CELEBRATING Innovation
have written an essay and then, using scissors and glue, stuck musical examples into the text, now, by using software such as iMovie, Preview and Garageband, they can produce a polished project much faster which includes audio examples, annotated score excerpts, video and voice overs. No longer do they need to spend a paragraph describing the sound of an excerpt – they simply insert a sound clip in iMovie, and instead spend a paragraph analysing the compositional features. Rachel Hopkins (2015), produced an exceptional piece of work in this style which was nominated for inclusion in the Board of Senior Secondary Studies work samples website. Together with the recording equipment managed by the School’s own Melbourne Avenue Media, we have the ability to record
and engineer student performances and concerts at a high quality. IB Music students benefit from this in particular, as they have to submit a 20-minute recording of their solo performance work for external marking. With this equipment, we can send their best work, captured at a high quality, free of background noise and electrical hiss which often occurred in the past using older technologies.
Left: Year 12 students Jaymie Wong See and Bayley Dickson using the new technology in the Apple Mac laboratory (MC1). Top: Miranda Summersby-Mitchell, Laura Carter, Bayley Dickson and Jaymie Wong See. Above: Music teacher Vivian Martin and Year 12 student Laura Carter using Sibelius music notation software.
The new equipment has truly revolutionised the way our students interact with music technology and is helping to prepare for the world beyond the classroom. Melinda Sawers HEAD OF MUSIC
GRAMMAR REPORT No. 102 | 15