Authentic math and music experiences for tweens and teens. Applying math skills to covers of beloved music in the public domain.
Click on the Bach’s Prelude in C, V1 link to experience a simplified version of a music puzzle. Note: This version uses AI to ensure that everything sounds how it’s supposed to. The puzzles that your kids will use require manual manipulation, analysis, persistence, logic, order, and measurement.
Music is ideal for learning and applying math concepts such as ratios, fractions, measurement, and algebraic thinking. Dr. Mark’s Music Puzzles are sonic Cuisenaire rods that help reinforce foundational math concepts for understanding the logic of higher math.
Systematically, students create versions of beloved music from the public domain, beginning with the whole, then two halves, then four quarters, and so on. It’s as simple as slicing a lemon, except this lemon has more color choices than yellow.
Less work for you. More fun for them.
Students experience the satisfaction of choosing which instrument they want for the entire composition.
Students begin to build the composition out of two halves. A guide indicates where the second half should be placed. Measurement is in mm:ss:hnds.
Beginning with quarters, students must calculate the placement of each section. Students are allowed to create their permutation/combination using the sound files provided.
Successive puzzle challenges provide students with successively smaller fractions of the whole. It is at this point that you can create your own learning experiences by asking your students to create a cover of the composition using 1 half, 2 eighths, and 1quarter, for example.
With professional digital audio workstations (DAW), time is of the essence. Professionals composers are paid by the minutes of music they create, for example, $1,500 for sixty seconds of music. Programs like Pro Tools, Logic, and Garage Band allow composers to create sixty seconds of music in three hours rather than three days. To be profitable, AI is a must because it simplifies things and automatically eliminates mistakes.
We hold music to a higher standard than other things in our daily lives. For example, if someone uses the wrong congegation/ conjagacion/ conjugation of a word, we will probably overlook it, because we understand what is being said. However, with music, if it's not right and sounds bad, it's wrong. This is why Audacity is such a great learning tool. If the music is off, the students have to make it right--they must to do the work.
Audacity is an open-source DAW that is compatible with Chromebooks. Click the heading to read more about this great program.
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