Creating Music

Music, in many cultures is an aural art. The composer is also a performer and the music is passed on to other composer/performers largely by means of an aural tradition. In aural tradition, music is always experience in real time—that is, the music must actually be performed to be learned or created.

In the Euro-American tradition, especially since the onset of printing and publishing, the creation of music has been a written tradition. In this tradition, the music is composed out of real time. This means that the composer, by ‘reading’ the music, can ponder and edit the music by converting visual images into sound images. The process here is much like that of a writer or painter in that the editing need not be in any order.

Children have been able to experience the creative processes of the aural tradition by playing various kinds of music-making instruments. But this process requires musical literacy, thus the written tradition of composing OUT of real time has been elusive, not only to the child, but to the general public.

The goal of this web site is to provide an environment for children to experience creative play in the creation of music, with the same ease they have been able to enjoy with toys, drawing tools, building blocks, puppets, etc. In addition, special emphasis is placed on the written tradition. Two CD-ROMS have already been published (and are available through this web site) which are dedicated to this goal.

As the web site evolves, more activities will be added and some of the existing activities will be substituted. Each activity will be expanded into CD-ROMS and/or software which can be downloaded via the web.