Today I found two excellent music games I plan to use with my high school students. This first is called The Sound Factory. The story behind the action is that you are a worker in a tire factory. To break the monotony you start making music using the found item in the factory. As more co-workers enjoy your music you unlock new found instruments. The game lets you layer the instrument timbres and make musical choices to create new music. But watch out for the boss. If he catches you playing music while you are supposed to be working - you lose!The second music game I found is called Break in the Road. This is a great role-play game that has the user acting as a DJ. You are given the task of using your audio recorder to collect environmental sounds from the neighborhood then create a piece of music from these sounds. Once you have collected some sounds you go to the studio and use the multitrack editor to combine the sounds into a new piece of music. When you have your piece of music created you can play it at the local club to find out if the audience likes it.
Both these games are great for having the students play with combining/layering timbres. Other musical elements such as form and harmony can also be addresses with these games as the students are given great freedom to create unique pieces of music.
Andrew
