Tam Tam Resources

Tam Tam Resources
Hi Folks, I spent most of yesterday hunting up Tam Tam Resources for the IT teacher at a rural K8 school here in Montana. They just received 10 XO-1s from a stalled Contributors Program project at MSU. She is very excited about using them, especially Tam Tam, since they lost the funding for elementary music this year. She is hoping the elementary teachers will be able to teach their own music, some of it using TamTam Mini and TamTam Jam. The middle school science teacher will also be using them for experiments and the like in his 6-8 grade science (and math?) classes. We will be starting a blog for their project and, hopefully they will share their discoveries, lessons, etc. freely on the blog. I would like to share the list of resources with you. You will find them at the lower part of this email." ...snip... Thanks! Caryl
 * edited from 09/03/2011 [IAEP] list
 * iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org

Instruction Manuals
Excellent and up-to-date Tam Tam Resources from Peru... in       Spanish, but you should still find them very helpful. For parts that are not clear, you can cut and paste them into Google Translate.

Tam Tam Mini:
http://bit.ly/pvWdv8

Tam Tam Edit:
http://bit.ly/q5tHl7

About Tam Tam Jam
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/File:Tamtamhelp2.png (Keyboard) http://wiki.laptop.org/go/File:Tamtamhelp3.png (Selecting an instrument/sound) http://wiki.laptop.org/go/File:Tamtamhelp4.png (Recording       loops)

About Tam Tam Edit
http://wiki.laptop.org/images/a/af/Tamtamhelp5.png (How to use the interface) http://wiki.laptop.org/go/File:Tamtamhelp6.png (How to use       the tools)

About using the Music Generator
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/File:Tamtamhelp7.png (The music generator) http://wiki.laptop.org/go/File:Tamtamhelp8.png (The properties editor)

You Tube Videos

 * Mini TamTam Demo

Made over 4 years ago when all of the TamTams were one application... but still useful. You will open TamTam Mini from the icon in the ring in Home View rather than as he describes in       the video. The items in the video that appear in the sidebar on       the right, now appear on the left on the XO. For the drums... the start button is the arrow to the left of the dice, it       changes into a square which is the stop button. Volume, reverb, and the ability to add your own sounds seem to have been taken out for TamTam Mini. They will be in some of the more advanced TamTams. So, the part after 4:23 is no longer useful for learning to use TamTam Mini, but the part before that is good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31L9qaxOrp0

A teacher workshop in Peru
I notice the leader has given the teachers song sheets with the notes spelled out with the keyboard letters. An interesting project could be to have students figure out some familiar songs and make similar song sheets to share with each other.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXm-_uSU3_o&feature=related

From Thailand
Children experimenting with TamTam and playing together as a       band http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ZafVLAbFM1A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sMt0seK3pQ

From Rwanda
Children dancing to music other children have created and are playing on their XO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ZafVLAbFM1A

From Uruguay
A demo/training video from "Canal Ceibal" in Uruguay showing how children might learn to compose and do musical improvisations on the XO. The teachers and students go to a       studio in Montevideo for the filming of these videos. The white smocks for the children and the lab coats for the teachers are for real! It is a tradition for them to wear them that has been going on for a very long time. We saw it when we visited schools in Uruguay in May. They always dress that way, not just for special occasions! This one is long but very good. The teacher and children are all speaking Spanish (of course!) but the lesson is excellent. They are learning to create songs and improvise on their XOs. They are from a "Music School." http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ZafVLAbFM1A BTW, This lesson fits very well with the Montana State Curriculum Standards for 4th Grade Music http://opi.mt.gov/pdf/standards/ContStds-Arts.pdf
 * Simpler lessons could be done with younger children

supplemental text materials
The files are sort of big, but if you'd like some supplemental text materials explaining some of the instruments in the TamTam samples, the musical scales available and some of the technical concepts that can be found in TamTam SynthLab, you might want to look at this wikislice I created (in PDF and ODT formats). 370 pages and 69 MB for the PDF http://wiki.laptop.org/images/a/a2/TamTamSuite_collection.pdf 450 pages and 52 MB for the ODT, but it has pictures amnd can be edited http://wiki.laptop.org/images/1/12/TamTamSuite_collection.odt cjl