The ERHS Music Technology Lab

Get Mr. Gowman's Easy Instruction Book for AcidPRO here.

In the fall of 2002, a district committee was formed with the task of improving the quality of music education in the East Rochester School District. A number of music parents were involved, as were music teachers Leslie Barnett, Andrea Ghidiu, Mark Gowman, and John Palocy, elementary principal Linda Marino and superintendent Howard Maffucci. The major result of this committee’s work was the creation of a music technology lab that is now housed in room 526, attached to the high school library. The primary users of the lab will be students in grades 7-12, but it will be available to elementary music classes as well. The district’s goal in creating this lab was to improve the quality of experience for students already enrolled in instrumental or vocal music, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to provide opportunities for students with unknown, untested, or different musical abilities. The pre-existing computer lab holds Dell PC’s that are used for coursework in technology and computer art, and will continue to be used for those courses. The lab is now also equipped with 17 new synthesizers: 15 are Korg X5 synthesizers, which have 64 keys and a large bank of voices. The remaining two are full-size (88-key) digital pianos, complete with weighted keys that feel and respond like those on a real piano. A number of software programs are loaded onto these stations, including: Finale, the music industry standard for music notation; Band in a Box, a program that allows students to simply input a chord progression and a style and come out with a recording of a live-sounding band that they can improvise or play along with; and Acid Pro, a very popular program used for looping, sequencing, and simple sound editing. We have a bank of “loops”, short sound files that are strung together and arranged by students to create their own music in different styles, and students will also be able to create their own loops using the synthesizers. In addition to these three programs, we have instructional software in music theory and piano technique, as well as an instrument recognition program for younger grades. The new lab’s final component, and one of its most exciting features, is the digital recording studio. The lab is equipped with a DigiDesign Digi002 mixing board that runs ProTools, the standard for digital recording. We have new recording microphones and heqadphones to use with it, but will also be able to use equipment already at the school. The sound is recorded directly to the hard drive, where it can be further manipulated and enhanced before being output to CD. Excepting a few production effects, anything that can be done in a professional studio can happen in our new technology lab. All of the digital recording equipment is on a self-contained movable cart, allowing us to travel anywhere in the educational complex to record rehearsals, performances, or other events.