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.
Article posted May 5, 2008 at 01:22 PM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 1190
For my final project I was thinking all week and then it hit me when I was at my aunt's funeral actually. I want to click my favorite hymn, Amazing Grace, into Garageband and I want to add instruments into it and then find the video that I saw when I was in the break room at the funeral. The video is on world hunger and they had just silence in the video and I thought that that would be something good to add a Christian Hymn to. Then the video would have Amazing Grace as its background music.
Article posted May 5, 2008 at 01:22 PM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 1190
Article posted May 23, 2008 at 10:49 AM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 956
For my final project I found a world hunger movie on you tube. The video needed a little work because it was a video advertising a benefit for a high school. So I cut parts of the video and made it all fit together. Then I went into Garageband and clicked in all the parts for the hymn Amazing Grace. When I had all the parts clicked in I started picking instruments for the parts. I found a couple different instruments. I used a violin for all the parts then I added an electric piano that had a heavenly sound. Then I used choir voices and added them to the alto, tenor, and bass parts. I thought I had it completed and ready to hand in. Then Mr. Witte gave me the idea that I should maybe start out with just the melody and then as the emotion progresses the parts are then added in. When I was done with that part I tried to play the song and the movie together and it didn't work. So with the help of Dion and Mr. Witte we found the problem and then it worked very well. So the final project starts out with just melody and then I added the alto parts and then tenor and then bass.
Article posted May 23, 2008 at 10:49 AM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 956
Article posted May 29, 2008 at 09:39 AM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 822
I took the song and put it in garage band. Then, I took it and I cut out various selections with was 5 from the original song Whoomp There It Is. After that, I played a part of one of the MJ commercials and put bells in between. I also put bells at the end and faded them out. Finally, I added all sorts of drum kits from garage band to make this version come alive. I also took one of the bass parts and played that to the song. All these were factors in making this song great.
Article posted May 29, 2008 at 09:39 AM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 822
Article posted May 23, 2008 at 10:45 AM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 901
For my final project my first idea was to redo our first project which was to make a song for a commercial. After I decided against this my next plan was to redo a song by Simon & Garfunkel. I chose the song Scarborough Fair. The first step was to find the sheet music online. I found it on
google. After I put in the two parts I had, Soprano and Alto, I lowered the alto an octave for the tenor and 2 octaves for the bass. At first I had all of the parts as harpsichords, but I soon changed the bass and tenor to a viola and a double bass. I left the alto as a harpsichord and changed the soprano to mixed choir. The first verse is only the soprano. the second verse starts with just soprano and alto, but two measures in the tenor and bass start. I think my project turned out really well.
Article posted May 23, 2008 at 10:45 AM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 901
Article posted June 2, 2008 at 09:11 PM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 813
Sorry about getting this into you late. I totally forgot until today to make this entry.
After playing around with all the possibilities, I decided to make a song that revolved around a simple concept. I made the song from three notes: B flat, C, and D. These three notes can come from hitting a C and using the pitch controller to manipulate the C note. I used this feature of the keyboard to make swells of the notes that would transition in pitch without a noticeable changing of keys. After deciding to make the song with the three notes, I also made the choice to use the notes in different styles. This shows that no matter how simple the concept note-wise, you can still make some great sounding styles and sounds.
I made sure that I didn't use any loops in the project and that I made all the parts by MIDI, even drum tracks. The first verse involves a dance/drum 'n' bass beat and feel. By using a heavy synth sound with a repeating drum loop, I thought I had fulfilled the feel of the style. I then made a rock style segment that featured bass guitar and drums. The bass and guitar once again used the same notes. I thought I had some good rock rhythms in there. The last style I used was Jazz with trumpet, upright bass, and drumset. I also had a little trumpet solo section. The ending goes back to the drum 'n' bass style. The transitions between each style isn't really there, but I not only had time to figure how to make a transition, I wasn't sure even how to.
I thought I got the point across with the song that you can make a decent song with a limited amount of notes in various different styles.
Article posted June 2, 2008 at 09:11 PM GMT-6 •
comment • Reads 813
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.
