Tech help. Please!

[sashaco]

  I realize that this request does not belong in this forum, but I believe this is the most read on this site, and I am looking for help in a hurry.

I am starting a small choir at a high school in Addis Ababa.  The kids have no musical experience, but are quite keen (which they are not for my ordinary classes.)  As I am teaching pieces I am also  teaching sight-singing, but that will be a slow process. They are anxious to perform in six weeks time,(not my original plan) and the only way I think they can learn their parts in this period is for me to record each of their parts separately on a CD and have them learn at home.  (Almost everyone has access to a CD player.)

I think it should be a simple matter for me to record each part onto a CD using this lap top, but I have no idea even how to begin.  I know there's a built in mike somewhere, since the machine can be used to skype.  I don't need to do anything tricky like putting the parts together, and the quality of the sound is not an issue.

I am LUDICROUSLY technologically behind the times.  Is anyone willing to explain this to me as if to a small child?  I want to be able to make separate tracks, so that altos, for example, can simply click to track 3 to learn their part.


I apologize again for posting in this room.  I thought I might get the quickest response here.  

Many thanks, Sasha Cooke

[Bob]

Download Audacity.  It's a few audio editing program.  
https://audacity.sourceforge.net/

You can play/record the melody.  Then record a "conductor" click track with that and include audio cues so you can come in on time with other tracks if needed.  Then record the other tracks.  Clean up/adjust things as you can after that.

Don't assume they'll actually use the recording though.  You might have to show them how to practice with it.  A few might use it but not many.  

Once you've got it recorded, you could also slow down the tempo for a practice version or loop a section so they don't have to control their media device as much for practice.

[sashaco]

Thanks Bob, I will look at that site.  Much of what you've written I can't understand- I meant the word "ludicrously" in all seriousness ( to coin a phrase), but I'm grateful for the help.  I'm also sure you're right that some won't practice on their own, but we do what we can!

Sasha

[sashaco]

I read the instructions for Audacity in the "Recording" section but was unable to see how to do what I hope to do.  I think they assume a basic level of computer literacy that is far above mine.  I do need to learn more, but at the moment I'm hoping some kind soul can explain this to me as if I had just landed in a time machine from a century ago.  I have rebuilt engines and can do electrical repairs, but I have (for whatever reasons) missed the boat on the computer age.  My wife, (who has a hard time understanding why the distributor advances the spark) is quite computer literate, but is travelling at the moment.

I want to sit down in front of the computer, sing the opening note of a part, count one bar and sing the bass part.  Then start a new track and do the same for the tenor and so forth. Then I want to take a CD out of the computer, take it to an Internet cafe and have them burn (I'm proud just to know that word)  as many copies as the kids give me blank CDs.

I did something similar for a choir in Tanzania 15 years ago, but I did it with a battery powered cassette player, and it posed no difficulties.

Thanks, and,  with a suitable amount of embarrassment, yours, Sasha

[m1469]

Hi Sasha,

I think you are not actually asking the question(s) you mean to ask - which is how do you get it to actually record?  And, how do you create separate tracks?

In Audacity (which you will have to download, first), there is some kind of control panel where they actually have "buttons" which look like they do on a cassette recorder.  There is a round circle (it might be red) that you click on to record and then there is a square (which might also be red and may only be clickable once you start recording) that you click on to stop.  Each time you click on those, you create a separate track that you will want to save (create a folder that you can save all of them to).  

So:

1.  you open a new file
2.  click record
3.  say/sing your thing
4.  click stop
5.  click save.   And you do this for each track you'd like to create.  I'm assuming you have a mic of some sort?  Or, there might be one built into the computer.  

In writing, it all sounds more complicated than it is, because a person has to use several words to explain how to do a simple click with a mouse in the right spot.  It might be difficult to explain every step you need before you start taking any steps, so you may want to at least download the software, first, and then post again if you can't find the buttons I'm talking about (or if you don't know how to save them after you've found the buttons and made the track, or if you need help editing, etc.).  

(Then, once you've got all of the tracks you'd like to have on the CD, you can use a CD playing software which also allows you to burn CDs (I don't know of any which don't also do this) such as RealTime, you open/drag all of the mp3 files that you want into there, arrange them in the order you'd like, and burn away!).

[orlandopiano]

Instead of using CDs, why not upload to something like Soundcloud.com?  Most kids these days have easier access to a webpage than they do a CD player.

[sashaco]

Ah, m1469, I get it. If I download Audacity it gives me a visual thing on the screen that any fool can understand (although perhaps not a damn fool).  That's why the instructions don't help.  I will give it a go.  Orlando, I think I need to take baby steps into this brave new world; also this is Africa, where the kids are not quite as up to date. 

Many thanks, Sasha

[Bob]

I think you'll need to also download the LAME encoder if you want Audacity to turn its audio into an mp3 file.  It's some licensing or rights thing I think that they can't make that part of the main program. 

If you right click on the main window or look in the edit menu, there should be something about adding new tracks. 

The space bar usually does stop/start.

One way I've recorded layered stuff is to record the me playing the melody the way I want, with phrasing/timing, etc.  Then I make a second track and just tap the beat and add 'cues' with that.  That's the "conductor" track.  Then mute the original melody (and I'm done with that melody track).  Then have the conductor track play while I record each part.  The conductor track keeps things lined up fairly well.  And it's all recorded you can go back and tweak timing on each track, following the conductor track timing, and balance things out, etc.  Then mute the conductor track before you record it.

If you're using a keyboard, you can route the audio out of the keyboard to the audio in of the computer.  That might make it cleaner.

If it's for choir students though and it's a practice audio file... You could take the whole thing and slow it down.  Audacity can do that while keeping the pitch the same (or you could record it a little slower and speed it up too).  If you make tracks of isolated parts, you might want to establish tonality for the individual lines line somehow (V I before the vocal line maybe).  Or include the piano accompaniment if there is one and have the piano accomp with each individual line for practice.

Even if you've got it all down to the point that it's all a "known process" it's still going to take some effort.  It might not be worthwhile if only a couple students actually use it for practicing.  However... You could use that for yourself too while teaching.  You've created your own inhouse accompanist.  You can use those audio tracks and focus much more attention on the students if you're away from the piano.

[sashaco]

Thank you very much for such detailed thoughts, Bob.  For now I'm going to stick to single tracks that just teach notes.  If in the process of doing that I learn enough to do some different stuff I may try to use it in the future.  My real hope is to teach reading as I  teach parts, and I'm hoping in 6 months time people, if not sight-reading (I know that would be asking alot) will be able to use the score for reference and thus be able to learn parts more quickly in rehearsal.
Anyone who has some great ideas I'm very open to suggestions.  I've been doing fairly old- fashioned solfege exercises using a blackboard.  I've used Tallis's Canon as a learning piece- each rehearsal I subdivide the group a bit more so that they become more independent singing the canon in more layers.  Not too imaginative, I know.  We then work on a couple of simple pieces.  It's tough to start with a group where almost nobody's done any singing, particularly when the piano at the school is unusable.

Again, thanks for the ideas and help,  Sasha

[starstruck5]

Here is a useful YouTube tutorial on Audacity for you, if you need it.

Hope this helps.