Snapshot of learning for GarageBand
Illustrating and teaching the theory concepts of transposition and harmonic progression
Contributed by Louise Field, Somerville Intermediate School , Howick
Focusing Inquiry
In my Year 8 specialist music class, I wanted students to have a tool to create more sophisticated compositions involving transposition and harmonic progressions. I have found that these theory concepts can be too complicated to teach if students don’t have a background in formal music theory. I was therefore looking for something to help simplify the process while still helping students to grasp the underlying concept. Garageband was readily available and gave students a visual and tactile environment in which to work so I decided to investigate using this software program.
Teaching and Learning
I introduced Garageband initially at the beginning of the learning sequence in order to help demonstrate the concept of harmonic progressions.
I found that students focused far quicker on this task if we were working with Garage Band before the word music theory was even said. Students were comfortable manipulating loops and had the listening skills to know what sounded good to their ears. They were actually creating accurate progressions without even being taught the concepts of “correct” harmonic progressions in traditional composition. It seems more effective to allow the use of Garage Band for the hands on experience before talking about why we need to use certain chords in certain places.
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Finding a melodic loop
Students chose a single acoustic loop to work with. I encouraged them to choose a short loop (no longer than 8 beats). I have found that piano loops work very well. -
Copying the loop
Students copied and pasted the same loop at least 5 times to allow enough loops to create a harmonic progression. This also helped to consolidate basic editing skills for some students who were unfamiliar with doing this. -
Opening the Track Editor
Students opened the Track Editor by clicking on the scissors icon in the lower left corner. Within this editor, they could view loops in relation to a piano keyboard or as a musical score and had tools to change the pitch of individual loops. -
Creating the harmonic progression
Students started by selecting the second loop and then transposed the loop up five semi-tones by dragging the pitch slider up to the number 5. This made the loop sound a perfect 4th above the first loop. A small +5 appeared in the lower left corner of the loop to show that it had been transposed. This helped students to keep track of loops that they had already transposed and they could see at a glance how far from the original pitch they had moved. -
Playing back the tracks
The students left the third loop at the original pitch. Once the entire sequence was played, this sounded the same as the first loop. This helped to show students that tonic chords appear frequently in traditional compositions.
Finally, the students transposed the fourth loop up by 7 semi-tones. This loop then sounded at an interval of a perfect 5th above the original. They were then able to play back the harmonic progression they had completed.
Learning Inquiry
What happened as a result of the teaching?
Students were able to easily transpose loops by using the pitch slider in Garageband. This gave them a short, effective snippet of a composition using single loops with harmonic progressions in a relatively quick time. This equipped them to participate in a discussion about the underlying theoretical concept having already accomplished an effective example of a harmonic progression. That led to students articulating their understanding of the “rules” of harmonic progression. Some students then went on to create another example of a harmonic progression on an acoustic instrument.
What were the outcomes for students?
Students now have basic knowledge of how chords should progress effectively in a composition (that is; I, IV, I, V, I progression). They have an understanding that compositions mostly begin and end with the same chord. Following class discussions, students have a bank to choose from of short, workable progressions. They can then proceed to use this knowledge to create short yet effective compositions using guitar chords or keyboards.
Student and Teacher reflection
The VoiceThread below shows the student’s responses to the following questions asking them to reflect on their learning through this process:
- I think Garageband is a useful teaching tool because...
- It is easier learning harmonic progression using Garageband than working through a theory workbook because...
- The specific features that helped me were...
- If I was going to repeat this process again, I would...
After the reflection by students, there is a slide showcasing some of the compositions that students created during the unit. The final slide is where I have summarised my own thinking in relation to the responses from the students and my own experiences during the unit.
