Dennis L. Darling, Andrea Stockseth, and Peter R. Kowitz, Luther College

In the early 1960's the Contemporary Music Project, as conceived by Norman Dello Joio with funding from the Ford Foundation, evolved into a program that came to be called Comprehensive Musicianship. The proponents of Comprehensive Musicianship stated that music was too often taught in a fragmented fashion, theory divorced from history, and history divorced from performance. Comprehensive musicianship programs attempted to offer students an integrated course of study in which these subjects were taught within a musical context with emphases on the relationships between each of these areas. Students were encouraged to follow a "discovery" model, to "do" in addition to simply "know," and develop competency that included critical listening and analysis.

Though Comprehensive Musicianship had some curricular influence, an examination of most contemporary performance programs reveals the continuation of a performance-oriented curriculum. Students still practice and perform in ensembles and study theory, history and sight-reading in separated classes.

In recent years, other academic subjects within the elementary and secondary schools have adopted similar curricular concepts both within and between subject disciplines. The "middle school concept," for example, often has teams of teachers planning integrated units that encompass history, English, reading and even science, mathematics and the arts. Of utmost importance in these programs is "the relationship" between areas of a discipline or connections between disciplines themselves. Like Comprehensive Musicianship, these recent approaches also emphasize discovery, the development of competency, and the integration of course content (knowing) and experiences (doing).

Multimedia approaches, using current technology, offer great opportunity for music instructors to broaden the scope of the performance curriculum. With technology, instructors are able to move beyond the practice and perform mode of instruction. Students can study theory and music history independently seated at the computer. Still, the challenge of integration remains. If students sit at a computer and study music theory and the program does not clearly relate to the music they are practicing and performing, the goals of Comprehensive Musicianship have not been met. It is imperative that multi-media based instruction be integrated into, and further, enhance the performance curriculum.

The purpose of this project is to provide a comprehensive multi-media program to supplement the teaching and learning that happens in a traditional, practice, and perform, middle school band program. The project is a multi-media presentation and comprehensive curricular unit for a composition entitled "Omaha Beach", a concert march written by John Edmondson for middle school instrumental students. By focusing on a specific concert piece, the project integrates the study and organizing components of Comprehensive Musicianship with the traditional practice and performance mode of band instruction. The project addresses the major avenues of Comprehensive Musicianship: performing, organizing, and analyzing. Within the context of this project, middle school band students study, practice, perform, and analyze the composition, study World War II and the Allied invasion at Omaha Beach, interview the composer, and practice as well as study their own instrument.

In the "Practice Your Part" unit, students are able to practice their parts at a tempo of their choice with a MIDI instrument playing with them. They may choose to play with a recorded instrument (which provides a modeled sound) if they are ready to practice at performance tempo. Students may also elect to practice with a percussion track or any combination of MIDI generated parts. An important facet of performance is listening to appropriate sound models. The project allows students to listen to their parts or the entire composition as recorded by individual college instrumentalists and the publisher's promotional recording.

In the "Listening" unit, students hear a digitally reproduced recordings. They can elect to listen to the promotional recording provided by the publisher. They have the option to move into a second listening of the march that analyzes its form through as the recording is segmented according formal structure. Finally, they can listen to other marches imported from recordings by the Luther College Concert Band to hear performance practices /march style.

The "New Notes" unit was designed to assist students when they have trouble with technical aspects of instrument study. From a series of menu choices, students select unfamiliar fingering for their instrument. They see the fingering chart, a digital photograph of correct hand position, hear a digitized recording of the pitch. From each page of the New Notes unit, the students can elect to move into the listening unit . Hence, the students will, in addition to learning how to perform their parts of the composition, have immediate access to a richer musical context.

The project also explores connections between music and other academic subjects. In the "About Omaha Beach" unit, students learn the historical importance of the place called Omaha Beach and the events that occurred there. To bring students closer to the actual Allied invasion, there are digitally imported video clips from historical film documentaries. Students may also "interview" the composer and learn about his motivation for composing this march. Mr. Edmondson's recommendations for interpretation of the march are included, as well as details about the life of a full-time composer/publisher. Finally, students see a series of maps that show the location of Omaha Beach and the route of the Allied invasion. Throughout the project, the background visuals come from period photographs.

In the Games unit, gaming strategies are used to assess students' knowledge learned in other units. Students place a movable "X" in the correct location of Omaha Beach. They unscramble the icons (e.g. A, B, Coda) of the formal structure of the piece and identify parts from the score. The project is interactive throughout, allowing students to move from unit to unit with ease.

Hardware used for the development of the project was a Power Macintosh 8100/100AV with 48 MEG of RAM, a Yamaha MU 5 General MIDI tone generator, and a MIDI keyboard. Software included Macromedia's Director 4.0.4, Macromedia Sound Edit 16 1.1, Passport's Master Tracks Pro 6.0.1, Passport's Encore 4.0.1 and Adobe Photoshop 2.5. Period photographs were imported via the Internet and translated using JPEGView 3.3.1. The project is designed to operate in classrooms equipped with only a computer (Macintosh or Windows format) with 16MB RAM, a General MIDI device and a sound system.