Music
Health | Literacy | Math | Music | Biology | Chemistry -
Welcome to the OLPC Music portal.
Our mission is to build a strong community of people interested in working on music-related projects associated with the XOs, including content, software and hardware. Projects related to music education are always welcome to the extent they can accommodate our goal to serve the children of the world and provide them with means to improve their skills in various fields. The preservation of the national heritage and culture, an inextricable part of which is music, is important to us and, definitely, a field, in which we are interested. There are no restrictions to what the origins of the music projects can be. A local grassroots undertaking, a student group project, a pilot implementation, a global community creation, individual efforts to make music available to more people and to assist people express themselves through music. Education knows no borders or limitations, the same with music.
Examples
The Musopen intro to music is a good example of a collection. (The bundle for that collection is: File:Music-intro-1.xol.)
The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum podcast series is also being packaged as individual downloadable collections.
Community
We are always interested in getting in touch and collaborating with people who share our passion with music. There are no particular requirements for participating in our project. Your inclination to music and your desire to learn more and share your knowledge make you a perfect contributor to our cause. Teaching and learning are interdependent.
If you are interested in contributing to our mission and in sharing more innovative ideas about with us, you can learn more information on the Library mailing list (http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/library). So, if you are interested in joining the conversation, simply join the list and introduce yourself.
Music projects
Initially, the Music projects can take three major forms, relating to content, software or hardware
Music content
Our interest in that field is mainly focused on finding partners, who are willing to donate music content appropriate for the music education of the receivers of the XOs - children all around the world. For that reason, music content can have the form of audio files, of text documents containing music sheets, and of text documents related to music theory. The help of music curators in that case is very important to us. More information about projects related to Music content can be found here.
Music software
We are also focused on providing software, which could be used by the XO users, in order to express their musical skills and create their own music. It is important at this point to let them preserve their musical culture, but also give them the opportunity to express themselves creatively. Participants of such efforts can be found here, at the music software section.
Music hardware
The XO users should also be given the opportunity to have at their disposal hardware and peripherals which they could use in innovative ways, so as to make the most of their learning experience and travel in imaginary musical highways. We are currently calling for relevant projects and people who would like to participate in the construction of such hardware.
The Landfill Harmonic
All I'm asking is that you watch the first 20 seconds... then you'll be hooked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXynrsrTKbI
Music Learning Theory
Edwin Gordon has developed an interesting theory about the psychology of music education. He conjectures that music is best learned by developing audiation ability. It seems like at least the discrimination learning part of his skill learning sequence could be delivered as some kind of educational game activity. In Gordon's book, "Learning Sequence and Patterns in Music," he catalogs tonal and rhythmic patterns in an empirically derived sequence from easy to hard.
Getting Involved
If you are interested in assisting us with our mission, we would be grateful for your help in whatever way, even by just providing us information about related projects about which you have heard. We need people from all disciplines, whether or not they have music education background. Do not hesitate to contact Andriani for more information on our attempt to make music a tool of communication and expression for the children of the world.