Category: Link Post

NPR Playlist – 50 Best Albums of 2021, Ranked

For a while, I had a holiday tradition of taking “best albums of the year” posts on the web, and making Apple Music playlists out of them.

NPR has started doing this, which saves me some time, but I sort of miss the ritual.

Anyway, here are links to their streaming playlists. I always learn about some good new music listening through this list every year.

Some of my favorites I have already heard are, in no particular order…

  • An Evening with Silk Sonic, Silk Sonic
  • Mood Valiant, Hiatus Kaiyote
  • Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra

NPR Music’s 50 Best Albums of 2021, Ranked : NPR

If the year presently coming to a close was a dance, it’d be a hesitant shuffle, tentative steps toward — or heyyyy, maybe away from? — an uncertain future. So maybe that’s why, when we sat down together to discuss which albums we loved the most over the course of 2021, NPR Music’s staff and contributors found ourselves drawn to albums by artists making breakthroughs, moving forward with clarity, without balking at the obstacles falling in their way. Our list of the year’s 50 best is topped by an album that was unmatched in concept, songwriting or performance, but it had so much good company. Everywhere on this list you’ll find the thrill of artistic revelation, musicians finding themselves, willing something new into reality. There’s plenty of fun, but little escapism. Many of these albums are stacked with great songs, but these aren’t snacks. Even when slight they are composed, with a sense of purpose. This is nourishment. Look around. You’ll find something fortifying to build you up for the road ahead. (As a bonus, you can find our list of the 100 Best Songs of 2021 here.)

_Stream NPR Music’s 50 Best Albums of 2021:Spotify / Apple Music / Tidal / Amazon Music / YouTube Music

Guest Post on Scoring Notes: Use Shortcuts to quickly create score templates on macOS and iOS

I wrote a post for the Scoring Notes blog, published today. The post is all about using the Shortcuts app on iOS (and now the Mac) to create custom templates in music notation software.

I did my best to provide basic context for the Shortcuts app so that this post can be accessible by any teacher, musician, or composer. The post includes a link to download both the shortcut and an example score template so you can tweak it to your heart’s content. Here is an excerpt:

Use Shortcuts to quickly create score templates on macOS and iOS — Robby Burns | Scoring Notes:

Even though apps like Sibelius, Finale, and Dorico don’t come with their own built-in Shortcuts actions, the addition of several new file-based actions from the Automator makes creating templates possible.

The shortcut below is three simple steps. I searched for each action in the right sidebar and dragged them in the order I wanted them to occur. Here’s what each step does:

  1. Looks for a score I made in Dorico that is set up in 4/4, in concert B♭ major, and with all of the instruments common to a middle school bands.
  2. Saves a copy of that file to the Desktop.
  3. Opens it in Dorico.

Click here to keep reading on Scoring Notes.

Guest Appearance: Passing the Baton

I am happy to join Theresa Hoover and Kathryn Finch, authors of the Passing the Baton book, on their YouTube interview series this week.

This week’s interview features Robby Burns, a middle school band and general music teacher in Howard County, Maryland. Robby talks about how he incorporates creativity and music composition in his middle school band classes.

Episode 14: Creativity Through Music Composition (Part 2 of 3)

If you are into this, you should definitely check out the most recent episode of my podcast featuring Theresa, herself.

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