Technology at the service of music education Tecnología al servicio de la educación musical Miguel Román Álvarez, PhD. Lecturer. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid ([email protected]) Abstract: Resumen: Technology is part of our everyday lives, Las tecnologías, queramos o no, forman par­ whether we like it or not. Learning to live te de nuestra vida cotidiana. Aprender a convi­ with it is not just a requirement but is also vir con ellas no solo es una obligación, sino una necessary if we are to avoid succumbing to a necesidad para no caer en un nuevo analfabe­ new form of illiteracy: technological illiteracy. tismo: el tecnológico. Los docentes debemos con­ As teachers we must contribute through con­ tribuir con nuestra formación permanente a la tinuous training to the computer literacy that alfabetización digital que la sociedad actual im­ contemporary society demands of us in the pone en el desarrollo diario de nuestras activi­ day­to­day performance of our activities. In dades. En las siguientes páginas presentaremos year LXXV, n. 268, September-December 2017, 481-495 the following pages, we present and analyse y analizaremos algunas de las herramientas some of the tools available for use in music disponibles para su utilización en la educación education, applying criteria of quality, stabil­ musical, desde criterios de calidad, estabilidad ity, and, above all, freedom of use. y, sobre todo, libertad en su utilización. Keywords: ICT, musical education, music Palabras clave: TIC, educación musical, software, new technologies, free software, ed­ software musical, software libre, nuevas tec­ ucation. nologías, formación. revista española de pedagogía 1. Introduction At certain points in the history of ed­ When discussing the use of Informa­ ucation, coloured chalk, photocopiers, tion and Communication Technologies whiteboards, tape and CD players, tele­ (ICT) in music education, in broad terms, visions, video, etc. might have been seen the first issue is how to define them. What as «new technologies». However, the most resources are we discussing when we dis­ important medium in current society cuss these technologies? is undoubtedly the computer, allowing Revision accepted: 2017-06-26. This is the English version of an article originally printed in Spanish in issue 268 of the revista española de pedagogía. For this reason, the abbreviation EV has been added to the page numbers. Please, cite this article as follows: Román Álvarez, M. (2017). Tecnología al servicio de la educación musical | Technology at the service of music education . Revista Española de Pedagogía, 75 (268), 481-495. doi: https://doi.org/10.22550/REP75-3-2017-09 https://revistadepedagogia.org/ ISSN: 0034-9461 (Print), 2174-0909 (Online) 481 EV Miguel ROMÁN ÁLVAREZ collaborative use of computer applications The presence of ICTs in music educa­ specific to the field of music and sharing tion, as in education in general, is initially work on the internet. dependent on two basic aspects: equipping Therefore, new technologies in music schools and classrooms, and the teaching education are currently defined as those staff’s training in and use of them. using internet­connected computers as This piece presents the tools teachers the focus of the various on­line and off­ might use in the compulsory education line possibilities they offer: playing audio centres which have basic ICT provision. and video, presentations, simulations, Knowledge and in-depth use of them and searching for information. should be part of the digital training and While not all specific music technology skills of teachers specialising in music. might be integrated into ICT re sources, we now face a degree of globalisation that, in our opinion, makes this separa­ 2. ICT resources in music tion difficult and unnecessary. Resources The emergence of and standardisation such as microphones and speakers are on MIDI technology and its language in currently part of the hardware of the the 1980s was a technological revolution great majority of computer resources, in music. The development of it meant and the internet provides online tools and that we can now all use its potential in software resources that make it possible particular in our personal computers. It to create activities and musical resources is just a few decades (1985) since Atari1 with applications that previously had to launched the Commodore Amiga, a be installed on the computers as well as computer­games console that included sharing their own resources on websites, Notator, a MIDI interface and software blogs, etc. for music sequencing and score editing. Consequently, it is difficult to es­ Since then, technological development tablish clear distinctions between the has made it possible for individuals to different technological elements that have their own small home recording stu­ feature in music education experiences dio at a cost that would once have been with ICT. On similar lines to Marqués unimaginable, thus making it accessible (2011, pp. 17-35), in this article we in­ to much of the population. clude in the term ICT all musical tech­ nologies associated with computing, This development has meant that we both hardware and software, as well as can have sound sequencers­editors and a wide range of technologies that en­ sufficient technology to make recordings revista española de pedagogía 2017, 481-495 n. 268, September-December LXXV, year able the transformation of information, and mixes at our disposal, as well as tech­ in particular the use of computers and nological resources for simulating per­ computer programs to create, modify, formances by instrumental groups that store, administer, protect, and recover previously were only possible live and in this information. recording studios. 