Creative Music Project: An analysis of fifth grade student compositions

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Creative Music ProjectAn analysis of fifth
gradestudent compositions

• Scott D. Lipscomb,1 Maud Hickey,1 David Sebald,2
  Donald Hodges2 1Northwestern University2The
  University of Texas at San Antonio

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Research Supported by

• Northwestern UniversityThe University of Texas
  at San AntonioMay Elementary SchoolTexaco
  Corporation

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Research Questions

• Can a music technology composition program be
  implemented in a typical school computer lab
  using inexpensive, off-the-shelf music hardware
  software tools?
• Can typical students not just the musically
  gifted learn to create quality music
  effectively using these tools?
• Can such a program be implemented within the
  parameters of a standard public school
  curriculum?
• What teaching approaches seem most effective in
  encouraging musical creativity using technology?

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Subjects Equipment

• N86
• Students from four weekly 5th grade music classes
  at Monroe May Elementary School in San Antonio
• Pentium 133 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 2GB HD
• Texaco grant provided SoundBlaster Live! Sound
  cards, LabTec LT 835 headphones, and BlasterKey
  keyboards for each of the 25 stations
• Cakewalk Express (free with sound card)

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Project Outline (10 weeks)

• Tonality judgment pre-test
• 8 weeks of instruction
• Learning to use the sequencer
• Music composition assignments
• Focus on musical form
• Tonality judgment post-test

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Creative Music Instruction

• Focus on musical form, but also introduced other
  elements as a means of introducing the concept of
  musical organization, i.e., rhythm, texture,
  harmony, and melody
• Use of popular music idiom
• Composition MIDI sequence
• Instructional Techniques
• Handouts
• Template

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Outline of Weekly Session (30 min)

• 15 min before class instructor presets
  computers
• 10 min students arrive instructor introduces
  concept(s) of the day
• 15 min students work on computers while
  instructor observes
• 5 min students save their work and listen to
  selected samples of previous weeks assignments
• 5 min students leave instructor resets
  machines

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Topics Covered

• Music as sound organized in time
• Repetition of sound patterns
• Strong/weak beats (meter)
• Tempo
• Layering of sounds (instrumentation)
• Shape of melody (contour)
• Melodic repetition (phrases)
• Musical form
• ABA, ABCBA, ABACA, etc.

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Student Compositions

• Examples to follow shortlyhttp//music.utsa.edu/
  cmp/

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Results of Tonality Study (SMPC 2001)

• Forced Choice
• Slider Task

Results
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Our Research Questions

• Can typical students learn to create music
  effectively with these tools described
  previously?
• Can Lomax (1976) cantometrics provide a useful
  tool for analyzing these student compositions?

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Cantometrics

• Alan Lomax

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Analytical Procedure

• 86 student compositions from the 4th-week of
  instruction (halfway point of CMP)
• Two investigators (SL MH) independently
  analyzed the compositions presented in random
  order
• Scale used
• Cantometrics
• Similarity in comparison to standard
• inter-judge correlation (r .80)

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Example Student Compositions

• Template
• Student 29 - same (nearly identical)
• Student 3 - moderate change
• Student 52 not same (vastly diff)

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Experimental Results
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Analyses

• Overall comparison using cantometrics
• Comparison of most dissimilar compositions to
  all others
• Avg similarity rating ? 4.5 on 5-point scale

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Musical Organization of Instruments(texture)
D higher ofmono poly
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Rhythmic coordination of instruments(blend)
D significantlygreater spread
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Overall Rhythmic Structure(meter)
D only free
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Melodic Shape(contour)
D greater spread
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Musical Form
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Phrase Length
4 meas linking consecutive 2-meas phrases
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Number of Phrases
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Position of Final Tone
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Keyboard Range
D 2-3 octave (more percussion sounds)
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Dominant Melodic Interval Size
D higher dominance ofsemitone and gt P4
greater flexibility
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Polyphonic Type
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Use of Tremolo
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Use of Accent
greater variety
higher unaccented
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Where Do We Go From Here?

• Future Research

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Future Research

• Instructional Issues
• Dont install unnecessary software
• Simplify or eliminate written materials
• Use simpler music creation tool
• Analysis
• Cantometrics provides a viable measurement tool
• More research required to explore applications
• quality as yet unmeasured
• This study addressed differences between
  populations

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Author Contact Information

• Scott D. Lipscomb lipscomb_at_northwestern.edu
• Maud Hickey mhickey_at_northwestern.edu
• David Sebald - dsebald_at_aim-ed.com
• Donald Hodges dhodges_at_utsa.edu
• CMP web site
• http//music.utsa.edu/cmp/

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(No Transcript)
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Forced Choice - Results
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Slider - Results