Songsmith: create your own songs

This free new trial Microsoft download is attempting to take on Apple’s excellent Garageband, and is a great way for students to create copyright free music quickly and easily. This download is a trial and enables users a total of six hours use, plenty of time to create lots of songs and identify if it is worth purchasing.

Microsoft explains:

Get your first taste of songwriting.

Songsmith Note Character

Ever sing in the car? Maybe in the shower? You know who you are. Admit it, you like to sing, and you like music. Ever thought of writing your own music? Most people never get a chance to try… but we want to give everyone a piece of the songwriting experience, so we’ve developed Songsmith, an application that lets you create a complete song just by singing! Are we going to turn you into an award-winning songwriter overnight? Of course not. But Songsmith will give you a way to create something authentically musical and authentically yours, even if you don’t know the first thing about chords or music theory.

It’s as simple as clicking “record”.

Songsmith Note Character

Just open up Songsmith, choose from one of thirty different musical styles, and press record. Sing whatever you like – a birthday song for Mom, a love song for that special someone (they’ll be impressed that you wrote a song for them!), or maybe just try playing with your favorite pop songs. As soon as you press “stop”, Songsmith will generate musical accompaniment to match your voice, and play back your song for you. It’s that simple.

Songsmith is for musicians too.

Songsmith Note Character

For songwriters, is Songsmith going to replace the craft of songwriting? Never. Could it be a super-useful “intelligent scratchpad” for exploring new melodies and ideas? Definitely. If you’re a songwriter, you’ve probably had the experience of coming up with a melody and finding the nearest object with a “record” button on it just to get your idea down. Imagine that first quick experience also letting you explore chord progressions, styles, even basic arrangement ideas. Then of course you’d work with other tools, other people, your instruments, and your own musical intuition to really develop a song. But Songsmith can be a great tool that lets you quickly explore new ideas in places where you couldn’t before (on the go, on the bus, in the airport, etc.). And Songsmith works great with instrumental input too!

Make it your song.

Songsmith Note Character

Of course, Songsmith’s ideas might not be exactly what you want for your song. It’s music after all, and there’s no single right answer. So Songsmith not only comes up with music for your song, but puts you in the driver’s seat by letting you customize the chords and arrangement for your song, even if you’ve never heard of “chords” before. Move the “happy” and “jazzy” sliders around to get the chords you want. Lock the chords you like and let Songsmith change the ones you don’t. Set up your own custom band. Make it your song!

What can I do with the songs I make?

Songsmith Note Character

Save your songs as audio files to send to your friends and family or post online at social networking sites. Share your Songsmith files with your friends so they can put their ideas into your songs. Even create music videos!

Rich instrument sounds make all the difference.

Songsmith Note Character

We’ve partnered with one of the industry’s finest digital instrument producers –Garritan – and one of the leading developers of computer synthesizers – Plogue– to provide rich instrumentation for your song. These instruments are the real deal, and you can judge for yourself over at our music page. Change the instruments as much as you like, and if you want even more professional sounds, Songsmith will help you buy additional instruments from Garritan.

A tool really worth investigating as creating copyright free music for presentations is a big issue for schools to address. Songsmith can help you. A nice way to teach digital citizenship as well.

It’s not about the tools, it’s about the skills

Author of the wonderful award winning Langwitches blog Silvia Tolisano (Twitter name is @langwitches), has written a must-read post. Looking at the advent of Web 2.0 and the way it is perceived by parents, Tolisano addresses the skills developed and used by students in using tools such as blogs, creating podcasts and adding to wikis rather than the tools themselves. To read this post, go to Silvia’s blog now!

Mount Waverley Primary School Film Festival

Lee King, Mount Waverley Primary School’s ICT Coordinator/Specialist has developed an innovative and exciting approach to ICT in her school. Lee writes:

Mt Waverley Primary Film Festival a.k.a. ‘The Moscars’

 The journey ……

 New School Buildings

 It is well recognized that school design has a powerful impact on both student outcomes and innovative teaching. Throughout 2008 and 2009, Mt Waverley Primary School has been going through an extensive rebuilding and renovation project as part of the Victorian Government’s 10-year plan to transform Victorian schools.

