Musicians have always been willing to embrace technology to make their compositions permanent, for an individual to sound like an ensemble, and to develop new techniques and sounds.
Music technology is all around us and in daily use: radios, cassette and CD players, and the new technologies: DAB radio and mp3 players. We need to make music technology available for young children to use:
* Give your role-play area a musical theme: a musical instrument shop or a 'record' shop. Alternatively, it could be a recording studio where a band can practise and record their music.
* Provide electronic keyboards, play guitars and microphones in your shop.
* Provide a Dictaphone or other sort of recording device (many mp3 players now have recording facilities) for the children to record their compositions.
* Use the sounds on a Mixman DM2 (from Tag Learning) to explore music from different cultures: Indian, Reggae, Latin and more. This amazing piece of hardware connects to your computer and turns it into a DJ mixing desk. It's very easy to use, very creative, and great fun. See www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk/ictmusic/mixman to find out more.
* Print out some photos from the internet based on your topic, and encourage the children to compose a tune to describe the photo. Use 2Simple's brilliant 2Play from their Music Toolkit (look at www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk/ictmusic/space/2play.htm.
* Invite a real drummer into your setting, or failing that, use the virtual drummer on the internet at www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk/ictmusic/drums, to inspire the children to create their own rhythms using 2beat from the 2Simple Music Toolkit. Both this program and 2Play above can save files in 'wav' format, which can then be used in another program. For example, you might have written a PowerPoint presentation together with the children about an outing; these compositions could be inserted into the presentation.
* Don't forget dance as well. Musical Leaps and Bounds from Granada Learning is an ideal starting point for dance. It has one area where you can sequence a dance for someone; this can then introduce the idea of sequencing movements.
Another area has a television screen where you can hear music of different moods, but not see the picture until you press a button. The picture then appears with a dog doing actions to the mood of the music. This can introduce the idea of different dance movements for different moods.
By Andrew Trythall, ICT co-ordinator and Year One teacher at Sir Robert Hitcham's CEVAP School, Suffolk (www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk)
