Working with Electroacoustic Music in Rural Communities: The use of an interactive music system in the creative process in primary and secondary school education

This article describes a project intended to promote access to electroacoustic music for children and teenagers aged 6 to 15 years in a socially and educationally disadvantaged rural community in Michoacán, Mexico. It explores an educational model of teaching, learning and creation of electroacoustic music through the use of music technology and pedagogy based on constructivism and Paulo Freire’s ideas on education as a practice of freedom. It provides a pedagogical reflection on the processes of learning and appreciation of this new music. The project includes the use of an interactive music system – implemented in MaxMSP using a mobile phone OSC app to control space and its interaction with timbre, pitch and duration – as an aid in the classroom and its implementation in an educational programme with a social impact. The research covered in this article could be taken into account to deliver new music education in rural communities with similar socioeconomic circumstances.