Big Ear Games is simplifying music learning and composition and helping teachers to teach and evaluate general music skills without a need for an instrument!
They envision a world where music creativity is accessible, inclusive and has a social-emotional as well as computational thinking impact.
The app Big Ear - Learn and Make Music, could be described as Lego for songs meets GarageBand with main features, such as:
Build broken down popular songs.
Play and practice 10,000 + musical puzzles.
Collect instruments and certificates.
Compose music with educational tools.
User Generated Content - Songs generate puzzles!
Share, collaborate and socialize.
Teacher features:
Create and manage student groups.
Create and assign tasks with a task editor.
Evaluate students according to results.
Formats/platforms used:
iOS, Android including ChromeBook.
Primary URL:
Problem solved:
Big Ear Games helps with:
Learning, teaching and evaluating the abstract subjects of general music skills.
As the level of musicianship of students varies and imposes a challenge to both students and teachers, the app serves all levels, beginners and advanced alike.
As a high ratio of students/classroom is challenging teachers with student engagement, the app can be played by any number of students in the same classroom.
Independent and remote learning is important today more than ever with pandemic risk.
Evaluating students’ general music skills is challenging and lack tools, which Big Ear supplies.
As social-emotional and computational thinking impact potential of music is not integrated enough, Big Ear allows music expression, social interaction and lays the foundation for the logic of music.
Grade/age range:
Mainly K-8 elementary school (6-13 years olds).
Core or supplemental:
Both
Subject or standards:
General music skills, music composition, social-emotional learning and computational thinking.
Lesson time needed:
The app can be used for short term or long term (years). It can be just a part of a lesson or used for the whole lesson.
Pricing model:
The pricing is a subscription model with a basic price of $5/seat/year.
Additional services needed:
Online teacher training session (2hrs) is included.
PD online teacher training is available, for example, “Making Music with Big Ear,” “The Logic of Music” and “The Physics of Music”.
What makes Big Ear Games unique?
The combination of learning how music works, composition tools, social interaction through music and the math behind music.
Any song created in the app generates automatically puzzle sets to be reconstructed.
The teacher features that allow evaluation of general music skills.
Characteristics:
The puzzles (“Lego”) part was designed as a game with minimal use of language, but keeping basic musical naming available.
The composer (sequencer) was simplified but without compromising the educational elements.
Here’s what users are saying:
“...it is like nothing I have seen before. It has been developed as a “GAME” and is quite comprehensive in terms of learning, engagement and assessment.”
--Ari Nemser, Music Curriculum Specialist, Miami-Dade County
“BigEar is a valuable tool for a music teacher. By presenting music concepts in a child-friendly gamified context, pupils learn the most valuable elements of rhythm, scale and harmony fundamentals in a way that engages them immediately. There is plenty of room for pupils' own creative exploration as well. It is also one of the few ways to engage all pupils at once, while allowing them to progress at their individual pace.”
--Ajay Meswani, Class teacher, Helsinki
