CreatingMusic

Creating Music: A children's online creative music environment for children of all ages. It's a place for kids to compose music, play with musical performance, music games and music puzzles.

Resources and links
@http://www.creatingmusic.com/

Additional Resources Demos

Strengths:

 * Free website and music creation tools.
 * All ages can sketch musical compositions and listen to creations
 * Includes descriptive directions on how to begin sketching and creating music
 * You can create music for the piano, trumpet, clarinet or drum.
 * You can make the tempo of the music fast or slow by simply clicking on a turtle or rabbit icon
 * Sketched music can be listened to immediately after creation

Weaknesses:

 * Music is limited to four instruments
 * When sketching music it creates a line versus standard notes
 * Created music cannot be saved or shared

Opportunities:

 * Students can email the site creator for more information and help
 * Student creativity can be exuded through personal creation of music
 * Students can learn about music pitch, notes and scales by visiting other areas of the website
 * Students can practice C major, C natural minor and C harmonic minor by using number keys 1-8
 * Music games provided under 'Hearing Music' link

**Threats**:

 * A link is provided to visit the music of the site creator, this could lead students to unmonitored areas of the web
 * The contact email provided could potentially link students to communicate with an unknown person

Classroom Ideas:

 * You could integrate the resource into a unit about theme or mood of text. Students could create musical compositions to match the feelings portrayed by authors.
 * In a music course, students could compare and contrast variations of sound, pitch and tempo in musical creations
 * Students could listen to similar music compositions on different instruments provided to note similarities and differences
 * Students learning to play an instrument could practice scales and compositions using the number keys