Music in Film and Garage Band Stories

Last year I used Garage Band in my classroom for the first time and had students compose their own music to accompany a story that they had written. Here is the post about that project: Musique Concrete


This year I varied the project slightly. Instead of studying Musique Concrete, we studied Music In Film. I found a bunch of great lesson ideas online and kind of combined them to make one big project. We started by learning that there are 4 main uses of music in movies: to set the time and place, to convey/describe characters and ideas, to create a mood or atmosphere, or to express emotions. We also learned about Mickey-Mousing (creating sound effects). Then we talked about the different elements of music (instrumentation, timbre, rhythm, etc.) and how we can vary them to create different ideas. We watched several YouTube clips to show the importance of music and how it can demonstrate the 5 main uses listed above. After we were comfortable with all of these elements, we used Garage Band to record a story and then create music to accompany it. The stories we used were all short children's books. I was completely blown away with some of the finished projects. The students went above and beyond even what I could do. Here is the assignment they were given to fill out and I've also attached one of the completed stories.

Check this out!!   The Pied Piper