One thing I feel that we don't often touch upon in the music classrooms nowadays is allowing students to compose their own music. We're all taught how to play certain music by certain composers, but why are we never puushed to make music that's all our own? While looking for resources for online musical games for our group project, I had wanted to find maybe a few musical composition games out there that get the students started into composing in middle school.
Unfortunately it appears that there are very few of them, which frustrated me immensely. Musical composition is an important part of music that is always missed out upon, as it challenges students to use their imagination, and collaborate with others...
Here are the few games that I found that would be great starters for composition in junior high:
Classics for Kids - Compose Your Own Music
This allows students to compose a cute little four measure melody.Great to use for a beginning music class once you've covered the concepts of whole notes and half notes and quarter notes. Unfortunately, no sharps or flats are included on this, thus limiting key choices to C Major and A Minor.
nyphikids.org - Musical Mingles
Taken from the New York Philharmonic Kid Zone, this game is filled with cute little bouncing creatures, that make noises every time they hit an obstacle. If you arrange the obstacles correctly and time them properly, you can create some great sounds!
http://www.sfskids.org/templates/musicLabF.asp?pageid=15
A cute little game that lets you mix measures to create a cute little tune. Change 'em up if you don't like what you hear the first time.
I hope in the near future, more online interactive games are out there for composing. However, I DO also recommend installing Sibelius into the classroom. I think it would be beneficial for your students if they knew how to use it!
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