I’ve always been interested in the use and role of music and song in the classroom, so when I was asked to review MusicShake, I jumped at the chance.
MusicShake offers students and teachers the opportunity to create original music and sound tracks that they then own. This is great for adding sound tracks to videos, multimedia creations, digital projects and presentations or even creating your own classroom songs or raps, like the Rapping Teacher
MusicShake has two main areas. The first is a site where students and teachers can share , rate and even sell the music they have created (You can listen to it for free and only need to buy it if you want to download it and use it.) You can find it here: MusicShake Songs
You can search the site by Genre, Mood or Theme, just by clicking on the tabs to the right.
The more exciting part of MusicShake is the MusicShake editor which enables any student to easily and quickly create a backing track, even if they don’t have any ability on a musical instrument. Creating music with MusicShake is pretty simple and it’s just a matter of selecting different instruments and sounds and deciding which bars and for how long each instrument plays. Anyone who has seen Apple’s GarageBand at work will find this even simpler. Students can listen to their work as they progress and adding and editing out sounds and instruments is easy.
Here’s a video from YouTube that shows how it’s done:
When the music track is complete it can be downloaded as MP3 or Wave file or saved and shared through the MusicShake site. Just click here to give it a try: http://edu.musicshake.com/demo
MusicShake is an education focused product so this also promises some degree of protection for your students and some policing of content that may be offensive.
On the whole if you like using music with your students and you want to them to make something original and creative then MusicShake is a great choice. The downside and of course there had to be one, is the price $499 per year. At this price, using MusicShake is a decision that is certainly beyond the realm of the individual teacher’s pocket and so would have to be an institutional purchase. You would also have to know that it would get plenty of use across your institution, but on the pro side it would at least be very simple to handle training as it is so easy and intuitive to use.
I hope you enjoy it.
Related links:
Nik Peachey
MusicShake offers students and teachers the opportunity to create original music and sound tracks that they then own. This is great for adding sound tracks to videos, multimedia creations, digital projects and presentations or even creating your own classroom songs or raps, like the Rapping Teacher
MusicShake has two main areas. The first is a site where students and teachers can share , rate and even sell the music they have created (You can listen to it for free and only need to buy it if you want to download it and use it.) You can find it here: MusicShake Songs
You can search the site by Genre, Mood or Theme, just by clicking on the tabs to the right.
The more exciting part of MusicShake is the MusicShake editor which enables any student to easily and quickly create a backing track, even if they don’t have any ability on a musical instrument. Creating music with MusicShake is pretty simple and it’s just a matter of selecting different instruments and sounds and deciding which bars and for how long each instrument plays. Anyone who has seen Apple’s GarageBand at work will find this even simpler. Students can listen to their work as they progress and adding and editing out sounds and instruments is easy.
Here’s a video from YouTube that shows how it’s done:
When the music track is complete it can be downloaded as MP3 or Wave file or saved and shared through the MusicShake site. Just click here to give it a try: http://edu.musicshake.com/demo
MusicShake is an education focused product so this also promises some degree of protection for your students and some policing of content that may be offensive.
On the whole if you like using music with your students and you want to them to make something original and creative then MusicShake is a great choice. The downside and of course there had to be one, is the price $499 per year. At this price, using MusicShake is a decision that is certainly beyond the realm of the individual teacher’s pocket and so would have to be an institutional purchase. You would also have to know that it would get plenty of use across your institution, but on the pro side it would at least be very simple to handle training as it is so easy and intuitive to use.
I hope you enjoy it.
Related links:
- Animated Music Videos for EFL
- Create a Web Based Song Activity in Minutes
- 6 Activities you can do online with songs and music
- Get the Stars to Sing Your Students' Words
- Write a Music Video Review
- Can Music Aid Memory of Text?
Nik Peachey
Absolute winner...I'm loving it! Though, as you pointed out, shame I can't use it as a self-emloyed teacher/trainer :-(((
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