Soundation Composition

https://soundation.com/user/mwood349587/track/myfirstdawscomposition-1

               This was my first experience with Soundation and I really enjoyed creating a composition with it. My composition was not representative of any story. With only a week to create it, I knew I would need to work on it for several hours at a time, so I chose sounds that weren’t overstimulating. My goal was simply to create a relaxed ambience that could serve as background music.  With all of the electronic sounds, this program lends itself well to creating a hypnotic effect so I attempted to achieve this with the loops. I attempted to create variety by varying the melody with the MIDI.

               The software inspired creativity. I have always enjoyed improvising and composing on a variety of instruments. I am naturally fairly creative, but sometimes when I am creating music, everything I create begins to sound the same. It was nice to listen to the pre-composed loops. I chose ones that I liked and then those served as inspiration for adding other sounds and for creating melodies. After I found the first loop that I wanted, this started a “workflow” and I began adding new loops and then improvising melodies.

              My biggest limitation was lack of time. I would have liked to have “cleaned up” the melody I added with the MIDI, if I could have done so easily without compromising other parts that I wanted to keep. I wanted to erase a note without having to cut out time. It’s possible to cut out sections of time with the scissors tool, but what I wanted was a tool that could erase the sounds without impacting the timing. I chose to just leave them in rather than risk losing a part. Also, I would have preferred to have more options with the MIDI sounds, but considering that this was a free program, I think it is fairly good. I assume that with the premium packages, there would be more variety.

                This program offers wonderful possibilities for my students, and I think they would really enjoy it, particularly “the other 80%” of students who may not be particularly strong with notation or who lack formal music education in the form of private instrumental lessons. It offers more ways to enjoy the creative process.  I intend to use this with my middle school general music students. I want to avoid causing stress for my already-stressed-out students, and instead to simply offer a chance for them to be inspired and to enjoy their own creativity. I would probably begin with showing them some basics and having them listen to the compositions of others. Then I would  allow  them considerable time just to explore, and then culminate the experience with a project similar to this one. I would only require them to use a small number of loops, and have them add audio or MIDI if they wanted to for extra credit. The goal would be to give them a taste that would leave them wanting to create more on their own. I think they would enjoy it.