Jade’s face looked up at me through the Zoom window, one of 25 faces in an elementary music class that recently went completely remote during the pandemic. Although Jade was only in fifth grade, she had decided, like many others her age, that she didn’t like music. Trying to motivate students to learn music during the pandemic was difficult, and for a young, new music teacher like me who wanted all of her students to participate in class, Jade presented a challenge.
At the ripe age of 12, she was already convinced that she had no musical talent. Although she Jade was respectful and polite, she made it clear: all she wanted to play were her phone games.
I guess I’m not the only one who has had trouble reaching certain students in my class and as students get older it becomes a difficult endeavor. Once they fall behind, they start to feel like they are not good at music and it is not for them, let alone trying to learn music composition, that is worse than writing a novel. But what I noticed early in my teaching career is that when kids are excited to tell a story, they find a way. They draw comics. They write phonetically. They tell stories out loud.
That is not always the case with music. Somehow, with music, the barriers seem to go up too quickly; children feel that they have to learn a thousand things before they can make a sound. The tragedy is that the great musical composition can also be a story, it’s just told in a different way.
music technology to the rescue
Before most people compose music, they must be proficient in writing and reading music. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything to convince some students, including Jade, to learn the difference between “E flat” and “F#”.
I was wondering how I could lower the barrier to entry for students creating a story with limited music writing skills, like a kid reading a comic for the first time. In recent years, some programs have emerged that make it possible for anyone to create music scores, even before they are fluent in reading and writing music notation. Fortunately, I discovered hyperpunctuationa software program created by a non-profit organization called New Harmony Line and started by Tod Machover, a musician and music and media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Hyperscore takes the concept of music as a story and works with it. Students use dots and lines to create a musical image. In the background, the software uses the rules of Western musical harmony to fit a musical scale or key.
While this was an exciting development, we were still in the midst of the pandemic, and simply handing the software to my fifth graders and telling them to write music wasn’t enough. I needed a hook.
Initially, I thought of Jade and her classmates’ love for games, then I remembered another MIT project called “Scratch”, a program that millions of children have used to design their own computer games. Most of us have discovered that adding a musical score to a game improve our gaming experience. In fact, the kids who create the most polished games in Scratch often add a pre-recorded track. At that point, I thought, what if my students could compose their own tracks and add them to Scratch games?
Before testing my theory with the students, I chose a couple of popular Scratch games, went into the game’s code, and removed any existing soundtracks. After that, I let my students experiment with the program to see what they could do. I didn’t just ask them to compose music, I also wanted them to think about the game itself. I wanted to see if they could juggle factors they had never considered before:
What was the “mood” of the game?
What should be the theme of the music?
What was the story they were trying to tell with their composition?
How could your music enhance the player experience?
To be successful, they had to let their ear be their guide and use the lines they drew on Hyperscore to create a story. Before I knew it, the experiment was on.
A new form of musical expression
After the students were done with the game, I checked the results and was certainly surprised: Hyperscore had removed the barriers for the students. His creativity was no longer held back by his mastery of musical notation or his ability to play an instrument. They could explore musical ideas and make note changes in real time. Students whose musical voices had been quiet began to flourish, and being given the opportunity to write music to fit a game excited them.
While Jade initially lacked confidence in her musical abilities, she felt like a rock star when it came to playing around with Scratch and Hyperscore. Almost immediately, she understood the style and mood of the game, and her experience playing on her phone became a valuable asset. While she was working on a Scratch game called Frenetic, a fast-paced platformer with characters jumping on spikes, the music she designed matched that upbeat beat with just enough tension to remind you that you’re jumping on spikes. For the first time that year, she delivered one of the strongest performances in the class and was able to display a creative talent for music that she didn’t know, or didn’t think she had.
This experiment was my first step in rethinking what a music classroom might look like and how it might be relevant to my students. Jade and the rest of my students helped me realize how much students can do if artificial barriers to their creativity are removed and their interests are taken into account. My students have a lot to say, musically speaking, and I’m grateful to be able to create opportunities for them to say it in a unique, relevant, and accessible format. The field of education can learn a lot from the students we teach, but only if we are willing to meet them where they are and take their interests seriously.
