Classroom Resource Kit

City of melbourne and arts centre melbourne present

Composition Resource Kit for Schools

This is a new resource kit to help school students compose music for the Federation Bells. From here you can download useful tools to help you inform your students about the bells, and then compose beautiful music for this unique instrument.

All compositions submitted will be performed on the Federation Bells in Birrarung Marr at least once, with the possibility that the best pieces will go into the regular schedules. Book a school excursion to hear the works played live. For more details, please contact the City of Melbourne’s Curator of Musical Instruments at fedbells@melbourne.vic.gov.au or phone (03) 9658 8781.

fedbellsschools
To make best use of the kit, you will need to have a computer lab with one (or two) students per computer. It is possible to complete a composition for the Federation Bells in one class, or there is enough depth and possibilities to make it a term-long project.

There are two options:

Online Tool

If you want to get started quickly and your technical expertise is modest, the Online Tool for composition provides an intuitive drag ‘n’ drop timeline option. Please download the Resource Kit for the Online Composition Tool (34 MB)

Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)

If you have a MIDI lab and would like to take the composition process to the next level using a Digital Audio Workstation such as Ableton, Reaper or Reason, please download our resource kit:

bell sample player

Once you have created a MIDI file, you can hear it in a virtual spatial environment with the following sample player. You will need to load the library of bell samples below into the sample player.

Composition Course

If you would prefer the experts at the Digital Learning Hub to teach your students this process instead, take a look at the Federation Bells Composition Course. This day course runs at the Digital Learning Hub at Arts Centre Melbourne and is bookable on demand by calling 9281 8194 or emailing digitallearning@artscentremelbourne.com.au

Suitability

Primary (Gr. 5 & 6 only), Secondary

Curriculum Details