Digital+Graphics+for+Music+Education

(I've add in some headings so that we can work together on this a little better. Right now our posts are mostly unconnected. Please fill in any content that you know under my headings, or add more headings if you have more ideas.-Mike) =Types of Digital Graphics= **Painted graphic (.jpg or .png)** "Painted" graphics are graphics created using tools that colorize individual pixels. By using the "pencil," "brush," or "eraser" tools the user indicates what color an area of pixels should be. Paint tools are great for touching up digital photos or other photo-realistic images. JPG and PNG formats are common file types used on the internet to share painted or "bit-mapped" images. TIFF is a format used for print jobs with bitmaps.

Drawn graphic (.jpg or .png)
I am thinking that a drawn graphic is created only with the drawing tools of a program like GIMP and does not utilize any of the painting tools, but any clarification by someone else would be greatly appreciated.(Cameron) Instead "drawing" tools or tools that yield vector graphics or "path-based" graphics. Vector graphics are defined by a set of points and lines instead of by individual pixels.

GIF version of a layered button
Image editing software may allow the user to develop an image composed of "layers" in which each layer may be edited separately. However, these types of files cannot be shared in web pages, but would typically be exported into a format such as gif that reduces the size of bit mapped images by eliminating unnecessary color information (bits per pixel)

Captured Screen Shot
A captured screen shot is an exact image of what is shown on the monitor at the time of the screen shot. This image can be pasted into presentations.(Cameron)

Notation graphic
Just what it says: a graphic of notation

Edited Photo
A photo that has been edited in digital format

A pdf files are created by Adobe and is a file that preserves all formatting, fonts, graphics, links, etc. contained within that file to be displayed on whichever platform the file is opened.
=Uses for Digital Graphics in Music Education=

In the Classroom
Using visuals aids in music is very important. Students are constantly looking at images, sheet music, or watching the director for clues on how to sing the music. Teachers could use a graph to show a musical phrase or the form of a piece. They should always show the pictures of famous composers when talking about tehm so students can make a connection to history. They can show pictures of a person singing or playing, or show a video of the inside of the throat to watch the vocal folds move. Showing images of paintings from the Renaissance, Classical, Romantic, and Impressionistic periods helps students see that all aspects of the fine arts were affected by what was going on in the world at the time. (Bonnie)

Outside the Classroom
=Tips and Personal Accounts= ...I have been using the newest version of Gimp and found it wonderful. I have never used Photoshop so it was labor intensive but very worth it. I had to watch the lecture archive over but found it not that helpful with Windows. I went to Youtube and that helped me more. I used the Gimp tutorial for beginnersTHAT'S ME Please add your knowledge to this page!

I was playing around with Gimp and found out that the program is extremely powerful. I was wondering what some people have done with it and found an abundance of YouTube videos. They showed drawings that probably took hours, but were sped up to only a few minutes. It is unbelievable what some artist can do with these digital tools. You would never know that this eye was drawn on a computer. Unbelievable!

GLORIOUS SMUDGE TOOL!!! I played around with Gimp for quite some time and realized how forgiving the program can be with the help of the smudge tool and the use of varying levels of transparency. The transparency slider will go up and down by using the center scroll wheel of the mouse. I found that a lot easier than clicking that little blue slider. The smudge tool blends the transparency levels of the colors around the area to make them all kind of blend together. It was incredibly hard to draw a smooth curve, but with the smudge tool you just zoom in and smudge the line in the direction you want it to go. This turned out to be a lot of fun.

