This class is for high school students at Winnebago Lutheran Academy who want to learn how to make music on computers. We use Audacity and Garageband as our main tools, and we have fun almost every single day figuring out how to make music using audio and MIDI, but we also learn how to record vocals and instruments and even play guitar and drums if we need to.
We keep personal blogs (look on the right column of this page and click on our names) to help us remember what we've been working on, keep track of the all the decisions that we've made on our projects, and to share with our family and friends the music that we've created.
A New Year Has Begin
Whoa. Time flies. I just deleted the classes from the last three semesters to get ready for this year's new Music Tech class, and it got me thinking about all the cool songs that kids had composed in Music Tech class: Braden's electronica "I Like Music Tech Class" or Ja Kyoung's Korean Blues about being hungry. It's been really fun seeing how creative students have been and how music has become important and accessible to them.
Now a new school year has begun. As always, there are a couple of changes: (1)I finally got around to painting the new projection wall so there wouldn't be a glare on the screen during class, and (2) there is only one section of Music Tech this semester, probably because of dipping enrollments. But, in the few days we've met this week, I'm already excited by the computer knowledge of these new students and one student in particular who has used her class lessons on cutting music in Audacity to cut two songs already for the WLA dance team. (Way to go, Michaela!)
Dale Witte is the choir director and music technology teacher at Winnebago Lutheran Academy, Fond du Lac, WI. He has been teaching since January 1990 and really enjoys teaching students how God's gift of music works. Dale is also a church organist, piano player, violinist, and church music composer.