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."
A means to share personal teaching experiences involving music and technology.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Monday, September 30, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
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:
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!
Friday, July 12, 2013
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.
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.
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