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Our new buildings have been designed with the aim of giving students a contemporary education so they are equipped with the skills they will need to be successful and productive members of a 21st Century workforce and society. The design of the learning areas was influenced by the need to be flexible and supportive of different learning styles. For example, the ‘great spaces’ outside the learning areas support collaborative approaches to teaching and learning as well as providing physical space for an interdisciplinary curriculum and self-directed learning. The students are able to ‘spill out’ into areas that allow for a greater degree of independence, individual learning and reflection.

Year 6 Production – The Trees and The Stars

 With the new learning areas came the recognition that our traditional Year 6 Production was no longer ‘cutting the mustard’.

 Rehearsals took place in core learning time

  • Only a small group of students were truly engaged in the activities
  • Bored students were a behavioural issue
  • Large chunks of time were taken up with a narrow band of discipline-based domains
  • As educators, we were not adequately preparing our students for a 21st Century world.

 As the ICT Specialist/Coordinator, I had been keen to introduce the Year 6 students to ‘Claymation Animation’ and after various discussions with the Year 6 teachers and the Leadership team, the idea of a ‘Film Festival Night’ was born. This would replace ‘The Production’.

 Convincing the teachers was relatively easy. Convincing the students was an entirely different matter.

 These students had yet to experience the trials and tribulations of The Production. They had been part of the audiences since Prep and were looking forward to being the ‘Stars’. They didn’t realize that most of them would end up being ‘Trees’. And, that they would spend many hours rehearsing to be trees!

 There were tears and the school was on the receiving end of a petition and letters and phone calls of complaints from some of the parents.

 Outcomes:

These were the changes we were teaching towards. They included attitudinal as well as academic outcomes:

  •  draw on students’ multiple intelligences
  • provide opportunities for students who are not typically good at school with a chance to see themselves as capable members of the class
  • build on their story telling skills
  • be involved in cooperative and collaborative learning
  • be engaged in problem solving, higher order thinking, critical and creative thinking
  • plan and reflect
 
  • provide opportunities for personalized learning that supported different learning styles and levels
  • Increase students’ control of their own learning
  • be involved in a multi-disciplinary project where ICT is interwoven with other VELS Domains.

 Creating an animation involves music, visual arts, script writing, story development, physics, spatial awareness, ICT, problem solving, personal and interpersonal development – all key skills necessary for the 21st century.

 The Australian Centre for the Moving Image

 The staff decided to take on a team teaching approach. This would include our Art and Music Specialists, our two Assistant Principals, Year 6 class teachers and myself (ICT). As none of the staff had had experience with stop motion animation, we all attended a professional development day at ACMI to assist us to support the students in producing their own stop-motion animations. We believed we needed to experience what we were asking our students to do.

 We worked as cooperative learning groups (much as the students were going to do) to explore basic stop-motion animation, production processes and skills completing a short stop-motion animation.

 Areas covered in the training included:  

  •    storyboarding
  •    scripting
  •    character
  •    set design and construction
  •    camera 
  •    editing
  •    music   

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 We thoroughly enjoyed the day, however, we were made aware of what a steep learning curve we were facing.

 Community Partnerships

 First and foremost – going over to the ‘white side’……

 It was clear that Mac computers offer the Applications needed to create and edit the animations. Garageband would also enable the students to compose their own music, add voiceovers and layer these to make a cohesive and fluent sound track.

 We were primarily a ‘PC’ school and few of the teachers and students had experience with Mac computers. We leased 15 Macbooks and Gary Bass from Connecting Point, together with Glenda Schubert, our Assistant Principal, ran familiarization workshops with the students. They particularly enjoyed Photo Booth and much laughter could be heard when they viewed some of the grotesque images produced.

……… The Apple Store Chadstone

As part of the Year 6 Film Festival Project, we organised a series of excursions to the Apple Store at Chadstone Shopping Centre.

