I am pleased to launch this new blog series Flat Packed Music
When was the last time you unpacked something new?
I recently put together a bed for my son and I am always amazed at how much they fit into a box.
And who doesn’t love a trip to Ikea, I always coming away with something to build.
Flat Packed Music is a blog series all about a piece of software called Flat.io In this series I want to share ideas that are packed full of music, but with the aim of you taking these ideas home with you to unpack and put together. Every blog will be packed full of ideas for using Flat.io. The ideas will be packaged together in such a way that students can use the blogs to discover music at home. But equally, teachers can use these blogs to help unpack new ideas in the classroom.
It might be that the blogs provide you with homework ideas for your students – so they can unpack them at home. I am sure you are getting the idea!
Hopefully you will enjoy discovering how Flat.io can help you and your students.
What is Flat.io?
Quite simply, Flat.io is an online collaborative music software where you can create music straight away in your browser. Whilst it isn’t advanced as some notation software, it is powerful enough for learning and composing. Whilst it is a notation platform it is also a community of composers from around the world and there is the potential to collaborate with others.
The way I see it is, Flat.io can be used for two key things in our schools
- It is a tool for composition. Students can use it to gather their ideas, create pieces of music and compose their next piece of coursework. Once they have the ideas, melodies, harmony and structure, they can turn to Flat.io to bring their composition to life – and they can do this wherever they have an internet connection.
- As well as a composing tool, it is a tool for learning. It is a piece of software that can be used by students and teachers to help grasp key knowledge and understanding of music. Often we view music technology as something we use to compose. But we need to start to see music software as a gateway to exploring music. This blog series will look at how we can more effectively use technology in and out of the classroom to embed musical understanding.
Why not watch this brief video to get an idea what it is all about
Flat Packed Music
I hope you will join me on this journey of discovering how we can make music more accessible to our students. If you are a student reading this blog, I hope you will find ideas to take away and unpack for yourselves. If you are a teacher, then feel free to use these ideas to enhance your classroom teaching.
I believe that we have the tools available to use to make musical learning even more effective and engaging.