Quickly! Drum Assigner

If you have 9 percussionists or less in your ensemble, this program is FANTASTIC for assigning parts to players.  It is called Quickly! Drum Assigner and is available for free at bandworld.org.  The online video tutorials that come with it make the learning time super quick.  However, you may find them to be unnecessary since the program is rather intuitive and easy to figure out on your own.  This software is great for bands where percussionists don't always play the same parts on each tune.

Click this image to see a larger version of the screenshot:

Quickly! Drum Assigner Screenshot

The free version comes with a small amount of pre-loaded percussion tunes, and if you pay the $20 discounted price, you can get about 1,400+ tunes added to the database.  I found that entry of the music was so quick, it was almost just as easy to put them in myself however.

My main criticism of the software is that it does not accomodate any ensembles with over 9 percussionists.  Every one of my ensembles have over 9 players, so this makes the software obsolete for my use.  I've lost hope that there will ever be an update to accomodate more than 9 players, but who knows.

Bacon, Nyan, Fale.

Pointless Post: How to turn any website into Bacon, Nyon, or Fale.

Click HERE to Bacon-ize your site
example: http://bacolicio.us/http://www.peta.org/

Click HERE to Nyan-ize any website
example: http://nyanit.com/bandroomtech.blogspot.com/

Click HERE to Fale (fail) any website
example: http://fale.ca/http://bandroomtech.blogspot.com/

Finale Songbook App for iPad + Dropbox Hint

Finale has released it's first iPad app, Finale Songbook!

Although it is pretty minimal in it's functionality now, hopefully it will continue to evolve just as forScore has evolved over time.  Specifically the integration of Dropbox would be nice, since currently Songbook requires an old school connection to iTunes, OR, you can open the finale .mus file using this workaround:

From within  Dropbox, locate the .mus file you want to open in Songbook.  

Click on the file, then in the upper right corner, find the open in.... icon.  Select the Songbook icon, and you are good to go - no connection to your computer needed. (you will need to have the file in  Dropbox however)

forScore Stamp Resources

One of the best features in forScore is the stamps.  Although I have not tried this yet, this link will give you some cool new stamps to import into forScore.

CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL FORSCORE STAMPS

If I can get these imported myself, I may make a quick tutorial video to show the how-to process later.  Even better, if you have already tried this and have been successful, please share by posting in comments below!

Keystation Mini 32

New to me!  I know it's been out for a while, but I recently visited the local Guitar Center, and purchased the Keystation Mini 32 piano keyboard for Finale note entry.  Here is what the setup looks like:

Okay, so the 'music stand' was a bit pieced-together (cardboard), but the piano works well with finale, and it fits into the same case as the laptop!  Makes for great note entry no matter where I go!  The only issue is finding a small table-top music stand I can take with me also.... Anyone know of any?

New Apple TV VGA Adapter

Not only does this VGA adapter look fantastic with the Apple TV, it's also a lot cheaper than the one I'm currently using.  The one I'm using now doesn't look have as nice, is much more bulky, and .... well, just check this out:

http://9to5mac.com/2012/05/02/kanex-releases-atv-pro-adapter-for-connecting-older-projectors-with-airplay-devices/

Here is a great review comparing previous HDMI to VGA converters to the Kanex ATV Pro Adapter.

Commence drooling!

3 Note-worthy iPad App Sites

Here are 3 sites with Music and Music Ed related iPad Apps:

1. iPad Apps in Education
2. Musicians with Apps
3. Appitic