Day #1
This first class began with an exploration of the DAW Soundtrap...
I have had some prior experience with Soundtrap, having used it in my assignments last semester for Popular Music. Soundtrap is widely used in the classroom and is a popular DAW of choice for music teachers as it offers free versions, provides opportunities for students to collaborate on a project while working on separate devices and as it is web-based, can be used seamlessly from Mac to PC.
Soundtrap offers a wide variety of loops which is an ideal way for students to start making music. From the first music education lecture in first year at the Con, we have been challenged to reflect on our own music education experience to realise and appreciate that technicalities such as not being able to read music notation, should not stand in the way of 'musicing.' From my own experience as a third year prac student, many students were engaged in music lessons when they were able to realise their own creative potential as composers when they were given the opportunity to use a DAW (in the case of my prac school, FL Studio and Acid) to make musical decisions for themselves through improvisation (and all without being able to read music!) Soundtrap and other similar DAWS are a celebration of this notion which supports music making for all students regardless of prior musical experiences and training.
4 images below...
As shown in the images above, Soundtrap features an array of loops which are available at no extra cost. These loops are a particularly good starting place for students to begin improvising for composition tasks as they can provide a clear starting point to build upon musical ideas. Another notable feature of Soundtrap (no pun intended) is the piano roll which appears when students change from the patterns feature. This is a very clear representation of both the length of the note (duration) and the pitch of the note which can easily be manipulated without the need to read notation in the western art music tradition. This is one of my favourite features of Soundtrap!
To look beyond Soundtrap and other free DAWs, I've looked at the work of my friend and colleague Nicole Lewis (https://nannelewis70.wixsite.com/musictech/tech-project) for insight into the best current free DAWs, so here's the list:
- SoundTrap
- Tracktion
- Pro Tools Free by Avid
- Studio One Prime by Presonus
- Cakewalk by Bandlab
- Ardour
Unfortunately Cakewalk is only available on PC, so as a Mac user I won't be able to download and use it however, Cakewalk is comparable to GarageBand for Mac so Mac users, don't fret!