YISS Band Creates Original Digital Compositions

During the last quarter of school, the middle and high school band students worked hard to digitally create compositions. Students used two web-based softwares to create these compositions, BandLab and Noteflight.

BandLab is a digital audio workstation (DAW) where sounds can be recorded or uploaded and edited to create an audio project. The middle school students explored BandLab this last quarter and created wonderful masterpieces!

The 6th grade band created stories through sound with BandLab by finding royalty-free sounds online and digitally editing their work. An example of their work is here, by Jackson L. (6). The 7th and 8th Bands created digital music compositions with BandLab by recording, uploading royalty-free sounds from online, and using available loops in BandLab. Through these assignments, students learned how to automate volume, loop tracks, trim tracks, learn song/story structure, and edit sounds together.

The High School Jazz Band created digital music notation through the web-based software Noteflight. For their compositions, they learned how to create a twelve-bar-blues chord structure and wrote various parts such as piano, bass, guitar, drum kit, and a melodic instrument of their choice. The students did an excellent job and examples of their work can be seen here by Ben C. (9) and here by Spencer P. (9).