Audio/MIDI: Cakewalk - Using Home Studio and Sonar

More and more music educators are bringing music software into the classrooms every day, regardless of the student's age or musical ability. In an academic environment, music software can be used to create and understand musical compositions as well as the latest recording and mixing techniques. For over 10 years, Cakewalk has led the Windows music technology revolution in the classroom.

Thousands of schools are using Cakewalk products today, from elementary, to high schools to colleges. Schools like George Washington University, Berklee School of Music, Northeastern University, Gross Pointe North High School, Indiana University, Michigan State, New Brunswick High School, Seoul Music Academy, South Haven Public Schools, Stonewall Middle School, Virginia Polytech, to name just a few.

The latest music software tools from Cakewalk being used in the classroom today are SONAR, the company's flagship digital audio and MIDI recording software, and Cakewalk Home Studio, a more basic offering that is derived from the awardwinning SONAR technology.

Both SONAR and Home Studio provide teachers and students with complete desktop recording studios, combining audio recording and editing with MIDI notation, piano roll editing, key signature and tempo maps, lyrics views, support for all Windows-compatible sound cards, and support for DirectX audio plug-ins and software synthesizers.

New features for both products include an easier to use track view for recording, editing, arranging and mixing; new audio looping and editing tools; new real-time audio and MIDI effects, new DXi software synths; and other features that make both Home Studio and SONAR invaluable in music classrooms.

The main differences between SONAR and Home Studio are:

Home Studio supports single stereo channel I/O sound cards; SONAR supports multiple I/O cards for more advanced recording and mixing projects.

• SONAR provides additional audio effects, software synthesizers, and MIDI effects.

• SONAR provides advanced audio and MIDI editing tools more appropriate for high school and college-level students.

• While both Home Studio and SONAR provide notation editing and printing, SONAR also provides a guitar fret board view and support for guitar tablature.

• For a complete feature comparison chart, visit www.cakewalk.com.

Here are just a few examples of how music educators use SONAR and Home Studio in the classroom.

Here's one very common use: teachers will take a musical score-- jazz, classical or popular-- and play the different parts into Home Studio or SONAR. Since these Cakewalk products can record any instrument as digital audio, as well as record MIDI instruments, teachers will take the sax part of a jazz piece, for instance, mute the MIDI track, and replace it with an actual live performance by one of their students. If the school has four tenor sax players, all four can try to play or improvise their parts on different audio tracks over the original.

Music teachers will also create rhythm parts or exercises using the percussion notation supported in Home Studio and SONAR. A teacher can print out the percussion line notation and have a student tap out the rhythm. Teachers can use the notation features to create assignments such as providing students with the root of a chord, and having the students fill in the rest of the notes needed to complete the requested chord. SONAR and Home Studio can be used to easily create assignments to learn about chord progressions, and the rules of four-part harmony.

With CD recorders and CD-ROM drives now included as standard features in today's PCs, teachers can now compose songs in SONAR or Home Studio, and then create their own CDs. Many teachers actually create and copy music project files on CDs for each student; the CD contains the songs they need to learn that semester, and the students are required to create new arrangements, record solos on top of the existing tracks, and even analyze the music files and provide summaries in the accompanying Info screen for each project.

Using some of the thousands of available MIDI music files that can be purchased or downloaded from the Internet, a teacher can slow the music down for students to analyze and play along with at a comfortable tempo. And using the flexible audio looping features of SONAR and Home Studio 2002, teachers can even slow down or speed up the tempo of digital audio tracks without effecting the pitch.

Other ways SONAR and Home Studio are being used in classrooms today:

For beginning students and music appreciation classes, the piano roll view in SONAR and Home Studio can teach students spatial relationships of notes, chords, and key signatures without even having to read music. Students can experiment with musical creation simply by pointing and clicking to create their own melody lines. It's a great way to get young students interested in music theory, without them even realizing they are learning!

Use SONAR and Home Studio to get students familiar with digital media creation-- making MP3s or Windows media files for Internet delivery.

For more advanced classes, use SONAR to have them learn and work with 24-bit/96 kHz audio, which is the standard for DVD-audio production.

Use SONAR's Fret board View and standard notation view to show how staff notation relates to fingerings on the guitar fret board.

Create individual MIDI files on disks or CDs for each student minus their instrument for lessons/performance pieces so that they have something to play along with while practicing.

Teach orchestration and the purposes of individual instruments by muting and soloing parts from a full MIDI orchestration.

Use Home Studio and SONAR to compose group or class projects, track by track, instrument by instrument-- the basic steps to building an arrangement.

Create ear training or rhythm exercises with the flexibility of tempo maps & notation.

Use inexpensive software synthesizer plug-ins to allow students the experience of hearing themselves play on a Hammond B3, a grand piano, a vintage synthesizer, or hundreds of other available instruments that can now be emulated with software.

Record students along with ear training exercises, and then play back the recording of the student with the track, as it should sound so that they can isolate problem areas. Have students identify errors in a musical score, and make the appropriate adjustment

For more ideas about using software like SONAR and Home Studio in the classroom, visit the Technology Institute for Music Educators on the web at www.ti-me.org.

On the surface, SONAR and Home Studio can be essential aides for students and teachers alike. They encourage creativity and learning in a musical realm. For students, this creativity will enrich their lives, and translate well into other areas of scholastic endeavors.