jam2Jam is a new innovation in music making, providing musicians of all ages with opportunities to experiment with computers and music. Designed by Andrew Brown, Andrew Sorensen and Steve Dillon, the program generates music that you can control while it plays. Jam2Jam allows you to jointly make music with friends like a band, without the need for instrumental skills.
Vermont MIDI Project
This site has information on how it teams students up with composers, lesson plans about music composition and samples from a range of students' works.
Educating with Sibelius
This website provides lesson plans and resource materials that can be used with the Sibelius range of software as well as informative videos about how Sibelius and music technology can be used in the classroom.
Song writing
Most songs written in the last one hundred years can be loosely grouped into one of several categories; songs written around a chord progression, songs written around a melody, or songs written around a riff.
Electroacoustic Resource Site (EARS)
Browsing the index and glossaries can be useful for getting an idea about various aspects of electroacoustic and computer music. Or use as a targeted reference, as you would a music dictionary. Entries in the index are grouped into genre, sound shaping, musicology, performance practice, sound production & manipulation, and musical structure. Vocoding, timestretching, reverberation fall under the sound shaping category. VJing, glitch, acousmatic, Japanese noise music, turntablism fall under genre and performance practice.
Interactive Audio Links on the Web
What is striking here is the interactive interface. Huge and extensive set of links. Mind bogglingly brilliant with an emphasis on contemporary art music and the interface between visual art and music. O'Boyle describes it as "an interactive music video". Repertoire includes works by Phillip Glass Jean-Luc Lamarque, Jason Freeman, Vera Sylvia Bighetti, James Tindall.
Exploratorium
Exploratorium’s website provides online exhibitions and videos about the science of music. The site also answers scientific questions about music and sound such as: ‘Why does some music give me goose bumps?’. We like the composing with the ‘Kitchen Syncopater’ and the ‘Dot Mixer’, not to mention the ‘hip hop’ dance moves. ‘This is cool!’
Cybodega - parto fanfare
Amateur street bands comprising horns and percussion complete with fancy dress costumes and dancing and marching are a well established and surprisingly well organized tradition throughout Europe and Latin America. They even bob up in Turkey, India and parts of Asia. With repertoire based around Latin, African and Jazz tunes- your just as likely to hear a pop tune, funk or disco, these combo’s which can be small to huge, are invariably highly entertaining amusing and musical- not to mention inclusive. I strongly recommend checking out some of the amazing hundred or so video clips from festivals and street parties around the world. On the ‘Partos’ page (the language is French) you will find over 50 popular ‘Street Band’ scores arranged for multiple instruments, as well as accompanying midi files.
Indian African and Balinese Music and Dance:
Creating a Musical World Without Walls
‘...a place where new cross-cultural music and dance is created by learning from the world's great ancient traditions. Welcome to the No. 1 charting world music education site from Ancient Future…’
This site brings together an impressive array of information and ideas concerning musical procedures of a selection of music cultures. From African bell patterns, through Indian Talas, Arabic rhythmic modes, to the interlocking rhythms of the Balinese Gamelan- all is revealed.
George's Greek MIDI Site
In this site you'll find MIDI versions of Greek songs and tunes, mostly Rembetika and ‘classic oldies’. There is something captivating about the ‘Greek blues’ which represents an excellent entry point into music of the region and around the entire Mediterranean.
In Bb 2.0
by Darren Solomon (USA)
20 Youtube videos arranged in a 5x4 grid. Play them as you please, in any combination. Each one consists of a different instrument and different recording in Bb (B flat).
Feel free to join in and play along.
Pixel by Pixel by David Krause, Volker Bertelmann, Fons Hickmann, and Simon Gallus (Germany)
The visuals are simple, excellent, and you exercise subtle but audible influence on the music as you move the mouse and occasionally click. The relation between the audio and the visual is subtle and intriguing. Also, as audio (de) composition, this is rich.
Pianographique by Jean-Luc Lamarque (France)
Keyboard and mouse controlled aural/visual interactivity. This project has been ongoing for several years; a new piece is added at least once a year. Action packed and full of surprises.
Pianolina by David Krause, Volker Bertelmann, Fons Hickmann, and Simon Gallus (Germany)
From the Grotrian piano company. Piano notes are represented by coloured squares that you drag and drop into a sound space affected by gravity. Play around with tunes from Beethoven, E. Satie and F. Loh. or deconstruct your own!
Pâte à Son by LeCielEstBleu
on an initiative of the Cité de la Musique. The Pâte à Son is a sound toy and compositional tool conceived to encourage musical experimentation. Drag instruments, switches, and transporter pipes from the conveyor belt to the checkerboard above to make music. Rotate the pieces. Choose a melody. Change pitch, tempo and volume to fine-tune your composition.
Mytune=Mypollock by CJ Yehs (USA/Taiwan)
Select a colour. Then use the keyboard (Q,W,E,R,T,Y,U,I) to create a tune and a Pollockish bitmap.
Blonk Organ by Jaap Blonk and friends (Netherlands)
Japp Blonk is a famous sound poet and writer. This work is from 1997, making it one of the first interactive sound poems on the Web
The Beatbox DJ Mixer
is an interactive music console by ‘Blob’
‘While sitting at your computer and using your mouse and keyboard, why should you all of a sudden just sit there while the computer plays at you. We believe that music delivered to computers via the Internet should also be in a format that allows you to play with the music.’
‘Cmapm’
Help two colourful alien DJ cartoon characters mix a wild tune or two. You can even dance and sing along. You might even learn a new language.
Global grooving
is a loop mixing game with a diiference. Mix syles and instruments from a selection of world music cultures including China Brazil and the Middle East.
Virtual drums
Here you’ll find four ‘virtual drum kits to play around with.
Make your own music game
Just choose four musicians playing different instruments from a broad selection, drag them on to the stage then mix each on to create music.
Indian Music Mixer
This is my favorite
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for kids (fun with music!)
Try the ‘Composerizer’, ‘Performulator’, and the ‘Harmonizor’. Fabulous fun!
Morton Subotnick’s Creating Music
The goal of this web site is to provide an environment for children to experience creative play in the creation of music, with the same ease they have been able to enjoy with toys, drawing tools, building blocks, puppets, etc.
The New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s Kidzone
Highly interactive, the site allows the child to perform various activities and interact with a wide range of orchestral instruments