Entry #3 — Agent of Change

In my last blog post, I talked about how technology is important in implementing music education. I conducted a survey to see what others' opinions are. However, since then, I have actually conducted my Agent of Change portion of the project. I wanted to get music technology into schools, but that turned out to be far too ambitious. I settled with holding a class to teach kids how to use music software to make music.

I wish I had put a little more planning into this portion of the project. About a week before I actually conducted the class, I finally made posters and got details finalized so I could get people to come. I made the poster and handed out probably 25 or so of them to people in the school. It was to be belt that Saturday at noon. I only got three 'maybe's out of the many people I told about the event; this worried me considerably. When Saturday came around, I was really worried.



In the end, nobody actually ended up coming; I had to teach my sister, instead of another student. I first showed her how to use Garageband; I showed her the interface and how to use 'Musical Typing' to create a simple melody. She then created a bass line, and learned how to change the instruments of a track. Then, I taught her how to record audio, and we clapped to the beat of her little song. She had a lot of fun with it. Overall, it was what I intended, but I was disappointed that nobody came.

[photos to come; my dad will not have access to the photos until the 16th]

I realized that to have any real impact, I would also need to present to my advisory. Over the rest of the weekend, I created a simple 'Prezi' presentation to show the advisory what my YATW project was about. I mostly used information from my previous blog posts. Overall, the presentation went well; it was well-received and people thought I presented it well.





Overall, I wish I had spent more time organizing the whole thing, as I had put a lot of it off until the last minute, which I feel bad about. I could have done much more than I did with this. This is an important issue for me, and I just didn't put enough effort into it.
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Comments (1)

Ameer Holmes (Student 2016)
Ameer Holmes

Music is important for stimulating the mind. However not all people wish to perform music, and those who would probably have already learned how to do so. Maybe If you had broadened your range of colleagues to instruct you would have gotten a higher chance of people coming. It was a noble goal and I can appreciate your work.