Lil BUB's Magical Yule LOG Video

Here is my Christmas present to you all.  My vision: to have everyone who is hosting a family/friend holiday gathering, to play this video in the background!

60 glorious minutes.  

If someone in the cyberverse actually does this, PLEASE comment about it below and I promise you will get every Christmas gift you've ever wanted and you will win the lottery.

Find out more about this adorable and inspiring perma-kitten on the Wikipedia page.

2 Finale Video Tutorials

I should have titled each of these, "Finale Tutorials for my Future Self", since they will most likely only be seen by me, for when I forget how to do this in the future.

The first one is:

Marching Band Folio Page Creation - Two half sheets per page!  Taking existing music and turning it into marching band Octavo size sheet to fit in marching folios.

The other:

Big Band Drum Set Parts - Slash notation with horn cues above staff for big band drum set parts.

Enjoy!

Ohio State Movie Show Gif

Ohio State marching band .gif of their movie show

Online Drum Machine as Fun Substitute for Metronome

Found a great online alternative to the clicking & ticking metronomes.  Within a few seconds you can create a groove which fits whatever groove you need.   It even saves your grooves as a text file which you can then open later when you re-visit the site.  I made a simple groove to use under our fight songs (we play other school fight songs at every home game) which is useful when we are w/out drumline in rehearsals.

Online Drum Machine

http://www.drumbot.com/projects/sequence/


A pianist and singer are rehearsing "Autumn Leaves" for a concert and the pianist says:
"OK. We will start in G minor and then on the third bar, modulate to B major and go into 5/4.
When you get to the bridge, modulate back down to F# minor and alternate a 4/4 bar with a 7/4 bar. On the last A section go into double time and slowly modulate back to G minor."
The singer says:
"Wow, I don't think I can remember all of that."
The pianist says:
"Well, that's what you did last time."

Cat Gifs demonstrate Music Notation

ENJOY!

NotateMe - New App Translates Handwritten to Notation!

Click HERE for the lowdown!

Can you name the Piece of Music by Score Fragment?

Name the classical music tune based off the score fragment shown!  

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE TEST!

Permanently Fix a Manhasset Music Stand

Going Low-Tech for a moment.  Very helpful for any schools using Manhasset Music Stands:

CLICK THIS.

Essential Elements Interactive - A Reason to Switch to EE?

I just discovered the amazingly wonderful teaching tool and student motivation greatness of Essential Elements Interactive.  It's basically like having a free version of smartmusic, except students can do multiple takes of a recording, and submit their favorite one, but without the green/red note instant feedback.

Watch the video from Steve Smith at Hal Leonard:

The video found HERE I find to be better at showing the awesomeness of this online tool.

Click the "EEI Quick Tour Video" button for the overview of all the great features.

The price tag of all this makes it the most impressive - FREE.  Well, free with the Essential Elements books anyway.  The only negative for me is that we are currently using "Traditions of Excellence" books, and I really enjoy the way the books are put together since we start with like-instrument classes.  The EE books do not have many of the great things I'm looking for when starting just horns for instance.  The Traditions of Excellence books use professional musicians to demonstrate in the DVD's, and EE method books seem to use kids.  Granted, they are teaching the concepts properly, but there is something about having an adult professional vs kids which helps to make the students believe them w/out questioning integrity.

Now I have a big dilemma... do I make the switch from ToE back to the ol' EE?  I used to use EE years back, and many of the guest teachers I would invite in would point out the flaws in the book.  I had no defense.  Then ToE came out, and I never looked back... until now!

This is going to take more research before I make a commitment, but the good news is that it is VERY easy to switch to a new method book anytime at my school.  

I would LOVE to hear your thoughts and comments on this!  Feel free to leave them below!

iWork Pages Unable to Make Name Badges.

So I've been slowly coming around to Mac's Pages (part of iWork).  The more I discover about it, the more I really love the interface and what it offers in terms of flexibility.  The learning curve is a bit slow at times, but overall I really do feel like it is worth taking the time to learn.  It makes things look so much better in general.

Once I came to understand the difference between a word document and page layout, my life became significantly better.  Short version: page layout is basically like Publisher mixed with Word and it's very awesome.

Now on to the disappointment:

If you want to make name tags or name badges in Pages, don't even try, because it is fail.  The issue with pages and name badges is that you cannot make a bunch of mail merge fields in the same page.  This is something Word does very well, but Pages does not.  In order to mail merge in Pages, it must put a different name badge on each page in Pages.  Something Word has been able to do forever.  Ugh.

My Week at ABC in Pictures

The sum of my 2 weeks here at the American Band College:

Week 1:

Week 2:

End of Finals:

Done!

Great Website for Band Instrument Information

It has been a while since my last post, but things are going to get busy very soon!

Here's a taste of some great stuff coming:

http://www.bandguide101.com/index.htm

John Williams in 3 Notes

Can you name John Williams tunes hearing just 3 notes?  Find out with this quiz!

