Walk Band in the Classroom

Composing using new technology

by ANTONIO MARTINO
    School sections
    • Primary
    Educational subjects
    • Composition
    • Music and technologies

Walk Band in the Classroom

This educational path focused on the use of new technologies in music education, using the tablet as a tool to add sounds to stories, passages and more, facilitating the personalization of learning, communication, motivation and, above all, inclusion, since music can help human beings to relate beyond any linguistic, spatial and temporal barriers. 
 
The Walk Band app, which simulates a series of musical instruments, allows students to give free rein to their creativity, to communicate thoughts, sensations and emotions, and unleash potential that is often unexpressed. In fact, after being divided into small groups, the students translated descriptions (in this case, the experiences, fears, anxieties and feelings as recounted in the diaries of First World War soldiers) into targeted and apposite soundscapes. The activities envisaged, using innovative methodologies, lab teaching and metacognition, were precious occasions for each student to become a conscious protagonist of their own process of growth. 

Work tools

The working tools were: 
- Tablets. 
- A mixer. 
- The Walk Band App (which features a piano keyboard, a guitar fretboard, a drum pad, drum machine, multi-track recorder and a USB midi keyboard). 
- Technical equipment. 
- Coordinated and choreographed sound production techniques using Walk Band loops and their modifications/manipulations. 
- Rhythmic games, production and distinguishing of durations and sounds. 
- Specialization of student/instrument and organizing of group work to produce a soundtrack. 
- Sound reproduction equipment (digital recorders, IWB, Internet access). 

Educational purposes

The skills, goals and training objectives selected by the teacher for this experience are shown below.

Competences
    Listening
    • Sound perception
    • Comprehension
    Production
    • Execution
    • Composition
    Reading and Writing
    • Use of unconventional analogic music notation
GOALS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETENCES [...]
    Primary
    Listening
    • Learning to listen to oneself and to the others
    • Identify the constitutive elements of a simple piece of music
    Production
    • Exploring different expressive capacities of voice, musical objects and musical instruments
    • Producing timbre, melodic and rhythmic combinations applying basic schemes; executing them with the voice, the body and instruments (including IT tools).
    Reading and Writing
    • Using analog and codified notation
Educational targets

- Breathing new life into schools on a digital level, accelerating the process of disseminating technology and enriching learning environments. 
- Reorganizing didactics through the introduction of digital languages and contents into educational musical practice and learning in laboratory application contexts. 
- Ability to explore different expressive possibilities of the voice, sound objects and musical instruments. 
- Ability to articulate timbre, rhythmic and melodic combinations and to use gestures and sounds, ultimately performing basic creations and experiments using sound objects. 
- Using the electronic music network for the development of vocations, interests, inclinations and approaches in the management and control of the digital communication tools of the information society. 
- Ability to interact constructively and actively participate in collective composition/performance experiences, using both acoustic and digital tools. 

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