Jackie Wiggins (jhwiggin@oakland.edu)
is Assistant Professor and coordinator of music education at Oakland University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music education.

JACKIE WIGGINS

xperienced general music teachers who are accustomed to working within highly structured curricula, developed over years of practice, are often unsure about the role technology can play in their classrooms. Many fear that, in order to move into the 21st century, they will have to abandon what they hold dear. Often they are uncertain as to how to go about integrating technology into existing curricula. Still others fear the impending obsolescence of acoustic instruments. There are several answers to those who hold these concerns. 

First of all, synthesizers are instruments. They can be used in the classroom in many of the same ways music teachers already use xylophones, Autoharps and classroom percussion — and can be used side by side with these acoustic instruments. The added benefit is that synthesizers have so many more capabilities than traditional classroom instruments — they offer the students so many more possibilities. Also, electronic instruments are the instruments of our students' world. Bringing them into the classroom as one of the choices available to students gives a tremendous amount of credibility to everything else we do. The students see the teacher as an "expert" in one of the more important aspects of their culture. 

Second, allowing students opportunities to make choices between electronic and acoustic instruments allows them to understand the strengths of both media. I have seen students work to create their own electronic drum tracks, only to abandon them in search of acoustic drums that can replicate the same patterns. It is not uncommon to see students use electronic media as tools for creating and then choose to execute their final performance on acoustic instruments. In my experience, I have found that children value both media and tend to make appropriate choices, when given the opportunity to do so. 

The Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching and Learning
Spring 1996.

Small groups, pairs or individuals can solve musical problems by creating original compositions, using electronic and/or acoustic media, including voice. Timbral choices should be made by the students. Compositional problems can take many forms. The most successful are designed around more holistic parameters, such as form, meter, texture, style or affect. Starting from rhythm patterns or particular pitch combinations tends to be less successful because students, in planning compositions, tend to conceive of the larger, overriding characteristics first, and determine specific motivic material later on in the process. 

• Students can work in small groups or independently to write original songs and create performance arrangements of those songs using electronic and/or acoustic instruments. They can teach their arrangements to peers and develop performances of original works. 
• Students can draw upon what they have learned through performance and analytical listening experiences to create original works. For example, students who have analyzed songs and pieces for their metric structure can work with peers to develop a piece that changes meter from "twos" to "threes" and back to "twos." Students who have studied ABA form, through analysis of songs they have performed and pieces they have listened to, might be asked to create an original work in ABA form. 
• After having studied the ways in which a particular composer generated a certain affective response in the listener (such as the way Grieg manipulates various musical elements to generate intensity and excitement in the listener in his "In the Hall of the Mountain King"), students might develop an original work that generates the same kind of effect. 

• Students can explore sound sources, seeking alternate means of sound production for conventional instruments and combining them with interesting electronic sounds. The sounds can then be utilized in group improvisations (whole class or small group). 
• Much instrumental music of our children's experience is background music — movie and television themes and so on. Therefore, a good starting place for free improvisation is to ask them to create the background music for a particular mood or scene. Describe the mood or scene and let the music begin naturally. 
• Have students improvise background music for a video segment, such as a short clip from an underwater nature show. 
• Use synthesizers, Autoharps and/or guitars to establish underlying harmonies for melodic improvisations on xylophones or resonator bells. Arrange the bars of the solo instruments in chord patterns. Students create melodies on the appropriate chords as they hear the harmony shift. Keep chord progressions short and simple, but make each chord last long enough for soloists to have the time to think. 

Regardless of the media used, students who solve musical problems become independent musical thinkers — initiators of musical ideas. Students who are given the opportunity to make musical decisions and to evaluate the effectiveness of those decisions become better musicians. Empowering students with musical understanding and musical independence is what our profession is all about.