M I C H I G A N - S C H O O L - B A N D - & - O R C H E S T R A - A S S O C I A T I O N
 
 

MIDI Is Happening in Fruitport

FROM M A I S D NEWSLETTER

A new electronic music program is giving fifth through twelfth grade students at Fruitport, Michigan, Community Schools (near Muskegon) new opportunities to "conceive, create, and experience" music, says instructor Mark Sluiter. 

"Traditional music classes serve the needs of many students well, but they are pretty much performance oriented; they generally don't involve the personal creation of compositions," says Sluiter. "It's wonderful that technology is such that now a person can create their own music without a lot of background in traditional music theory." 

Following a Muskegon Area Intermediate School District Music Technology workshop, the popular new program was developed through the district's ongoing curriculum review process and was affordable to implement, Sluiter says. The curriculum revolves around use of MIDI compatible keyboards (which allow musical instruments to communicate with computers), a digital sampler, a sequencer, a CD-ROM multimedia computer, and numerous music notation, jazz improvisation, sound editing and other software and other packages. 

Michigan MusicTech Home Page   Students are introduced briefiy to the electronic program in the fifth grade through the use of electronic keyboards. Middle school students are required to take a total of twelve weeks of program and have an opportunity to work with the MIDI keyboards. At Fruitport H.S. an elective Jazz Lab is already offered, actually allowing students to create music. Already, during the first year of the program, high school students have composed theme music for a radio commercial and are working on theme music for a cable television program. 

"This is opening up a whole different world for kids, a new way to experience music," says Sluiter. "They're learning a lot, and they're really having a ball."