October 19th, 2016

1.  For my in class makey makey experience Adam and I made an electronic pocket drumset.  We created this dreamiest for people who don't have the technical skills to actually play a standard instrument.  The instrument consists of metal buttons and a central metal home.  The person playing the drumset leaves one hand on the base and uses the other hand to touch the different buttons.   I tried to shape my thinking by putting myself in other people situations.  I originally thought of making the player able to change the sounds but we decided not to so that we didn't overcomplicate things.  We ultimately created a dreamiest with multiple gator clips attached to a makey makey and numerous metal pieces.  All of the metal piece were attached to a square piece of cardboard with the base in the center and two rows of metal objects below.  It was a challenge attach the base to the cardboard but we ended up cutting a slit and inserting binder clips to hold it onto the cardboard.  We recorded tom tom sounds from our drumset in Wayland on our yeti microphone.  When creating the board we took into consideration hand size and made sure all of the buttons were accessible within a handspan.  We also considered physical appeal.  We felt inspired to give it a cool almost futuristic look so for our base we used a huge piece of metal about the size of a softball.  We have plans to completely finish the pocket drumset in wood and be able to use it eventually.  

 2. Image a creative use for Scratch, Makey-Makey, and/or other related maker/code-based tech for these future teaching situations. Imagine that you have unlimited access to the tech. Give a brief but specific way you might use these technologies to mediate music making and music learning in these settings:
- In a listening-based experience with middle school general music students I would have one student play around on the drumset and have the others listen and talk about the sounds.  We would rotate and eventually pick which sounds we like and which ones we didn't care or much.  We would then go into scratch and change around the sounds we dint like for new sounds.  These sounds could range from drums to sound effects to other various instruments.  While experimenting I would have all of the students rotating in and out so everyone got a chance to play on the electronic drumset. This experimentation would go on until we created the "perfect drumset".

- With a non-formal community music making group with members from diverse populations such as in a mall I would set up a station.  The station would be the exact same layout as the dreamiest only enlarged.  The exhibit would include many large metal plates hooked up to the makey makey.  We then would attach a wire to the person on their hand.  The people would take their shoes and socks off and step on the plates to create the sounds. All of this would be spread out so that the people could move around and listen to the different types of sounds.  This would attract many people especially if I had the computer hooked up to big speakers. 


- With an honors ensemble in a performance situation I would give everyone in the percussion a a pocket drumset.  We would like up the drumsets to the makey makeys.  We would reassign the sounds of the dreamiest to various percussion instruments.  Some of these instruments could include, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, timpani, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, and triangle.  This would allow for a smaller set up but a less responsive and accurate live sounding percussion.  The pocket drumsets would be less responsive and live sounding. But overall the positive effects outweigh the negative effects.  This would save set up time but would add speakers to the ensemble to project the percussion instruments.