Creative Music Making on YouTube with Four iPhones

It’s pretty amazing to see the musical possibilities with iPhone applications like “I Am T-Pain” and “Beatmaker.” In three weeks the YouTube video, “Lady Gaga – Poker Face by Applegirl (ver. I-Phone Apps)” has had over 1 million views. This female, Japanese iPhone musician and singer used four iPhones, running two copies Beatmaker, 1 copy of “I Am T-Pain,” and another synthesizer app to create this rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” song.

Although this is a VERY creative use of musical iPhone applications, be wary of showing this video to students in class. A brief scan of the WikiPedia article for “Poker Face” should make it clear the content of the song isn’t likely to pass muster as “appropriate” in schools. That said, however, it’s pretty remarkable to see musical skills like this demonstrated with iPhone apps. The app “I Am T-Pain” costs $3, “Beatmaker” is much more expensive at $20. Not many people have four iPhones handy to use for a musical performance like this either!

The April 2010 issue of Wired Magazine includes the article, “5 Secrets of YouTube’s Success.” It references five videos which “turned unknowns into Internet sensations.” Chances are, many of your students have seen these videos.

If you’re looking for some creative digital inspiration as well as practical suggestions for digital musicmaking in the classroom, I recommend you check out Carol Broos and Carol Vrotny’s K12Online09 presentation, “For Those Who Want to Rock, Don’t Suppose, Compose!”

The list of musical resources and sample student projects on their accompanying wiki page for the presentation is GREAT!

H/T to Samuel Axon for the reference to the Applegirl YouTube video.

Technorati Tags:
classroom, creative, creativity, iphone, k12online, k12online09, music, youtube, pokerface, poker, face, lady, gaga, ladygaga

If you enjoyed this post and found it useful, subscribe to Wes’ free newsletter. Check out Wes’ video tutorial library, “Playing with Media.” Information about more ways to learn with Dr. Wesley Fryer are available on wesfryer.com/after.

On this day..

• 5 Reasons You Should Join Me on Mastodon – 2017
• Cognitive Dissonance and Segregated Oklahoma Schools – 2015
• Find and Use the Best Channel for Home WiFi with Wireless Diagnostics – 2014
• Save a TeacherTube Video Temporarily to Your Laptop – 2012
• US debt and government borrowing must end now – 2011
• Telling the story of last Friday’s PD in Maine with PhotoPeach – 2010
• Join me virtually Monday night for our local school board meeting on CoverItLive – 2009
• My 1st Gen MacBook doesn’t like heat – 2009
• Opinions about auto-blogged social bookmark lists? – 2008
• links for 2008-04-05 – 2008