Every Airmen of Note Recording

Hey, how about a link to every Airmen of Note recording EVER.

http://www.rewindplay.com/airmenofnote/sounds/sounds.htm

Boom.  Ya' Welcome.

New Website Design for MakeMusic

Makemusic has re-vamped it's websites for Smartmusic, Finale and the others (no one cares about) to include the products under one big umbrella.  Purpose?  To get people to buy more than 1 product at the same time?  Whatever the reason, it looks pretty cool.  Will be interested to see the iPad version of smartmusic!

iPad SmartMusic App Demo Video

See the iPad SmartMusic mobile app in action in this demo video!

(scroll to the bottom of the page to find the video)

The Myth of the Super Teacher

Excellent, entertaining presentation.  Worth your time.


The Myth of the Super Teacher from EdWriters on Vimeo.

Bridging the Gap: Skyping Composers & Personalized Program Notes

Last year our band and orchestra spring concert featured a color theme, where each of the tunes selected had a color in the title.  While we were performing, students from the art department were painting to the music.  It was pretty epic, and extremely successful.  The audience left with a lasting memory.

This school year I've been struggling with how to make this year's spring concert bigger and better, and just as memorable and cutting-edge.  It has been over half a school year, and I finally think I have found the idea I've been waiting for!

*Pause for dramatic effect*

Skyping with the composers, and using skype to make brief videos of the composers introducing their tunes.  

Bam.

After researching the topic for mac, I found CALL RECORDER FOR SKYPE (mac only) and EVAER (win only).  The means to do this for free meant complicating things quite extensively. (if you can't drop $20, there are quite a few youtube tutorials and blogs which document the process to accomplish this for free)

I purchased the mac version and LOVE IT because of it's simplicity.  In my opinion, paying the $20 for the recording software was worth it since I do not want to have any recording issues when I'm conducting the interview with the composer/students.  Plus, the mac version features a side-by-side video with the composer which is very cool. (doesn't show up until you watch the video)

Some things to consider:
1. When selecting tunes, the composer must be alive.
2. Have students come up with 1 or 2 questions each, and have them turn them in to you.  Select the best/most asked questions and have them ready to go at the beginning of the interview.
3. Set up the laptop so many of the students can be seen by the composer.
4. It helps if you can run the audio through the school speakers, and the video through the large screen projector.
5.  Make sure to save the video in mp4 format to make it easier to edit the video later for introductory videos before playing each tune at the concert.

Stuff MS Band Students Say

Add Signatures to Gmail PDF's!

A while back I did a post on adding your signature to pdf's using mac's preview.

Here is another way to do this using chrome instead (for those who do not have access to macs).  It's called HelloSign.  Check it:

Noteflight moves to HTML 5

See article HERE

BEST iPad App for teaching Piano to Video Game Addicted Children with Short Attention Spans

This iPad app is actually fantastic for short attention span kids.  I have a 5 1/2 year old son.  He loves the video games, and thus has a very short attention span when it comes to learning.  Go ahead, make judgements about my parenting if you must.  However, this app is great in keeping him focused on learning to play the piano, while simultaneously tricking him into thinking it's just a game.  See vid:

Check out their site:

http://www.joytunes.com/

Piano Duster iPad App Store Link

https://itunes.apple.com/app/piano-dust-buster-song-game/id502356539

Recorder Master iPad App Store Link

https://itunes.apple.com/app/recorder-master/id492065346

The Music Notation App 'You've Been Waiting For'

This is a few days old now, but this looks very promising:

Roundtable Interview with Renowned Soundtrack Composers

This story first appeared in the Jan. 10, 2013, issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Writing music often is a solitary pursuit, so it was no wonder that when six renowned composers -- Marco Beltrami, 46 (The Sessions), Mychael Danna, 54 (Life of Pi), Alexandre Desplat, 51 (Argo, Moonrise Kingdom, Rise of the Guardians,Zero Dark Thirty), Patrick Doyle, 59 (Brave), Danny Elfman, 59 (Frankenweenie, Hitchcock, Promised Land, Silver Linings Playbook), and Fernando Velazquez, 36 (The Impossible) -- gathered in one room, they relished the chance to discuss the complexities of their trade as part of THR's roundtable series. The setting for this gathering of scoring heavy hitters and potential Academy Award nominees: a soundstage sans musicians but with the familiar trappings of a workspace they know all too intimately. Indeed, the high-pressure undertaking of putting music to picture can be a painful process, but the rewards, like a perfectly formed, unforgettable melody, are worth every sacrifice -- and there are many.

Source:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/zero-dark-thirty-life-pi-404029

Name that Jazz Musician Youtube Quiz!

Just tried out the new online quiz maker which uses Youtube Video Clips at Blubbr.  Make one of your own and post the link in the comments below!

Your Brain on Improv