District/School Administration PK-16 Program Support Educational Technology
Technology Toolkit

Creating Music
Dighton-Rehoboth Reginal School District

Project Description

The students at Dighton Elementary School created their own songs for the recorder and/or xylophone using Finale NotePad (music composition software). The class worked in the computer lab to practice using the software program, and the students created their own pieces of music. In the classroom the students tested their music by playing their compositions on recorders and xylophones. After they revised their work, the students performed and critiqued the pieces of music.

This cumulative assignment allowed the students to review many previous concepts, and allowed the teacher to gauge the students' progress in basic understanding of skills, ease of composition, and playing skills on two different instruments. Prior to this project, the students had several months of experience playing simple songs on the recorder and/or classroom xylophones using the notes B, A, and G. The students had also learned to play several familiar songs and had practiced proper breathing and finger techniques to develop musical performances on their instruments. The students were familiar with several rhythms (whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes grouped in fours, half rest, and quarter rest), and they were introduced to the software program in a previous class.

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