 The purpose of the excursions was to provide the students with hands-on access to the Mac computers and the expertise of select Mac trainers and Specialists. They had opportunities to create new projects and showcase some of their existing work. The emphasis was on using software to create animations and movies.

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Needless to say, they were highly engaged and loved the experience.

 Glenda and I took advantage of the One-to-One training offered by Apple and completed extensive training in the editing and production stages of movie making.

 …….. Parents and Friends

 It was soon obvious that we didn’t have enough funds the cost of the equipment needed.

 Parents and Friends to the rescue! They gave us enough to supply:

  • Digital microscope cameras
  • USB back-up devices
  • Lights
  • Additional software
  • A visit by Adam Elliot

 We were extremely lucky that they valued the vision and philosophy behind the project.

 Adam Elliot

 Yes …. THE Adam Elliot!

 We wanted to launch our Film Festival with a ‘big bang’ and decided to approach Adam to speak to our students. Who better to inspire and motivate them? 

 From the beginning, he was keen to be involved. He is passionate about his craft and I believe that his interest in our project arises from his belief that schools should provide for more diverse forms of self-expression.

 The Academy Award winning Animation Writer and Director grew up in Mt Waverley and his 2009 feature film “Mary and Max” is set in Mt Waverley Town. It incorporates many scenes and objects remembered from his childhood.

 He spoke to the students and spent time with each of the animation teams, offering advice and tips and tricks. Many of the students incorporated these into their own animations.

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One aspect that Adam emphasized was the importance of the story line.

 ‘At first I was embarrassed [on winning the Oscar for Harvie Krumpet in 2004], and then realised that we won because our story was stronger. I truly believe it has nothing to do with budgets or what studio the film came out of. At the end of the day it all comes down to a good story well told’.

 He is a wonderful man – an engaging and inspiring speaker, unassuming and generous with his time and very patient with the endless questions that came his way.

 Adam must have enjoyed his visit to Mt Waverley Primary as he offered to come to our Film Festival night and be a guest speaker! We were delighted as this would add weight and credence to our project.

 Meanwhile …… At The Coalface

 The story was the beginning.

 The teachers used an inquiry approach and immersed the students in examples of claymation animations. Pingu was a favourite!

 Genre workshops followed. These included:

  • Comedy(slapstick, parody/satire, sitcom, mockumentary)
  • Drama & Reality TV
  • Documentary/Current Affairs/News
  • Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

 The students organised their own co-operative learning groups. They identified the genre they would like to use and decided upon a Production Company name. Students designed a company logo and this was attached to a specially designed Mt Waverley Film Festival lanyard.

 Many sessions of script writing, editing and storyboarding followed.

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 Specialist classes in Art involved the making of the clay figures, sets and backdrops.

 Music focussed on the use of Garageband for composing the appropriate music for the sound tracks.

 My own role, as the ICT Specialist, involved training the students in the use of the various software programs such as ‘I Can Animate’, iMovie and Garageband (for voice recording and sound effects) and the final editing process.

 Once the animations were complete, the students designed their own movie posters to advertise our film night.

The Night

It was highly successful and the culmination of a great deal of creative collaboration, skill development and enthusiasm. The students thoroughly enjoyed showcasing their achievements for their friends, family and Adam Elliot. Their interest and enjoyment in the ‘Claymation’ project has indicated overwhelming satisfaction and engagement in the process.

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The staff involved will soon be participating in a debriefing to discuss the positives and negatives. There are many aspects that we, as teachers will need to refine for 2010. This has given us a focus for our teaching. E5 here we come! 

Adam Elliot speaking to the audience

Adam Elliot speaking to the audience

Winners of the inaugural Adam Elliot Award
Winners of the inaugural Adam Elliot Award

Congratulations to Lee and all of the teaching staff, students, parents, friends and Adam Elliot on an innovative and engaging project that will no doubt stay in the minds of those involved for a very long time. An amazing project!