Ten Creative Activities for 
Your MIDI Students 

Barton Polot
The University of Michigan

Two Paradigms of Music Education

MIDI Sequencing

K-12 Music Education
  • Sequencing Skills
  • Ear-to-Hand Skills
  • Creativity
  • Individualization
  • Musicianship
  • Performance Skills
  • Music Literacy
  • Repertoire
  • Group experience
  • Musicianship

Creative Activities

These examples were generated using Band-in-a-Box, from which I exported the music as Standard MIDI Files (SMFs). I then simply opened the SMFs in my MIDI sequencer and added the track consisting of two-measure "calls."

    1. Imitation
     
    To foster the ear-to-hand skills your students need for creating music with a MIDI sequencer, have them imitate the melody they hear in a call / response mode.  Your students can use the sequencer's notation window to view both the call and their response simultaneously -- and can adjudicate their own accuracy. Better yet, have them adjudicate their performance aurally.

    2. Emulation


    To foster the creative musicianship your students need for making music with MIDI, have them create a consequent phrase for each of the provided antecedent phrases.  What constitutes a "good" consequent phrase? The student should emulate the melodic shape of the antecedent phrase and/or its melodic rhythm. The student might also develop a motivic idea derived from the antecedent phrase. Importantly, their phrase should end on a tonic chord tone: so, mi, or (best of all) do. Their ears should help determine that these notes sound best (and that fa sounds worst).

    3. Add Chords


    To foster your students' harmonic understanding, have them create a chordal accompaniment track.  The melody of this sequence consists almost exclusively of chord tones, and the harmony employs only the three primary chords. Your students should be able to discern the appropriate chords aurally. More advanced students can also create accompaniment patterns with the chords they play.

    4. Add Bass


    To foster your students' understanding of the harmonic and rhythmic functions of the bass, have them create an appropriate bass track.  The melody of this sequence consists almost exclusively of chord tones, and the harmony employs only the three primary chords. Your students should be able to discern the appropriate chords aurally. More advanced students can also create accompaniment patterns with the chords they play.

    5. Add Drums / Percussion


    To foster your students' understanding of the role of percussion, have them create an appropriate drum / percussion track.  Your students need not simulate the sound of a full drum kit; often one or two "hand-held percussion" instruments are sufficient. Students may use multiple tracks (all routed to MIDI channel 10, presumably) to overlay additional percussion instruments.

    6. Emulate All Tracks


    Now that your students have developed a hands-on understanding of keyboard, bass and drums, see if they can sequence all the tracks of a consequent phrase.  In record mode, your sequencer will maintain a metronome beat during the four measures of silence. Your students can add their own additional tracks for the consequent phrase, or can overdub on the existing tracks.

    7. Error Detection


    One of the important features of MIDI sequencing is the ability to edit performances.  MIDI novices are unlike to take full advantage of this capability, often often because they are oblivious to their own performance errors.
    • (Example forthcoming)
    Your students will enjoy locating and fixing these recorded errors. In the process they will acquire fluency in the software's editing environment, and should be sensitized to aurally-identified errors in their own music.

    8. Orchestrate


    Here are two MIDI files from the Classical MIDI Archives. I have de-orchestrated the Mozart Symphony and reduced all tracks to a neutral piano timbre. What instruments would your students choose for each of these tracks? How do their choices compare with the composer's?  The World Wide Web is a wonderful source of fully-orchestrated MIDI files. It is easy for you to convert them to piano timbres, and is enlightening for your students to orchestrate them.

    9. Expression


    Have your students use continuous controllers to add expressive qualities to their melodies. Listen to the example below.  Volume (controller no. 7) can be used to generate expressivity. Your students can experiment with portamento, expression, modulation, and vibrato.

    10. Atonality and Effects


    Provide your students with opportunity to create music outside the bounds of our tonal system. 
    • (Example not provided)

    and: Your Ideas


    What do you want your MIDI students to be able to do? You can create files that foster MIDI skills, to help prepare them for music-making in the new paradigm

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