(Jeremy)

After using just a minute portion of the capabilities of GIMP I certainly have a new appreciation of graphic designs which I see every day, and the amount of time and effort graphic designers put into their creations. I had been told by professional photographer friends that GIMP would be easy for me to use to start editing photos. However, I think their expertise and greater experience might have skewed their opinion. I, like Jeremy, feel that the program is definitely worth the effort of figuring out how to effectively use it; however, I will be keeping the lecture archive, Youtube, and the Gimp tutorial very close at hand to help me through tasks. The plethora of buttons and options are staggering and have me wishing I could just use a voice command option to tell the program what I would like to happen. I was amazed at the video link that Jeremy posted mainly because the individual stated he used only a mouse or trackpad to create his images. I felt inept trying to draw even the simplest figure without having a type of writing implement in hand. (Cameron)

It has been a while since I used any kind of image creation software, and the first time to ever to edit my photos. I thought it was pretty exciting that I could use GIMP to edit my photos and it did the job for no cost to me. I enjoyed cropping off images of the photo and added those crops to other areas. I enjoyed the wide array of colors and the patterns and buttons that allowed you to use the paintbrush as hatch marks or blobs of paint. I thought it was very difficult to draw using the mouse, and I wonder if you could add a tool to help with this challenge. As Jeremy mentioned, you can fix problems easily with the ZOOM. That was my favorite tool! (Bonnie)

Wow - I never knew that editing graphics could be so involved; and this is only using GIMP. I'm sure there's much more advanced software out there that people who actually do this for a living use. GIMP was a little confusing at first, but after you get used to it, it's not so bad. I did have trouble with the text tool for a while. I would follow the instructions for typing text on to a picture, but would be unable to see what I typed. Then I realized that the font size was way too small - takes me a few tries sometimes to do something so simple :) Like Cameron, there are a lot of buttons that can be confusing, but I know that it just takes some getting used to. I think editing photos in GIMP would be very useful in the classroom. You could take pictures of yourself playing an instrument and type in text or draw arrows that point out the correct things you are doing, like hand placement on the instrument. It would also be a way to make posters or advertisements for your next concert. The posters would look more "fun" than just a regular flyer made in Word. (Taylor)

I like the GIMP program, but it's confusing to me at first, since I'm used to other programs. But, it is really cool how you can create all those different textures and patterns when drawing and painting!!! I'm still confused by the text tool, it doesn't seem as easy as some other programs to use. I would suggest using a mouse instead of the laptop mousepad when drawing. It is a cool program too, hard to believe it's free. (Jamie)

The GIMP program has so many capabilities. I enjoyed watching the link Jeremy embedded above. It truly is amazing what you can do with this program if you have the time and resources to learn everything the program is capable of doing. I could see this type of program being particularly useful when teaching if you need to edit photos of your ensemble or perhaps if you were editing your school's logo to create one for your ensemble. I really like Taylor's idea of editing pictures of yourself playing an instrument with arrows drawn to things you are doing correctly. This seems like an excellent use of the program. You could then take these graphics and load them onto your band's website so your students can access them. I am really glad I got to learn a bit about this piece of software and the creation of graphics over the past few weeks. I can see several potential uses for it in my teaching. (Chris)

The GIIMP program has so many possibilities and can be used for just about anything. I think if you are designing anything you need to utilize a program like GIMP. To edit photos, create artwork, etc. this program is great to use and the most important part is that it is free so using this for educational use is endless. This program is a great tool to add to the arsenal and I think that every educator should use and utilize this tool in the classroom for various activities and design projects. (Will)

I agree with Jamie regarding how the GIMP text tool is very clumsy and awkward for me. I still can't seem to manipulate the text the way I want. I'm sure after working with it more often I'll get the hang of it. I also found the videos on YouTube using the Windows platform very helpful. I like how photographs can be manipulated, but I am far from mastering that form of art. It will take many more views of the help videos before I feel comfortable using it. There's no denying how this program is a fabulous tool, though. I took a logo from our band and opened it into GIMP after my regular photo viewers were making the image blurry; GIMP not only opened it, but it maintained the integrity of the scanned image much better than any other program I could find. I was able to do some simple touch ups, and then sent it to a print shop to be further refined. If I would have had the time to really work and learn it, I am sure I would have been able to just perfect the image myself! (Randi)

Yes, it does require practice to develop a skill! GIMP is very powerful and has many options. The text tool is clumsy to me which is too bad because text over a photo or over a score is probably one of the most useful applications of graphics in music education. Also, still images can be used in print products, slide presentations, and video productions. Graphics can be used to inspire student creativity...for example, perform the way an image makes you feel.