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Jamhub Provides 2nd & 3rd Grade Students


With Opportunities To Create And Improvise Music On iPad Instruments At Young Composers Night


Daniel Beal


Lawrenceville Elementry School dbeal@ltps.org


New Jersey, it was important to me from day one that I would give my students nu- merous opportunities to discover their mu- sical individualities. In my opinion, the best way for students to make this discovery is through the creation of their own music and through improvisation. Each student has their own unique musical voice and music teachers have an obligation to help them to discover that voice. One event that I have created that has best demonstrated the results of this process is “Young Composers Night”. I have al- ready had two of these events at my school, and at these events, the students premiere pieces of music they created on an iPad and they also improvise along with their piece on an iPad instrument of their choice. In addition, students break into several iPad bands and take turns improvising on iPad instruments in live performance. How did my students get to a point where they were capable, knowledgeable, and confident enough to create and improvise music on an iPad instrument in a public performance? I can answer that question in one word: Jam- hub


W


Jamhub In The Music Classroom Using a Jamhub is an excellent way to


make music making on iPads a shared expe- rience. Up to seven students can plug an iPad and headphones into the Jamhub and be in complete control of whom and what they hear at all times. No longer does one have to switch headphones with someone else to hear what they are doing on their iPad. No longer does a group of students need to plug into a splitter so that they can all hear the music coming out of one iPad.


TEMPO


hen I started working at Lawrenceville Elementary School in Lawrenceville,


Finally, no longer does a group of people


are both important life skills to be learned, and the Jamhub provides them with these opportunities. Here is a short video that features the


executive director of LTEF, Ivy Cohen, ex- plaining why they funded, “Jammin’ with Jamhub” and other grants that are similar to it. https://goo.gl/AXAw4I


The Process Leading Up To “Young Composers Night”


In order to prepare my students for


need to crowd around an iPad speaker hop- ing to hear everything clearly. A Jamhub al- lows all of the amazing music making apps on iPads to be heard in studio quality sound and it allows students to collaborate with one another seamlessly and without distrac- tion or inconvenience. Also, by using a headset with a microphone (such as the Au- dio Technica BPHS1), teachers can easily communicate with one student or all stu- dents plugged into a Jamhub without any sort of hindrance or distraction. I am incredibly fortunate to have an education fund in my school district called the Lawrence Township Education Fund (LTEF), which funded a grant that I wrote, titled, “Jammin’ with Jamhub”. Their funding helped me to purchase six iPads that would belong to the music room and be “attached” to a Jamhub on a daily basis. For me, justifying the grant was simple because there are so many amazing opportunities that using iPads with a Jamhub provides for students. Students listening to each other and collaborating with one another


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“Young Composers Night,” I needed to have several composition and improvisation lessons with them. When students are creat- ing music on iPads, students will arrange/ record/create music using the GarageBand app. By using the microphone on my head- set, I am able to check in with each student and give him/her feedback on his/her com- position. I encourage the students to work on their own music; however, I also encour- age the students to check in on one another by turning up the volume knob that corre- sponds to a particular student. This usually leads to students communicating with one another and sharing thoughts and opinions on each other’s songs. Oftentimes, a student will make changes to his/her song because he/she re- ceived feedback from another student that they found helpful or beneficial. A typical scenario would start off with one student saying, “Do you want to listen to my mu- sic?”, and then one or more students at the Jamhub table would turn up the knob of that student requesting feedback. Once they begin to hear the music, the conversa- tion and collaboration begin. At the same time, the teacher can listen in with his/her headphones and offer advice using the mi- crophone on the headset. It has been such a pleasure for me to


MARCH 2016


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