As part of his IB HL Music course, junior Binh Tat is required to present 20 minutes of solo music in a variety of styles and genres to be assessed by the IB. In preparation for that, he and his fellow students each recorded a single piece during class. “Technology-wise it was nerve-wracking for me because we were using my laptop and my recording software, so I was basically responsible for the recording.” Binh said.
Binh, in cooperation with his teacher Mr. Bob Johnston, set up the recording equipment on the music room stage. They used a Snowball USB microphone attached to Binh’s computer. After the recording, Binh transferred the resulting wav file via USB drive to Mr. Johnston for editing.
Mr. Johnston used Audacity to cut the file into individual recordings, normalized the wavs to increase the amplitude (without creating distortion), and exported them in mp3 format. He then posted Binh’s version of “Phunkdified” by Justin King to SoundCloud and embedded it in the MS/HS Fine arts blog for all the world to enjoy. “What I like about SoundCloud is that it gives a graphical representation of the music rather than just an audio file.” Mr. Johnston said.
