A while ago I came across this video and stored it away as I thought it would come in useful at some point. At the time I thought it was pretty neat but not much more…

I revisited this by chance the other day after running a seminar on using new technologies for music teaching at key stage 3 (11-14). What struck me this time was that even with next to no resources you can create something fresh and vibrant (admittedly this was probably a reaction to what seems to be a recurrent discussion of the quality of electronic sounds sometimes available in school).

I often hear comments on the poor quality of sounds available to students using technologies in school from teaching sources (although not from the enthusiastic group of teachers I was fortunate to meet with on Tuesday). As well as this there are several articles around (admittedly quite dated now) that suggest that what technology makes available is less than acceptable.

I should make it clear at this point that I am not concerned with what is possible but what actually happens in many UK schools. Of course there are superb resources available that some schools are fortunate to have and which come at a price. But what about the teacher who has saved up their precious department budget for those 4 PCs that are now running Cakegic*, Cubageband* or perhaps free tools (for a good collection with descriptions see http://freemusicsoftware.org/, musescore, Mixxx, Audacity, trakAx and see also Dr Pisano’s page of freebies)?

Well, I can accept that some soundcards may come with a less than realistic collection of sounds. Also, I concede that some of the sound synthesis resources that will be available in many music departments may be less than what you would like. BUT…this can become a way of unleashing creativity rather than stifling it.

I remember that back in the 80s when FM synthesis was the norm and samples were a thing for the professional studio…good artists used the FM sounds to create new soundscapes. Great ones made new worlds (In a conversation last week I was reminded of the Bladerunner soundtrack  – must take a listen again!). If we posture in our ideas about what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘poor’ quality sounds is there a danger that we miss the freshness of what is possible in the pursuit of ‘virtual’. Why synthesize a piano when you have a real one sat in the middle of the room? Why not synthesize a synthesizer?

(*=don’t really exist)

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