In class this week, we played with podcasts on Garageband. I love all the bells and whistles. There are so many sounds and effects to play with, and it's very simple and visual. That being said, I use Audacity more often and I like it better. And it's free! You can get it at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/.
While Garageband only allows you to export the audio file in iTunes format, Audacity gives you the option. While Audacity is less colourful, I find it easy to use. I have played with speeding up the sound and cutting sections. While I have never produced a podcast, it would be a simple matter to post something online that I have already made on Audacity.
The only real downside to using Audacity is that it doesn't have extra audio files to use as theme music or sound effects. You have to generate all your own content. Of course, this could be a cool project. If I can get my students recording equipment, they can record their own sound effects and can even write and perform their own theme music. This would be a great interdisciplinary project for music and drama. We could produce our own radio drama, or even a movie. Audacity doesn't have video, but it would be an interesting challenge to overdub a video the students produce. This could even be a comedic challenge, with one class providing the video and another class providing the spoken dialogue based on the video. If both parts were improvised, then the result would be the work of a few days rather than the term project that making a full video might be. But then, this falls more under the drama class than the music class.
I was hoping someone would mention Audacity! What a fantastic program. I used it to isolate a sound effect in a song so we could use it for the chris.... winter concert. :) In case you are interested, here is a link to a list of free audio software. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_audio_software
ReplyDeleteAlso, ACID Music Studio is a faaaaaaantastic program! It's not free but you can download "sound packs" which have loops, beats, sound effects. There are thousands of these free sounds available. :)
Sounds interesting. How much is ACID and what does it do? Is it similar to Garageband and Audacity?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thanks for the link -I just downloaded it!
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I love your ideas for combining music and drama. We all know how much I love musical theatre and drama, so of course I think it's great! In one of my courses last term we looked at using drama as a "tool" to explore other curricular content. I initially hoped to do some kind of silent movie, but ended up choosing to do a pantomime for early years. The students were to act out the story of the Three Little Pigs while different styles and moods of music were being played in the background. We would then look at how music affected the mood of the story. How great would it be to use a program to record some of the repertoire we had done in class?! We could then use pieces the students were familiar with and had actually recorded themselves!
I also think the "silent movie" idea where one class provides the actions while the other dubs over with their own dialogue would be hilarious! There are so many fantastic possibilities for music and drama!!! Sorry for the over-enthusiasm, haha!
I love the enthusiasm!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing you may have to watch is if you are using copyrighted music, you will be limited in where and how you can distribute it. I think I eould get my students to write their own music, or at least themes they can all use. I've always wanted to try creating film scores, so why not give my stydents the opourtunity?
FYI: There is a free version of Acid that actually works pretty decently. It's good for you 'PC users' out there who don't have GarageBand. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the full, but it's free so...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.acidplanet.com/downloads/xpress/