482 EV Technology at the service of music education Numerous technological resources essary areas in education: more comput­ are available for musical activities, and ers, teacher training, etc. new ones appear every day. We will, Education in values. Schools should therefore, attempt to classify them, promote the use of free software for the making an initial distinction between same reason they promote recycling: be­ online, or Web 2.0, resources and off-line cause it benefits us all. ones, in other words resources that can be used without an internet connection. Free software encourages students to Within this classification, a secondary learn how computers and software itself classification will consider whether the work. Future programmers start pro­ resources are proprietary, and so the gramming in their adolescence. By allow­ corresponding licences must be obtained ing access to the source code, free software to use them, or whether they are re­ helps enormously with their learning. sources from the free software or open The mission of schools is to teach peo- source movement, which can be shared ple to be cooperative, supportive, and crit- and used freely. ical citizens. These are the foundations of Any attempt to list all of the available society. In computing, cooperation means, software related to music and its possi­ among other things, sharing, being able year LXXV, n. 268, September-December 2017, 481-495 ble use in education would be extremely to make copies for all of their classmates prolix, and so we will basically focus or taking home the software used in class. our attention on free­software resources And with proprietary software all of this available. The reasoning behind limiting is unlawful. the sample to resources from the free soft­ Finally, teaching students to use free ware field is, on the one hand, the need software and participate in the community for resources in education that can be of software users/developers is a practi­ used without a significant investment by cal lesson in civics. It teaches students revista española de pedagogía schools and students, and, on the other that the ideal is the model of public ser­ hand, the need for lessons on values and vice and solidarity, not the profit-at-any- respect for other people’s work: «intellec­ cost model of some corporations. All levels tual property». can and should use free software. Authors like Adell and Bernabé (2007, Among the tools we find for carrying p. 185) identify the following educational out musical activities in education, we reasons for using free software in ed­ will pay particular attention to sequenc­ ucation, taken from the ideas of Richard ers. Sequencers, whether audio or MIDI, Stallman: offer broad possibilities for manipulating Free software can be copied and redis- and creating music that are available tributed at cost price. Educational author­ to everyone, especially music teachers. ities can provide all of their educational These tools make it possible to generate centres with software at a very low price musical ideas and turn them into sound and use the resources saved in other nec­ with great versatility. Writing a musical 483 EV Miguel ROMÁN ÁLVAREZ idea, motif or phrase, whether invented or achieving a master audio track in stereo transcribed from a piece by a composer, like any CD recording. and instantly being able to listen to it with different timbres, tempos, and intensities Having defined the limits of this anal­ is something that is only possible with the ysis, we will now divide the tools we will use of technology. This is an example of consider into two categories: on­line re­ meaningful learning from individual or sources and off­line resources. collective experimentation. MIDI sequencers allow us to play 2.1. Off-line music resources anything from a simple melody to a This section considers music software symphony with all of its instruments, to resources that must be installed on the write a song to sing in class, to be able computer to be used. From the free code to change its tonality with a few mouse applications, we can find on the inter­ clicks to adjust it to the tessitura of the net, the most important and stable are: class as a group, to prepare an accompa­ Audacity2, Ardour3, Denemo4, Muse­ niment that acts as a harmonic support score5, Hydrogen6, LMMS7 (Linux Multi to singing, as well as an endless list of Media Studio), GNU Solfege8, and possibilities that we can discover with Phonascus9.